Euro 2020: UEFA European Championship Host Cities, Dates, Qualifying Process
The World Cup is coming to an end but finalists France and Croatia and their fellow continental powers will soon turn their attention to the 2020 European Championship.
Euro 2020 will begin on June 12, 2020, and run through July 12, 2020. The semifinals and finals will be played at Wembley Stadium in London, and there are 11 other cities that will also host games during the tournament: Amsterdam; Baku, Azerbaijan; Bilbao, Spain; Bucharest, Romania; Budapest, Hungary; Copenhagen, Denmark; Dublin; Glasgow, Scotland; Munich; Rome; and Saint Petersburg, Russia.
Qualifying for the tournament for the 55 UEFA nations will start March of 2019 and run through November of 2019 to determine the first 20 teams that will make it into the field. Because there are 12 nations hosting games, no host nation will automatically qualify for the tournament, which is something that has never happened before. Countries will be arranged into 10 groups, and the top two in each group will advance to the Euros.
The final four spots of the field will be decided by the UEFA Nations League, which will host a playoff in March 2020 to decide who gets in. Teams are placed into four groups, and the top four teams from each group that did not already qualify for Euros already will face off in the playoff with one spot on the line for each group.
The draw for the qualifying groups will be held on Dec. 2, 2018, in Dublin.
In 2016, Portugal won its first European title, defeating host France 1-0 in the final.
Here is the matchday schedule of qualifying for Euro 2020:
Matchday 1 and 2: March 21-26, 2019
Matchday 3 and 4: June 7-11, 2019
Matchday 5 and 6: Sept. 5-10, 2019
Matchday 7 and 8: Oct. 10-15, 2019
Matchday 9 and 10: Nov. 14-19, 2019
Playoffs: March 26-31, 2020
