UEFA Euro 2008 seeding

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This article gives information about the 'seedings' for UEFA Euro 2008. Each team is given a coefficient based on their average points per game in the qualifying phases of the 2006 FIFA World Cup and Euro 2008 and this is used calculate the seeding for the UEFA Euro 2008 tournament in Austria and Switzerland.

1 Impact of seedings
2 Ranking Table
3 Controversy
4 References
5 External Links

[edit] Impact of seedings

This seeding affects the teams that countries will face in the tournament proper i.e. teams with high coefficients are put in the draw in separate pots and will avoid equally-matched teams until the latter stages. Switzerland and Austria (as hosts) and Greece (as defending champions) had the three highest coefficients, followed by the Netherlands and Croatia.

[edit] Ranking Table

Rank	Team	Coefficient	Recent matches	Average goal difference
1	Switzerland¹	1.800	1.800	+ 1.100
2	Austria¹	1.500	1.500	+ 0.300
3	Greece²	2.167	2.583	+ 0.875
4	Netherlands	2.417	2.167	+ 1.417
5	Croatia	2.409	2.417	+ 1.636
6	Italy	2.364	2.417	+ 1.000
7	Czech Republic	2.333	2.417	+ 1.875
8	Sweden	2.273	2.167	+ 1.818
9	Romania	2.250	2.417	+ 1.208
10	Germany	2.250	2.250	+ 2.333
11	Portugal	2.192	1.929	+ 1.692
12	Spain	2.182	2.333	+ 1.409
13	Poland	2.167	2.000	+ 1.250
14	France	2.091	2.167	+ 1.455
15	Turkey	1.958	2.000	+ 1.167
16	Russia	1.958	2.000	+ 0.917

¹ Co-hosts
² Defending Champions

[edit] Controversy

UEFA came under heavy criticism from Raymond Domenech, manager of France, who was not satisfied with his team's position in the draw ^[1] and was also in favour of having 2006 FIFA World Cup winners Italy as top seed. ^[2]. On November 22, 2007, Giorgio Marchetti, UEFA's professional football director announced a review of the coefficient ranking system is under way for future EURO competitions ^[3].