UEFA Euro 2016: Live Discussion Thread

The 2016 UEFA European Championship, commonly referred to as UEFA Euro 2016 or simply Euro 2016, will be the 15th edition of the UEFA European Championship, the quadrennial international men's football championship of Europe organized by UEFA. It is scheduled to be held in France from 10 June to 10 July 2016. Spain are two-time defending champions.

For the first time, the European Championship final tournament will be contested by 24 teams, having been expanded from the 16-team format used since 1996.Under this new format, the finalists will contest a group stage consisting of six groups of four teams, followed by a knockout stage including three rounds and the final. 19 teams (the top two from each of the nine qualifying groups and the best third-placed team) joined France who qualified automatically as hosts; a series of two-legged play-off ties between the remaining third-placed teams in November 2015 decided the last four spots at the final tournament.

France was chosen as the host nation on 28 May 2010, after a bidding process in which they beat Italy and Turkey for the right to host the 2016 finals. The matches will be played in ten stadia in ten cities: Bordeaux,Lens, Lille, Lyon, Marseille, Nice, Paris, Saint-Denis, Saint-tienne, andToulouse. It will be the third time that France hosts the tournament, after theinaugural tournament in 1960 and the 1984 finals. The French team have won the European Championship twice: in 1984 and 2000.

Knockout phase

In the knockout stage, extra time and penalty shoot-out are used to decide the winner if necessary.^[12]

Knockout phase structure

In the round of 16, UEFA have arranged the match-ups to take place as follows:^[40]

• Match 1: Runner-up Group A v Runner-up Group C
• Match 2: Winner Group D v 3rd Place Group B/E/F
• Match 3: Winner Group B v 3rd Place Group A/C/D
• Match 4: Winner Group F v Runner-up Group E
• Match 5: Winner Group C v 3rd Place Group A/B/F
• Match 6: Winner Group E v Runner-up Group D
• Match 7: Winner Group A v 3rd Place Group C/D/E
• Match 8: Runner-up Group B v Runner-up Group F

The specific match-ups involving the third-placed teams depend on which four third-placed teams qualify for the round of 16

Knockout phase:
Round of 16
Saturday 25 June, 15.00 (St-Etienne): Runner-up Group A v Runner-up C - Match 1
Saturday 25 June, 18.00 (Paris): Winner B v Third-place A/C/D - Match 2
Saturday 25 June, 21.00 (Lens): Winner D v Third-place B/E/F - Match 3
Sunday 26 June, 15.00 (Lyon): Winner A v Third-place C/D/E - Match 4
Sunday 26 June, 18.00 (Lille): Winner C v Third-place A/B/F - Match 5
Sunday 26 June, 21.00 (Toulouse): Winner F v Runner-up E - Match 6
Monday 27 June, 18.00 (St-Denis): Winner E v Runner-up D - Match 7
Monday 27 June, 21.00 (Nice): Runner-up B v Runner-up F - Match 8

For which third place team will play in each tie, see Article 17.03 of the Official Regulations

Quarter-finals
Thursday 30 June, 21.00 (Marseille): Winner Match 1 v Winner Match 3 - QF1
Friday 1 July, 21.00 (Lille): Winner Match 2 v Winner Match 6 - QF2
Saturday 2 July, 21.00 (Bordeaux): Winner Match 5 v Winner Match 7 - QF3
Sunday 3 July, 21.00 (St-Denis): Winner Match 4 v Winner Match 8 - QF4

Semi-finals
Wednesday 6 July, 21.00 (Lyon): Winner QF1 v Winner QF2 - SF1
Thursday 7 July, 21.00 (Marseille): Winner QF3 v Winner QF4 - SF2

Final
Sunday 10 July, 21.00 (St-Denis): Winner SF1 v Winner SF2