The French team will be seeded in the Euro 2024 draw on December 2, and knows almost all of its potential opponents. What if the vice-world champions fell on Romania, the Netherlands and Italy like during the Euro 2008 fiasco?
In case you missed it, it is the general classification of the Euro 2024 qualifiers which determines the hats in the draw for the final phase organized in Germany. The French team will be seeded in the draw in Hamburg on December 2 and will thus avoid the Nationalmannschaft, as well as Portugal, Spain, Belgium and England, also intractable in qualifying. With the exception of Croatia, who still have to qualify this Tuesday evening (against Armenia), we almost know the other three hats in the draw.
In this little game, the Blues of Didier Deschamps can for example fall on Romania in pot 2, the Netherlands in pot 3 and Italy in pot 4, the Nazionale having snatched its ticket on Tuesday thanks to a draw against Ukraine. This possible group will recall the total rout of Raymond Domenech’s Blues at Euro 2008 (in Switzerland). Then reigning world vice-champions, they were unable to score against the Romanians (0-0), before losing heavily against the Dutch (4-1) and the Italians (0-2). Thierry Henry was the only French scorer.
This is a terribly painful memory for French supporters. Raymond Domenech, hated by the press and who had created an unbreathable atmosphere around the selection, caused even more scandal by proposing to his partner at the time, Estelle Denis, a few minutes after the elimination. The FFF, at the initiative of Noël Le Graët (then vice-president), had maintained Domenech and it is a decision which is very clearly at the origin of the biggest scandal in the history of French sport: the strike of players at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.
EURO 2024 – Projected pots
– Türkiye will move to Pot 3 and Croatia to Pot 2, if Türkiye lose at Wales and Croatia defeat Armenia
– Switzerland will move to Pot 2 and Romania to Pot 4 if they defeat Romania
– Italy will go up to Pot 3 if Croatia lose, or draw but Wales win pic.twitter.com/zxjeexDtVA
— Football Rankings (@FootRankings) November 21, 2023
