EURO 2016 draw: Can Italy be among the top seeds?
The UEFA rules regarding this issue are particularly controversial and do not consider only the teams’ ranking in the qualifying group stage, but all the results over the last two and a half years.
Based on these considerations, Italy will make it into the top pot of seeds if they Azzurri will beat Norway on Wednesday night and Belgium won’t prevail Israel in the last group B face-off.
Same thing if case of an Italy’s draw and a contemporary defeat of the Marc Wilmots’ side. A scenario which honestly doesn’t seem very likely to happen.
The Red Devils are favored against Israel and if Eden Hazard’s lads will leave up to expectation and beat Israel, than Italy would have to smash Norway taking at least a four-goal lead to secure their place among the EURO 2016 top teams.
In case Italy will fail to be among the top seeds, probably Antonio Conte won’t make any drama out of it. As you would know, the new tournament’s formula provides the participation of 24 national teams (instead of the previous 16) divided into six groups.
The two best teams of each group will qualify to the knock-out stage together with the four best 3rd ranked sides. Basically, only eight teams out of twenty four will face a EURO exit after the group stage.
Despite Italy’s struggles to score during their qualifying, theoretically they should still be among the best 16 European sides.
Following a degrading 4-0 defeat against Spain in the last EURO 2012 final, Italy failed to lift their first EURO trophy after the sole Azzurri’s tournament success in 1968.
