Why are France, Portugal and Germany in the same Euro 2020 group?
EURO 2020 is underway and it’s the turn of the group of death to swing into action.
All of the past three tournament winners have been drawn together in possibly the toughest group in the history of the European Championship.
The group sees 2014 world champions Germany, European champions Portugal and current world champions all face off.
Hungary are the other team in the group and the government in Budapest has announced a full capacity crowd for all games in the city.
And they’ll need every one of their Hungarian supporters if they are to cause an upset in this group.
Why have Portugal, France and Germany been drawn in the same group?
When the draw for the Euros was made back in 2019, Uefa decided on a new system which would seed teams based purely on qualifying performance.
And while Portugal did qualify comfortably for Euro 2020, they didn’t enjoy a particularly impressive campaign as they finished behind Ukraine.
That led to them being seeded third for the European Championship and primed for a tough group.
It was also thanks to the Ukrainians that France ended up in the group of death.
France won their qualifying group but took just one point from two games off Turkey.
And that meant Ukraine were able to poach the final top seeded spot when Artem Besyedin scored a last minute equaliser in their final game in Serbia.
Meanwhile Germany and Hungary were both pre-drawn into Group F as Munich and Budapest had already been chosen as the group’s two host cities.
Most read in Sport
Who is hosting the matches and how many fans will be at each game?
As Germany qualified with more points-per-game than Hungary, they will play all three of their games in Munich.
However, they will play in front of just a 20 per cent capacity – the lowest of any host city – after the Bavarian government refused to approve a bigger crowd.
Hungary meanwhile will play France and Portugal in Budapest in front of a full stadium before heading to Munich to face Germany.
France vs Portugal will take place in Budapest, also with no limit on capacity.
How many teams qualify?
The top two teams qualify automatically from the group.
However, there is also a possibility that all three of France, Portugal and Germany could go through.
The four best placed third placed teams will each qualify for the knockout stages at the Euros.
And it was under this system that Portugal emerged winners at Euro 2016.