Today’s draw for Euro 2012 is a first in a series of events that will slowly warm us up for the tournament. It also offers us a first peek at the different venues, and, which makes it more concrete, we now know who is going to play where.
We already knew that the opening match was going to be played at the Stadion Narodowy w Warszawie, in English called the National Stadium Warsaw. We now know that this match will pit the hosts Poland against the always sturdy Greek. Having spend some time in Warsaw in 2010, I’ve slowly seen the stadium grow. It already looked immense from the other side of the river near Warsaw’s old city centre. Looking at the most recent images now, with its red and white outer facade, it looks even more impressive.
Another stadium that has attracted my attention is the PGE Arena in Gdansk, which looks absolutely stunning. It’s Spain who is going to play all its three group matches at the stadium.
Another country that is going to play all its group matches in one stadium are the Netherlands. They will play their matches in the already dubbed “Group of Death” at the Metalist Stadium in Ukrainian Kharkiv. It looks to be one of the least impressive stadiums, probably because of the athletics track surrounding the pitch.
That’s not to say that the Ukraine has nothing on offer. We were already familiar with the Donbass Arena, home of FC Shakhtar Donetsk, and the place where England and France are going to play two of its group matches. Needless to say that Kiev’s Olimpiyskiy Stadium also looks absolutely amazing, though unfortunately again with athletics tracks. I passed by the stadium just one year ago and it looked an absolute mess, far from finished. Impressive how they got the job done in the end in such little time. Sweden is going to play all its matches at the stadium. And it will be the venue of the final, of course.
Then there is the Arena Lviv, which gets to host Germany and Portugal twice, the Stadion Miejski in Poznan, where Italy and the Republic of Ireland hope to shine, and the other Stadion Miejski in Wroclaw, which will have the Czech Republic visit for all of its games.
Of course, as the start of the tournament approaches, we of The Stadium Guide will pay much closer attention to all the venues and its matches. Keep following us!