EURO 2012: 16 under a loupe: England

England

Factsheet: 

Euro 2012 Group D: 11-06-12: France – England, 15-06-12: Sweden – England, 19-06-12: England - Ukraine

FIFA/Coca Cola World Ranking: 6

Previous European Championship Appearances: 1968, 1980, 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004

Qualifying record: 8+5=3-0 17-5

Interesting facts: England has already been led by three different managers this year – Fabio Capello, Stuart Pearce, and Roy Hodgson.

All of the 23-squad members represent the domestic Premier League.

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After successfully sending the two non-English managers home, The Football Association hired an Englishman Roy Hodgson to lead the English team at the Euro 2012. He only had 2 months to research the playing style of Capello's England, choose a new captain and, of course, gather a 23-man squad and prepare it to the competition.

EURO 2012: 16 under a loupe: Spain

Spain

Factsheet: 

Euro 2012 Group C: 10-06-12: Spain-Italy, 14-06-12: Spain - Rep. of Ireland, 18-06-12: Croatia -Spain

FIFA/Coca Cola World Ranking: 1

Previous European Championship Appearances: 1964, 1980, 1984, 1988, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008

Qualifying record: 8+8=0-0 26-6

Interesting facts: Spain won all of their 8 matches to directly qualify for the Euro 2012.

Iker Casillas holds the all-time record for the most matches played for Spain. He has been a part of a match 131 times so far.

Spain has the chance to become the first ever team to win three major trophies in a row.

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Spain has shown incredible football at the last two major tournaments. The previous coach Luis Aragones decided to focus on the technical abilities of the players as the Spanish players turned to be weaker in physical duels. The strategy brought much more than expected – two trophies in a row. Of course, the current manager Vicente Del Bosque would not change much in the tactics for the World Cup to follow the Euro 2008 triumph. He just added a little bit of pragmatism – his team won the World Cup for the first time, scoring only 8 and conceding 2 goals in 7 matches. However, they scored more than 3 goals on an average game during their qualification to Euro 2012. Considering the absence of their main goalscorer David Villa, the final number of goals scored at Euro 2012 should be comparable to the one at the previous World Cup.

EURO 2012: 16 under a loupe: Italy

Italy

Factsheet: 

Euro 2012 Group C: 10-06-12: Spain-Italy, 14-06-12: Italy - Croatia, 18-06-12: Italy - Rep. of Ireland

FIFA/Coca Cola World Ranking: 12

Previous European Championship Appearances: 1968, 1980, 1988, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008

Qualifying record: 10+8=2-0 20-2

Interesting facts: In 1988 Italy, then 3-time world champions, qualified for European Championships for the first time: previously they only participated in the tournament on their home soil, where no qualification is needed.

Italy conceded only 2 goals during the qualification, which is the best result among all the participants.

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It has only gone the wrong way for Italy since they won the World Cup in 2006. Huge scandals in the Italian football are accompanied by injuries of crucial players. After The catastrophic results of the 2010 World Cup edition, Italy needs to get together and show a decent performance. History shows that the Italian national squads of 1982 and 2006 got motivated by the match-fixing scandals around the team and went on to win the tournaments. Will it happen for the third time?