Italy are in one group with England

DBasia.news – Having previously met in the Euro 2020 final and in the UEFA Nations League group, now the England and Italy national teams will meet in the group stage of the 2024 European Cup Qualifiers in Germany.

From the draw made by UEFA on Sunday (09/10) evening WIB, England and Italy are in Group C along with Ukraine, North Macedonia and Malta. Quite familiar opponents, especially for Italy.

For Italy, North Macedonia have been a nightmare that dashed their hopes of playing in the 2022 World Cup when they lost in the play-offs, Italy’s second straight World Cup absence. But uniquely against England, Italy has good memories of winning Euro 2020 when the final match was held at Wembley.

Responding to the draw, the England and Italy coaches, Gareth Southgate and Roberto Mancini spoke up. The two of them were no longer surprised by the draw as they had met before.

“It’s ironic when you have games like we had and then played them again recently that you seem to have these kinds of things,” Southgate said.

“We seemed to be playing against Croatia every five minutes not so long ago and now it looks like we have that situation with Italy.”

“I know that we will get England or France, but that’s okay. It’s a decent five-team group, no easy games, everything we can go into,” added Mancini.

Even Ukraine is no stranger to England who faced Andriy Shevchenko’s team in the Euro 2020 quarter-finals (4-0).

“We know the quality of a lot of (Ukraine) players. We received a good result against them at Euro 2020 but the score doesn’t reflect the quality of their team. It will be a tough game,” Southgate added.

The top 10 and runners-up from the 2024 European Cup Qualifiers will complete the 20 slots in the tournament, with the other three places being decided by the play-offs played in March 2024, the play-offs also being decided by the results of the teams in this season’s UEFA Nations League.

If later when 24 teams are confirmed to qualify for the group phase, then a group draw will be made and the teams will fight from June 14, 2024 to July 14, 2024.

A total of 51 matches will be played in 10 cities in Germany, namely: Berlin, Munich, Dortmund, Gelsenkirchen, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Hamburg, Dusseldorf, Cologne and Leipzig.