Paris attacks: Euro 2016 will still go ahead

Blackleaf

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Euro 2016 should not be cancelled, says its organiser.

The tournament is to be held in France, with the final to be played at the Stade de France in Paris on 10th July.

Tournament organiser, Jacques Lambert,
speaking on French radio station RTL, said: "Wondering whether Euro 2016 must be cancelled is playing the game of the terrorists."

Euro 2016 will be the 15th UEFA European Championships. Twenty-four teams - expanded from the sixteen teams that have taken part in it since Euro 96 in England - are to take part in the tournament across France from 10th June.

Several sporting fixtures in France have been postponed his weekend, including all European Rugby Champions Cup and Challenge Cup matches.

Euro 2016: French organisers against cancelling after attacks

BBC Sport
15 November 2015



The final of Euro 2016 is to be held at the Stade de France (above) in Paris on Sunday 10th July


The Euro 2016 finals in France should not be cancelled in the wake of Friday's deadly attacks in Paris, says tournament organiser Jacques Lambert.

Islamic State claimed responsibility after 129 people were killed and more than 350 wounded in the French capital.

Lambert, speaking on French radio station RTL, said: "Wondering whether Euro 2016 must be cancelled is playing the game of the terrorists.

"The risk went up one level in January, it has just gone higher."

It is the second time this year that Paris has suffered attacks. Over three days in early January, Islamist gunmen murdered 18 people after attacking satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, a Jewish supermarket and a policewoman on patrol.

However, Lambert said: "We will take the necessary decisions for Euro 2016 to take place in the best safety conditions.

"Security in stadiums works well, the risk is more in the streets, in spontaneous gatherings."

The European Championship final is scheduled to be played at the Stade de France on 10 July.

Four people died in explosions near the stadium on Friday, while France were playing a friendly against Germany.

The Euro 2016 finals will be held at venues across France from 10 June.

Several sporting fixtures in France have been postponed this weekend, including all European Rugby Champions Cup and Challenge Cup matches.




BBC Sport - Euro 2016: French organisers against cancelling after attacks
 
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Blackleaf

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wales and iceland breath a sigh of relief

It will be the first time time each team has ever played in the European Championships. It will be Wales's first major tournament since the 1958 World Cup in Sweden and the first-ever major tournament for Iceland.

Iceland especially were good during qualifying. They beat the once-mighty Netherlands 2-0 in October last year in Reykjavik and then beat them 1-0 in Amsterdam at the beginning of September this year. They qualified for the tournament by finishing second by Czech Republic in qualifying Group A. Netherlands didn't even make the play-offs and so will not be at Euro 2016.

I still expect Wales and Iceland to be knocked out in the group stages, though.

England were the only team to have won all ten of their Euro 2016 qualifiers (conceding just three goals in the process), and Romania, Austria and Italy were the only three other sides who didn't lose a match.
 

Blackleaf

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Iceland: How a nation the size of Coventry reached Euro 2016



By Joe Lynskey
BBC Sport
15 November 2015

Since coming on to replace his father Arnor as a 17-year-old substitute in 1996, Eidur Gudjohnsen has spent most of his 19-year international career as Iceland's most celebrated player.

But playing in the finals of a major tournament with a country that three years ago was ranked below perennial also-rans Liechtenstein and Luxembourg always felt like a "distant dream" for the nation's only Champions League winner.

Gudjohnsen, now 37, is at last aiming to realise that ambition at next summer's European Championship. It would be a remarkable story if he were to play in France - but then again, his nation has recently been specialising in the remarkable.


Former Bolton Wanderers, Chelsea (above), Stoke City, Monaco and Barcelona striker Eidur Gudjohnsen, 37, now plays for Chinese club Shijiazhuang Ever Bright


Gudjohnsen has played elite-level European club football - but never represented his country at a major finals

In finishing second in their qualifying group, seven points clear of Netherlands, Iceland became the smallest nation ever to reach a major tournament, and the first to do so with a population below one million.

Its inhabitants number just 329,000 - not many more than live in Coventry.

Even El Salvador, beaten 10-1 in their opening game at the 1982 World Cup, had a population of more than four million backing their team, while Wales - who ended a 58-year wait for qualification last month - has nearly 10 times as many people as Iceland.

Read more:BBC Sport - Iceland: How a country with 329,000 people reached Euro 2016
 
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