MUNICH, Germany
Euro 2024 kicks off on Friday at Munich Football Arena in Germany as the continent's footballing heavyweights prepare to fight it out over the next month with the aim of taking the crown away from reigning champions Italy.
Germany play Scotland in the
opening game in Munich and the host nation are hoping their journey will
continue all the way to the final in Berlin on July 14.
It is the first time the
country has hosted a major men's international tournament since the 2006 World
Cup, and it is a mouth-watering setting after the underwhelming nature of the
last European Championship.
Euro 2020 was delayed by a
year because of the pandemic, finally taking place in 2021 in front of limited
crowds.
It was also staged in cities
all across the continent, from Seville to Baku, and those factors stripped away
much of what makes these tournaments so special.
This time all supporters will
descend on Germany, where matches will be played in 10 stadiums, from Hamburg
in the north to Munich in the south.
Germans are hoping for a
repeat of 2006, when many fell in love with their national team again after a
period in the doldrums similar to what they have experienced in the years
leading up to this competition.
Philipp Lahm, the captain of
Germany's 2014 World Cup-winning team and now Euro 2024 tournament director,
also hopes the competition will bring people together at a time of division and
disunity across the continent.
The tournament begins less
than a week after far-right parties made significant gains in EU parliament
elections, while Europe is still dealing with the crisis of the war in Ukraine.
"I hope at the very least
the Euro will lead to a more united Germany again," said Lahm.
A good performance by Germany
on the field would help, and the outlook is more positive for Julian
Nagelsmann's team now than a few months ago.
A group also containing
Hungary and Switzerland should be straightforward enough given the quality in
Germany's ranks, from veteran playmaker Toni Kroos to younger stars Florian
Wirtz and Jamal Musiala.
"We have gone through
difficult phases as a national team, but something big can happen here,"
Musiala, of Bayern Munich, told Sportbild.
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