Euro 2012 qualifying

The qualifying competition for UEFA Euro 2012 was a series of parallel association football competitions held over 2010 and 2011 to decide the qualifiers for UEFA Euro 2012, held in Poland and Ukraine. The draw for the qualifying rounds was held on 7 February 2010 in the Congress Hall of the Palace of Culture and Science, Warsaw, with matches set to take place between August 2010 and November 2011.

There were nine groups. Six of these groups had six teams (one each from pots 1 to 6 below); the remaining three groups consisted of five teams (one each from pots 1 to 5 below). Group competition was a double round robin: each team hosted a game with every other team in its group. The first-place team in each group qualified, along with the second-place team with the most points against teams ranked in the top five in the group. The remaining eight second-place teams were paired for two-game play-offs, with the winner of each total goals tie qualifying for the finals. The two host countries completed the field of sixteen teams.

The pot allocations for the qualifying group stage draw were based on the UEFA national team coefficient rankings as of the end of 2009. The sole exception was the automatic placement of Spain, as reigning European champions, as the top-ranked team (their coefficient ranking would have also placed them in this position anyway). Each nation's coefficient was generated by calculating:

The 51 entrants were divided into the following six pots for the drawing of nine qualifying groups on 7 February 2010 in Warsaw, Poland:

The countries which eventually qualified for the final tournament are emboldened in the table below.

Before the draw UEFA confirmed that, for political reasons, Armenia would not be drawn against Azerbaijan (due to the dispute concerning territory of Nagorno-Karabakh) and Georgia would not be drawn against Russia (due to the dispute regarding the territory of South Ossetia). Armenia and Azerbaijan were drawn together in Group A during the draw ceremony, forcing UEFA to reassign Armenia to Group B, as Azerbaijan had refused to play in Armenia when they had been drawn together during UEFA Euro 2008 qualifying.

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