Football is the most popular sport in the world with its estimated fan base consisting of 3.5 billion people from diverse regions, namely Europe, Africa, Asia, and America. The passion football fans have for this sport gathers them together to root for their favorite team, grieve and weep due the losses, and celebrate victories gloriously with the songs they write for their clubs. In fact, these fans become the members of a big family with tight bonds. Even if it might be just for a while, football makes people forget about their differences regarding sex, race, and nationality, which cause pivotal issues around the world that humanity has strived to resolve but never succeeded
There are specific events in order to celebrate fans’ passion for football, which are tournaments. These tournaments are organized with the purpose of determining a winning team or a club during a season. There are two phases in a tournament which are the group stage and playoff where the team who leaves the tournament in triumph is determined. Numerous tournaments, such as FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) World Cup, the Summer Olympics, and the Africa Cup of Nations, are organized in the world to help people share the perpetual love and interest they have for the prominent sport. The UEFA (Union of European Football Associations) is the coordinator of 55 other national organizations. EURO 2024 (the UEFA European Championship) is one of the most conspicuous organizations of the upcoming 2024 season, and football lovers are looking forward to watching the performances of the qualified national teams.
Despite the UEFA European Championship being organized every 4 years, football fans never give up on talking about the upcoming Championship and enjoy the atmosphere of the tournament whenever its organization takes place. It has been organized since 1960 with 10 different winning national teams in the 16 tournaments that have been played until today. These winning teams were Spain and Germany, completing the tournament in triumph 3 times, Italy and France twice, and the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics), Netherlands, Denmark, Greece, Portugal, and Czechoslovakia once.
Nevertheless, in the 2024 season, fans have been showing their interest more than usual through their comments and content on social media platforms X, TikTok, and Instagram. One of the most important reasons why football fans are eager to watch the tournament is that the last time it was organized in 2020, there was a Covid-19 pandemic that had been restricting many aspects of people’s daily lives, including their hobbies such as sports. As a result, EURO 2020 was postponed to 2021 due to the virus being highly infectious and the possibility of endangering the spectators. Since the virus was still present in 2021, only 25% of the stadiums in the countries that were present in the organization of the tournament such as England and Italy were filled with football lovers. Ultimately, Italy won the championship, which was played in London, against England during the penalties (3-2).
In order to determine the 24 national teams that will be chosen to participate in the upcoming tournament, a qualification tournament is organized beforehand. For EURO 2024, UEFA Euro 2024 Qualifying tournament has been held from 23 March 2023 until 26 March 2024. With the host country Germany being directly qualified and Russia being obstructed from participating in the qualification due to the Russian-Ukrainian War, 53 countries have joined the qualifications. 21 countries have been qualified for the EURO 2024 until today by having the top performance in their groups. These countries are respectively, according to their dates of being qualified, Germany (Host), Belgium (13 October), France (13 October), Portugal (13 October), Spain (15 October), Scotland (15 October), Türkiye (15 October), Austria (16 October), Hungary (16 October), Slovakia (16 October), England (17 October), Albania (17 November), Denmark (17 October), Netherlands (18 October), Romania (18 October), Switzerland (18 October), Serbia (19 October), Italy (20 October), Czechia (20 October), Slovenia (20 October) and finally Croatia (21 October).
The seventeenth UEFA European Championship, EURO 2024, will be organized from 14th of June to 14th of July with multinational fans cheering for their national teams (if they are qualified) or their favorite teams. Additionally, there are still 3 teams yet to be determined but will be until 26 March 2024. Most people think that this tournament will have a larger number of spectators, which we owe to the football-lovers not finding the chance to watch the previous one, EURO 2020 from the stadiums.
Works Cited
“Euro 2020 Finali: İtalya İngiltere’yi Penaltılarda Yenerek Avrupa Futbol Şampiyonu Oldu.” BBC News Türkçe, BBC
Beauchamp, Zack. “Map: The Most Popular Sport in Every Country (Soccer Is Really Popular).” Vox, 3 July 2014
161385360554578. “Biggest Football Tournaments - Top Football Competitions.” talkSPORT, 20 Sept. 2023
“Top-10 List of the World’s Most Popular Sports.” World’s Most Popular Sports by Fans
Who Has Qualified for UEFA Euro 2024: Know All Teams - Full List