World Cup absentees top seeds for qualifiers

Feb 05, 2010

Warsaw, Poland, Feb. 5: Russia and Croatia, who have failed to make this year’s World Cup finals in South Africa, will be among the top seeds when the draw for the qualifying round of Euro 2012 is made on Sunday.

The qualifying competition, which starts in September and lasts until November 2011, will feature 51 teams split into nine group. There will be six groups of six teams and three groups made up of five teams. In all 14 teams will join the co-hosts Poland and Ukraine in the finals in 2012.

The top seeded nations are European champions Spain, along with Germany, Netherlands, Italy, England, Portugal, France, Croatia and Russia. Greece, the surprise 2004 champions, who are in the World Cup finals, are in Pot Two, along with fellow World Cup finalists Switzerland, Serbia, Denmark and Slovakia.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s success in winning the first European Championship in 1960, and a theme of Sunday’s draw at Warsaw’s Palace of Culture and Sciences will recall those first finals.

Russia, the Soviet Union’s footballing successors, however, will be absent from the World Cup in June and July after losing to Slovenia in a playoff while Croatia will also be absent after only finishing third in their qualifying group behind England and Ukraine. Poland and Ukraine will also be absent from the World Cup after Poland finished second bottom in their group and Ukraine were eliminated by Greece in a play-off.

Mike Collett

— Reuters

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