UEFA Euro 2012 qualifying

The qualifying competition for UEFA Euro 2012 was a series of parallel association football competitions held in Poland and Ukraine between 2010 and 2011 to decide the qualifiers for UEFA Euro 2012. The draw for the qualifying rounds was held on 7 February 2010 in the Congress Hall of the Palace of Culture and Science, Warsaw, with matches set to take place between August 2010 and November 2011.

UEFA Euro 2012 qualifying

Tournament details
Dates	11 August 2010 – 15 November 2011
Teams	51
Tournament statistics
Matches played	248
Goals scored	665 (2.68 per match)^[note 1]
Top scorer(s)	Klaas-Jan Huntelaar (12 goals)
← 2008 2016 →

Two host countries qualified automatically. For the first qualifying round, there were nine groups. Six of these groups had six teams (one from pots 1 to 6 below); the remaining three groups consisted of five teams (one each from pots 1 to 5 below). The group competition was a double round robin: each team hosted a game with every other team in its group. Each group winner qualified, along with the second-place team with the most points against teams ranked in the top five in the group. The remaining eight second-place teams were paired for two-game play-offs, with the winner of each total goals tie (or away goals rule, or penalty shootout) qualifying for the finals to complete the field of sixteen teams.

Qualified teams

 

Euro 2012 qualifiers

  Qualified

  Did not qualify

  Did not enter

  Not a UEFA member

Team	Qualified as	Qualified on	Previous appearances in tournament^[A]
Poland	Co-host	18 April 2007	1 (2008)
Ukraine			0 (debut)
Germany^[B]	Group A winner	2 September 2011	10 (1972, 1976, 1980, 1984, 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008)
Italy	Group C winner	6 September 2011	7 (1968, 1980, 1988, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008)
Netherlands	Group E winner	6 September 2011	8 (1976, 1980, 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008)
Spain	Group I winner	6 September 2011	8 (1964, 1980, 1984, 1988, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008)
England	Group G winner	7 October 2011	7 (1968, 1980, 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004)
Russia^[C]	Group B winner	11 October 2011	9 (1960, 1964, 1968, 1972, 1988, 1992, 1996, 2004, 2008)
France	Group D winner	11 October 2011	7 (1960, 1984, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008)
Greece	Group F winner	11 October 2011	3 (1980, 2004, 2008)
Denmark	Group H winner	11 October 2011	7 (1964, 1984, 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004)
Sweden	Best runner-up	11 October 2011	4 (1992, 2000, 2004, 2008)
Croatia	Play-off winner	15 November 2011	3 (1996, 2004, 2008)
Czech Republic^[D]	Play-off winner	15 November 2011	7 (1960, 1976, 1980, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008)
Portugal	Play-off winner	15 November 2011	5 (1984, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008)
Republic of Ireland	Play-off winner	15 November 2011	1 (1988)

1. Bold indicates champion for that year. Italic indicates host for that year.
2. From 1972 to 1988, Germany competed as West Germany.
3. From 1960 to 1988, Russia competed as the Soviet Union, and in 1992 as CIS.
4. From 1960 to 1980, the Czech Republic competed as Czechoslovakia.

Seedings

The pot allocations for the qualifying group stage draw were based on the UEFA national team coefficient rankings as of the end of 2009. The sole exception was the automatic placement of Spain, as reigning European champions, as the top-ranked team (their coefficient ranking would have also placed them in this position anyway).^[1][2][3] Each nation's coefficient was generated by calculating:^[4]

• 40% of the average ranking points per game earned in the 2010 FIFA World Cup qualifying stage;
• 40% of the average ranking points per game earned in the UEFA Euro 2008 qualifying stage and final tournament;
• 20% of the average ranking points per game earned in the 2006 FIFA World Cup qualifying stage and final tournament.

The 51 entrants were divided into the following six pots for the drawing of nine qualifying groups on 7 February 2010 in Warsaw, Poland:^[5]

Pot 1 Team Coeff Rank   Spain (title holders) 39,964 1   Germany 38,294 2   Netherlands 37,821 3   Italy 35,838 4   England 34,819 5   Croatia 33,677 6   Portugal 33,226 7   France 32,551 8   Russia 32,477 9	Pot 2 Team Coeff Rank   Greece 31,268 10   Czech Republic 30,871 11   Sweden 30,695 12    Switzerland 30,395 13   Serbia 29,811 14   Turkey 29,447 15   Denmark 29,222 16   Slovakia 28,228 17   Romania 28,145 18	Pot 3 Team Coeff Rank   Israel 28,052 20   Bulgaria 27,198 21   Finland 26,827 22   Norway 26,210 24   Republic of Ireland 25,971 25   Scotland 25,646 26   Northern Ireland 24,518 27   Austria 24,381 28   Bosnia and Herzegovina 24,365 29
Pot 4 Team Coeff Rank   Slovenia 24,221 30   Latvia 23,303 31   Hungary 23,048 32   Lithuania 22,071 33   Belarus 21,515 34   Belgium 21,426 35   Wales 21,274 36   Macedonia 19,409 37   Cyprus 18,791 38	Pot 5 Team Coeff Rank   Montenegro 18,751 39   Albania 18,319 40   Estonia 17,792 41   Georgia 15,819 42   Moldova 15,734 43   Iceland 15,404 44   Armenia 15,164 45   Kazakhstan 14,730 46   Liechtenstein 13,581 47	Pot 6 Team Coeff Rank   Azerbaijan 13,500 48   Luxembourg 11,872 49   Malta 11,517 50   Faroe Islands 10,620 51   Andorra 09,197 52   San Marino 07,783 53

Notes

• The co-hosts Ukraine and Poland, which qualified automatically, were ranked 19th (28,133) and 23rd (26,620) respectively.

Before the draw UEFA confirmed that, for political reasons, Armenia would not be drawn against Azerbaijan (due to the dispute concerning territory of Nagorno-Karabakh) and Georgia would not be drawn against Russia (due to the dispute regarding the territory of South Ossetia).^[6]

Armenia and Azerbaijan were drawn together in Group A during the draw ceremony, forcing UEFA to reassign Armenia to Group B, as Azerbaijan had refused to play in Armenia when they had been drawn together during UEFA Euro 2008 qualifying.^[7]

Tiebreakers

If two or more teams were equal on points on completion of the group matches, the following criteria were applied to determine the rankings.^[8]

1. higher number of points obtained in the group matches played among the teams in question;
2. superior goal difference from the group matches played among the teams in question;
3. higher number of goals scored in the group matches played among the teams in question;
4. higher number of goals scored away from home in the group matches played among the teams in question;
5. if, after applying criteria 1) to 4) to several teams, two or more teams still had an equal ranking, the criteria 1) to 4) was reapplied to determine the ranking of these teams. If this procedure did not lead to a decision, criteria 6) to 10) applied;
6. superior goal difference in all group matches;
7. higher number of goals scored in all group matches;
8. higher number of goals scored away from home in all group matches;
9. fair play ranking in all group matches;
10. drawing of lots.

Summary

  Group winners and the best ranked runner-up qualified directly for UEFA Euro 2012

  The remaining runners-up advanced to the play-offs

  Other teams were eliminated after the qualifying group stage

Group A	Group B	Group C	Group D	Group E	Group F	Group G	Group H	Group I
Germany	Russia	Italy	France	Netherlands	Greece	England	Denmark	Spain
Turkey	Republic of Ireland	Estonia	Bosnia and Herzegovina	Sweden	Croatia	Montenegro	Portugal	Czech Republic
Belgium   Austria   Azerbaijan   Kazakhstan	Armenia   Slovakia   Macedonia   Andorra	Serbia   Slovenia   Northern Ireland   Faroe Islands	Romania   Belarus   Albania   Luxembourg	Hungary   Finland   Moldova   San Marino	Israel   Latvia   Georgia   Malta	Switzerland   Wales   Bulgaria	Norway   Iceland   Cyprus	Scotland   Lithuania   Liechtenstein

Groups

The following 18 dates were reserved for group matches in qualifying:

• 3–4 and 7 September 2010
• 8–9 and 12 October 2010
• 25–26 and 29 March 2011
• 3–4 and 7 June 2011
• 2–3 and 6 September 2011
• 7–8 and 11 October 2011

For the first time, Tuesday evenings replaced Wednesday evenings for midweek qualifying fixtures where two matchdays occurred in the same week. This was in order to allow players an extra day to return to their clubs for domestic duty the following week. Consequently, teams were permitted to move the earlier weekend match forward to the Friday evening.^[9][10][11]

Group A

Main article: UEFA Euro 2012 qualifying Group A

Pos	Team v t e	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Germany	10	10	0	0	34	7	+27	30	Qualify for final tournament		—	3–0	3–1	6–2	6–1	4–0
2	Turkey	10	5	2	3	13	11	+2	17	Advance to play-offs		1–3	—	3–2	2–0	1–0	2–1
3	Belgium	10	4	3	3	21	15	+6	15			0–1	1–1	—	4–4	4–1	4–1
4	Austria	10	3	3	4	16	17	−1	12			1–2	0–0	0–2	—	3–0	2–0
5	Azerbaijan	10	2	1	7	10	26	−16	7			1–3	1–0	1–1	1–4	—	3–2
6	Kazakhstan	10	1	1	8	6	24	−18	4			0–3	0–3	0–2	0–0	2–1	—

Source:

Group B

Main article: UEFA Euro 2012 qualifying Group B

Pos	Team v t e	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Russia	10	7	2	1	17	4	+13	23	Qualify for final tournament		—	0–0	3–1	0–1	1–0	6–0
2	Republic of Ireland	10	6	3	1	15	7	+8	21	Advance to play-offs		2–3	—	2–1	0–0	2–1	3–1
3	Armenia	10	5	2	3	22	10	+12	17			0–0	0–1	—	3–1	4–1	4–0
4	Slovakia	10	4	3	3	7	10	−3	15			0–1	1–1	0–4	—	1–0	1–0
5	Macedonia	10	2	2	6	8	14	−6	8			0–1	0–2	2–2	1–1	—	1–0
6	Andorra	10	0	0	10	1	25	−24	0			0–2	0–2	0–3	0–1	0–2	—

Source:

Group C

Main article: UEFA Euro 2012 qualifying Group C

Pos	Team v t e	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Italy	10	8	2	0	20	2	+18	26	Qualify for final tournament		—	3–0	3–0^[a]	1–0	3–0	5–0
2	Estonia	10	5	1	4	15	14	+1	16	Advance to play-offs		1–2	—	1–1	0–1	4–1	2–1
3	Serbia	10	4	3	3	13	12	+1	15			1–1	1–3	—	1–1	2–1	3–1
4	Slovenia	10	4	2	4	11	7	+4	14			0–1	1–2	1–0	—	0–1	5–1
5	Northern Ireland	10	2	3	5	9	13	−4	9			0–0	1–2	0–1	0–0	—	4–0
6	Faroe Islands	10	1	1	8	6	26	−20	4			0–1	2–0	0–3	0–2	1–1	—

Source:
Notes:

1. The Italy v Serbia match was abandoned at 0–0 after six minutes due to rioting by Serbian fans.^[12] The UEFA Control and Disciplinary Body awarded the match as a 3–0 forfeit win to Italy.^[13]

Group D

Main article: UEFA Euro 2012 qualifying Group D

Pos	Team v t e	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	France	10	6	3	1	15	4	+11	21	Qualify for final tournament		—	1–1	2–0	0–1	3–0	2–0
2	Bosnia and Herzegovina	10	6	2	2	17	8	+9	20	Advance to play-offs		0–2	—	2–1	1–0	2–0	5–0
3	Romania	10	3	5	2	13	9	+4	14			0–0	3–0	—	2–2	1–1	3–1
4	Belarus	10	3	4	3	8	7	+1	13			1–1	0–2	0–0	—	2–0	2–0
5	Albania	10	2	3	5	7	14	−7	9			1–2	1–1	1–1	1–0	—	1–0
6	Luxembourg	10	1	1	8	3	21	−18	4			0–2	0–3	0–2	0–0	2–1	—

Source:

Group E

Main article: UEFA Euro 2012 qualifying Group E

Pos	Team v t e	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Netherlands	10	9	0	1	37	8	+29	27	Qualify for final tournament		—	4–1	5–3	2–1	1–0	11–0
2	Sweden	10	8	0	2	31	11	+20	24			3–2	—	2–0	5–0	2–1	6–0
3	Hungary	10	6	1	3	22	14	+8	19			0–4	2–1	—	0–0	2–1	8–0
4	Finland	10	3	1	6	16	16	0	10			0–2	1–2	1–2	—	4–1	8–0
5	Moldova	10	3	0	7	12	16	−4	9			0–1	1–4	0–2	2–0	—	4–0
6	San Marino	10	0	0	10	0	53	−53	0			0–5	0–5	0–3	0–1	0–2	—

Source:

Group F

Main article: UEFA Euro 2012 qualifying Group F

Pos	Team v t e	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Greece	10	7	3	0	14	5	+9	24	Qualify for final tournament		—	2–0	2–1	1–0	1–1	3–1
2	Croatia	10	7	1	2	18	7	+11	22	Advance to play-offs		0–0	—	3–1	2–0	2–1	3–0
3	Israel	10	5	1	4	13	11	+2	16			0–1	1–2	—	2–1	1–0	3–1
4	Latvia	10	3	2	5	9	12	−3	11			1–1	0–3	1–2	—	1–1	2–0
5	Georgia	10	2	4	4	7	9	−2	10			1–2	1–0	0–0	0–1	—	1–0
6	Malta	10	0	1	9	4	21	−17	1			0–1	1–3	0–2	0–2	1–1	—

Source:

Group G

Main article: UEFA Euro 2012 qualifying Group G

Pos	Team v t e	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	England	8	5	3	0	17	5	+12	18	Qualify for final tournament		—	0–0	2–2	1–0	4–0
2	Montenegro	8	3	3	2	7	7	0	12	Advance to play-offs		2–2	—	1–0	1–0	1–1
3	Switzerland	8	3	2	3	12	10	+2	11			1–3	2–0	—	4–1	3–1
4	Wales	8	3	0	5	6	10	−4	9			0–2	2–1	2–0	—	0–1
5	Bulgaria	8	1	2	5	3	13	−10	5			0–3	0–1	0–0	0–1	—

Source:

Group H

Main article: UEFA Euro 2012 qualifying Group H

Pos	Team v t e	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Denmark	8	6	1	1	15	6	+9	19	Qualify for final tournament		—	2–1	2–0	1–0	2–0
2	Portugal	8	5	1	2	21	12	+9	16^[a]	Advance to play-offs		3–1	—	1–0	5–3	4–4
3	Norway	8	5	1	2	10	7	+3	16^[a]			1–1	1–0	—	1–0	3–1
4	Iceland	8	1	1	6	6	14	−8	4			0–2	1–3	1–2	—	1–0
5	Cyprus	8	0	2	6	7	20	−13	2			1–4	0–4	1–2	0–0	—

Source:
Notes:

1. Tied on head-to-head results. Overall goal difference was used as the tiebreaker.

Group I

Main article: UEFA Euro 2012 qualifying Group I

Pos	Team v t e	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Spain	8	8	0	0	26	6	+20	24	Qualify for final tournament		—	2–1	3–1	3–1	6–0
2	Czech Republic	8	4	1	3	12	8	+4	13	Advance to play-offs		0–2	—	1–0	0–1	2–0
3	Scotland	8	3	2	3	9	10	−1	11			2–3	2–2	—	1–0	2–1
4	Lithuania	8	1	2	5	4	13	−9	5			1–3	1–4	0–0	—	0–0
5	Liechtenstein	8	1	1	6	3	17	−14	4			0–4	0–2	0–1	2–0	—

Source:

Ranking of second-placed teams

The highest ranked second placed team from the groups qualified automatically for the tournament, while the remainder entered the play-offs. As six groups contain six teams and three with five, matches against the sixth-placed team in each group were not included in this ranking. As a result, a total of eight matches played by each team count toward the purpose of the second-placed ranking table.

Pos	Grp	Team v t e	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	E	Sweden	8	6	0	2	20	11	+9	18	Qualify for final tournament
2	H	Portugal	8	5	1	2	21	12	+9	16	Advance to play-offs
3	F	Croatia	8	5	1	2	12	6	+6	16
4	B	Republic of Ireland	8	4	3	1	10	6	+4	15
5	D	Bosnia and Herzegovina	8	4	2	2	9	8	+1	14
6	I	Czech Republic	8	4	1	3	12	8	+4	13
7	C	Estonia	8	4	1	3	13	11	+2	13
8	G	Montenegro	8	3	3	2	7	7	0	12
9	A	Turkey	8	3	2	3	8	10	−2	11

Source: UEFA
Rules for classification: Counting only matches against teams ranked first to fifth in the group, 1) Points; 2) Goal difference; 3) Goals scored; 4) Away goals scored; 5) UEFA national team coefficient ranking; 6) Lower disciplinary points total; 7) Drawing of lots.

Play-offs

Main article: UEFA Euro 2012 qualifying play-offs

The eight remaining second-placed teams contested two-legged play-offs to determine the last four qualifiers for the finals. The teams were seeded for the play-off draw according to the UEFA national team coefficient rankings updated after the completion of the qualifying group stage. The draw for the play-offs was held on 13 October 2011 in Kraków, Poland.^[14]

Seedings

The seedings were as follows:^[15]

Pot 1 (seeded) Team Coeff Rank   Croatia 32.723 7   Portugal 31.202 11   Republic of Ireland 28.203 13   Czech Republic 27.982 15

Pot 2 (unseeded) Team Coeff Rank   Turkey 27.601 18   Bosnia and Herzegovina 27.199 19   Montenegro 21.876 35   Estonia 20.355 37

Matches

The first legs were played on 11 November, and the second legs were played on 15 November 2011. The four play-off winners qualified for the final tournament.

Team 1	Agg.Tooltip Aggregate score	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Turkey	0–3	Croatia	0–3	0–0
Estonia	1–5	Republic of Ireland	0–4	1–1
Czech Republic	3–0	Montenegro	2–0	1–0
Bosnia and Herzegovina	2–6	Portugal	0–0	2–6

Goalscorers

There were 665 goals scored in 248 matches, for an average of 2.68 goals per match.^{[note 1]}

12 goals

•   Klaas-Jan Huntelaar

9 goals

•   Miroslav Klose

7 goals

•   Mikael Forssell
•   Cristiano Ronaldo
•   Robbie Keane
•   David Villa

6 goals

•   Henrikh Mkhitaryan
•   Konstantin Vassiljev
•   Mario Gómez
•   Gergely Rudolf
•   Antonio Cassano
•   Dirk Kuyt
•   Robin van Persie

5 goals

•   Gevorg Ghazaryan
•   Marvin Ogunjimi
•   Mesut Özil
•   Nani
•   Hélder Postiga
•   Adrian Mutu
•   Tim Matavž
•   Zlatan Ibrahimović

4 goals

•   Yura Movsisyan
•   Marcos Pizzelli
•   Marko Arnautović
•   Edin Džeko
•   Zvjezdan Misimović
•   Niko Kranjčar
•   Michal Kadlec
•   Kasper Hämäläinen
•   Ádám Szalai
•   Yossi Benayoun
•   Aleksandrs Cauņa
•   Alexandru Suvorov
•   Alan Dzagoev
•   Roman Pavlyuchenko
•   David Silva
•   Xherdan Shaqiri
•   Arda Turan

3 goals

•   Hamdi Salihi
•   Timmy Simons
•   Haris Medunjanin
•   Eduardo
•   Mario Mandžukić
•   Ioannis Okkas
•   Nicklas Bendtner
•   Dennis Rommedahl
•   Darren Bent
•   Jermain Defoe
•   Wayne Rooney
•   Ashley Young
•   Karim Benzema
•   Yoann Gourcuff
•   Florent Malouda
•   Thomas Müller
•   Lukas Podolski
•   André Schürrle
•   Zoltán Gera
•   Vladimir Koman
•   Darvydas Šernas
•   Michael Mifsud
•   Ibrahim Afellay
•   Wesley Sneijder
•   Ciprian Marica
•   Marko Pantelić
•   Nikola Žigić
•   Fernando Llorente
•   Kim Källström
•   Sebastian Larsson
•   Christian Wilhelmsson
•   Burak Yılmaz
•   Gareth Bale

2 goals

•   Erjon Bogdani
•   Artur Sarkisov
•   Martin Harnik
•   Marc Janko
•   Franz Schiemer
•   Rauf Aliyev
•   Vagif Javadov
•   Vüqar Nadirov
•   Sergei Kornilenko
•   Marouane Fellaini
•   Daniel Van Buyten
•   Jelle Vossen
•   Axel Witsel
•   Vedad Ibišević
•   Miralem Pjanić
•   Ivelin Popov
•   Nikola Kalinić
•   Ivica Olić
•   Andreas Avraam
•   Jaroslav Plašil
•   Jan Rezek
•   Michael Krohn-Dehli
•   Adam Johnson
•   Frank Lampard
•   Tarmo Kink
•   Kaimar Saag
•   Sergei Zenjov
•   Fróði Benjaminsen
•   Loïc Rémy
•   Jaba Kankava
•   David Siradze
•   Giannis Fetfatzidis
•   Kyriakos Papadopoulos
•   Vasilis Torosidis
•   Balázs Dzsudzsák
•   Imre Szabics
•   Heiðar Helguson
•   Hallgrímur Jónasson
•   Giampaolo Pazzini
•   Sergey Gridin
•   Kaspars Gorkšs
•   Ilčo Naumoski
•   Vanche Shikov
•   Anatolie Doroș
•   Mirko Vučinić
•   Elsad Zverotić
•   Ruud van Nistelrooy
•   Steven Davis
•   Paddy McCourt
•   Mohammed Abdellaoue
•   John Carew
•   Erik Huseklepp

January 01, 1970