Euro 2016 Draw set for Saturday

The Euro 2016 draw for the European Championships will take place tomorrow in Palais des Congrès de la Porte Maillot in Paris tomorrow at 9AM PT 12PM ET. In Canada, the draw can be seen on TSN 4, while in the Sates it will be televised on ESPN2.

In the new 24 team format, teams have been allocated to 4 pots of 6 teams. France, which is the host team is automatically placed in Group A and have also been given the #1.  

Pot 1⁵

Team	Coeff	Rank
Spain6	37,962	2
Germany	40,236	1
England	35,963	3
Portugal	35,138	4
Belgium	34,442	5

Pot 2

Team	Coeff	Rank
Italy	34,345	6
Russia	31,345	9
Switzerland	31,254	10
Austria	30,932	11
Croatia	30,642	12
Ukraine	30,313	14

Pot 3

Team	Coeff	Rank
Czech Republic	29,403	15
Sweden	29,028	16
Poland	28,306	17
Romania	28,038	18
Slovakia	27,171	19
Hungary	27,142	20

Pot 4

Team	Coeff	Rank
Turkey	27,033	22
Republic of Ireland	26,902	23
Iceland	25,388	27
Wales	24,531	28
Albania	23,216	31
Northern Ireland	22,961	33

The draw has been extremely important in past years, the last two European Champions have went on to win the tournament. In fact, the winner of this tournament will go on to represent Europe in the 2017 Confederations Cup in Russia. In the case that Russia or Germany win the tournament, the next best team will move on. The Confederations Cup is a smaller type of World Cup that happens in the country that is scheduled to host the World Cup the following year. 

Out of the four pots one team from each pot will be divided to the six different groups. Here are the possible Hardest Groups and weakest groups: 

Hardest Group: 

Spain, Italy, Sweden and Wales 

Easiest Group: 

Portugal, Switzerland, Hungary and Iceland

With the expanded format, four out of the six teams will make it to the round of 16 which is also new to Euro 2016. In previous additions, teams that advanced to the knockout stage went directly to the Quarterfinals. 

The team I pull for in Europe is Sweden. Small country with huge fan support and in most years a very competitive team. This year in pot 3, they could be looking at a very challenging group in June.