UEFA Euro 2016 qualifying Group D

The UEFA Euro 2016 qualifying Group D was one of the nine groups to decide which teams would qualify for the UEFA Euro 2016 finals tournament. Group D consisted of six teams: Germany, Republic of Ireland, Poland, Scotland, Georgia, and Gibraltar, where they played against each other home-and-away in a round-robin format.

The top two teams would qualify directly for the finals. The third-placed team would qualify directly too if they had the best records among the third-placed teams of all qualifying groups, otherwise they would enter the play-offs for another chance to qualify.

Germany and Poland qualified for the finals as the group winners and runners-up respectively. As third-placed Republic of Ireland weren't the highest-ranked among all third-placed teams, they advanced to the play-offs, where they won against Bosnia and Herzegovina and thus qualified too.

The German national football team was looking to maintain its record of qualifying for every European Championship since 1972.Scotland and the Republic of Ireland both proposed the expansion of the European Championship and it was considered "ironic" by the Republic of Ireland manager, Martin O'Neill, that the two were drawn in the same group. The chairman of the Polish Football Association, Zbigniew Boniek, stated that he was happy with the draw.Georgia national football team manager, Temur Ketsbaia, said that the new system would give Georgia the chance to qualify and said that Georgia would aim for third place in the group.

...
Wikipedia