VMLIFE

Next Friday sees the start of the 2016 European Championships, and for the first time ever there’s four of the ‘Home Nations’ taking part, as England, Wales, Northern Ireland, and the Republic Of Ireland all take part in the tournament in France.

 

This will be the 15th edition of the Championships, and the biggest one yet, with 24 teams taking part.

The tournament starts and ends at the Stade de France (on the 10th of June and July respectively). The opening match sees the hosts take on Romania, and it must be noted that the last time a major football tournament was held in France it was the French that triumphed at World Cup 1998.

Both England and Wales (who have been drawn together) begin their quests the day after (June 11th) against Russia and Slovakia respectively, and Northern Ireland the day after that (12th June) against Poland, and then finally the Republic Of Ireland on the 13th June against Sweden.

This will be the debut in the European Championship for 5 countries; those being Albania, Iceland, Slovakia, and of course Northern Ireland and Wales. This isn’t really surprising considering that the first five tournaments only consisted of 4 teams.
Due to the increased number of teams taking part as you might imagine all the big guns are there with the exception of Holland who had a pretty disastrous qualifying campaign.

The Euro's have never been short of providing excitement. Who can forget the Marco Van Basten volley for the Dutch against the Soviet Union in ’88 final itself, or the next tournament when Demark won the triumphed despite not even qualifying for it (They were only entered after a civil war caused Yugoslavia to be declined entry), Gazza's goal against Scotland at Wembley in Euro '96, or more recently in 2004 when rank outsiders Greece despite never having previously even won a match at the Euros or the World Cup lifted the trophy.

All the matches can be seen on the BBC and ITV, as well as S4C in Wales and RTE and TV3 in Ireland.

 

Please see below for the squads taking part from each of the Home Nations, and lets hope it’s a tournament to remember for all the right reasons.

England Squad

Wales Squad

Northern Ireland Squad

Republic Of Ireland Squad

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