Courtesy: UEFA.com


Road to 2010 futsal finals to be paved

Monday 8 September 2008

by Paul Saffer from London

Thirty-eight nations are hoping to win a place in the expanded 12-team final tournament alongside hosts Hungary as the road to the 2010 UEFA European Futsal Championship begins with the qualifying draw at 13.30 CET on Wednesday in Nyon, Switzerland.

First stage
Qualifying will be played in two stages, with 16 sides competing in the preliminary round from 14-22 February 2009. The winners of the four groups and two best runners-up progess to join the other 22 entrants in the next phase. The preliminary round entrants, including competition debutants Montenegro, Estonia and the Republic of Ireland, have been split into four seeding pots with one team going into each pool. Mini-tournament hosts Bulgaria, Malta, Israel and Ireland will also be kept apart and drawn from their own pot, while maintaining their respective seedings.

Holders enter
In the main qualifying round from 19-22 March there will be seven groups of four with the first-placed teams and four best runners-up advancing to Hungary for the finals in Budapest and Debrecen from 16-30 January 2010. Again each pool will contain one team from each of four ranking sections, with the top seeds featuring holders Spain, past winners Russia and Italy, plus four other sides who competed in the 2007 finals, Portugal, Ukraine, the Czech Republic and Serbia. Previous qualifiers Slovenia, Belgium, Poland, the Netherlands and Croatia are among the sides in the second tranche while the third group contains the surprise final tournament debutants last time around, Romania. Andorra are in Pot 4 along with the preliminary round qualifiers, while Spain, Portugal, the Czech Republic, Belgium, Romania, France and Lithuania will be kept apart as group hosts.

2010 UEFA European Futsal Championshp qualifying round draw

Host nations in bold and will be drawn from separate Pot 5

Pot 1
Italy
Spain (holders)
Russia
Ukraine
Portugal
Czech Republic
Serbia

Pot 2
Slovenia
Belgium
Netherlands
Slovakia
Croatia
Belarus
Poland

Pot 3
Romania
Azerbaijan
Moldova
F.Y.R. Macedonia
France
Bosnia-Herzegovina
Lithuania

Pot 4
Andorra
Winners Preliminary round Group 1
Winners Preliminary round Group 2
Winners Preliminary round Group 3
Winners Preliminary round Group 4
Preliminary round best runners-up
Preliminary round second best runners-up



2010 UEFA European Futsal Championshp preliminary round draw

Host nations in bold and will be drawn from separate Pot 10

Pot 6
Greece
Israel
Latvia
Kazakhstan

Pot 7
Finland
Georgia
Cyprus
Armenia

Pot 8
Turkey
Albania
Bulgaria
England

Pot 9
Malta
Estonia
Montenegro
Republic of Ireland




Posted by Luca Ranocchiari --> luca.ranocchiari@futsalplanet.com