Finland's footballers avoid toughest groups in EURO 2008 draw

Group A contains Portugal and involves a lot of matches and travelling

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The draw for the UEFA European Championships was made in Montreux on Friday, and Finland's footballers - who were down in the fifth basket of teams - came out of the hat in Group A, with Portugal, Poland, Serbia & Montenegro, and Belgium all officially seeded above them.
      Group A is the only one of the seven qualifying groups to have eight teams in it, and Finland will also have to play against Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan.
     
The downside of the draw outcome is that the Finnish team will have to do a lot of travelling, and the extra two matches will put an additional strain on players' fitness.
      Equally, the Finnish FA may be a touch disappointed that none of the really big European footballing nations - the Germany, Holland, England, Italy axis - will be coming here to fill the Olympic Stadium and put cash into the FA's coffers. None of the teams in Group A could be described as a huge magnet for Finnish football fans.
     
On the other side of the scales is the fact that this is not a predetermined "group of death", in which the Finns could in practical terms already say goodbye to any hopes of qualifying for the finals, which are to be hosted by Austria and Switzerland.
      Portugal, the runners-up at Euro 2004, are the clear favourites, but according to the new Finnish head coach Roy Hodgson, any one of between three and five teams could compete for the 2nd spot in Group A.
      Two teams will qualify from each group, in addition to the two hosts. Hodgson believes that it is highly likely that teams in this middle zone in Group A will steal a lot of points from one another, and consistency will thus be a key factor.
     
Finland's upcoming opponents are relatively familiar: under the recent stewardship of head coach Antti Muurinen, the Finns beat the Portuguese 4-1 in Porto in March 2002, and in 2003 they trounced Serbia & Montenegro 3-0 in Helsinki in the EURO 2004 qualifiers. They also gave Belgium a 4-1 thrashing in a friendly at home under Muurinen, back in 2001.
      The Finns and the Poles have not met on the pitch since a 0-0 draw in Poznan in 2000. In sum, Finland has beaten every team in the group since 2000, with the exception of Poland and Championship débutants Kazakhstan, against whom the Finns have never played before.
     
Lest people get the wrong idea that the EURO 2008 draw has given Finland a free pass to the finals, it must be noted that Portugal, Poland, and Serbia & Montenegro will ALL be in action in Germany this summer in the FIFA World Cup finals, and Belgium have plenty of experience of major tournaments, even if their national team is currently in the rebuilding phase.
      Negotiations for the match schedule will get under way in Brussels in February. The first fixtures in the qualifying campaign will be played in the late summer.
     
Naturally, if any of the three World Cup attendees make a big splash in Germany this June, it may change the prevailing view that Finland "dodged a bullet" for once in the draw for this tournament. The last World Cup qualifying campaign saw the country pitted against two nations ranked in FIFA's current world Top 3: Holland and the Czech Republic.
      Rankings are fickle at the best of times, but currently Portugal are 10th, Poland 22nd, Finland 46th, Serbia & Montenegro 47th, Belgium 55th, and the other three Group A hopefuls are all listed below 100th in the world.


Links:
  UEFA
  FIFA World Rankings

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