Euro 2012 Draw Primer & Simulations

USSD emerges from a week-long, post-American Samoa-bonanza slumber to bring you some info on tomorrow's Euro 2012 draw.

The festivities will take place at 12 PM ET and will be aired on ESPNews, ESPN3.com, and ESPN Deportes. The 16 team field has been sorted into four pots and will be split up into four groups when all is said and done, with each group having one team from each pot.

Here are what the pots look like:

Pot 1:
Poland (co-host)
Ukraine (co-host)
Spain
Netherlands

Pot 2:
Italy
Germany
England
Russia

Pot 3:
Croatia
Sweden
Greece
Portugal

Pot 4:
Ireland
Czech Republic
France
Denmark


As co-hosts, Poland and Ukraine get placed in Pot 1 with the two finalists from the 2010 World Cup. Poland is already guaranteed the position of A1 (the placement within the group determines the match schedules), while Ukraine will occupy the position of D1. As such, the tournament opener will feature Poland and will take place on June 8th in Warsaw (the trade-off between the co-hosts being that the final will take place in Kiev).

With all of that in mind, I decided to fire up the USSD Mega Draw Simulator (read: a simple VBA macro to randomly sort in line with the rules; if I knew how to embed it so you all could use it, I would) to produce a mock draw (and another, and another, and another...). Here's what got spit out:

Draw Simulation #1

Group A
Poland
Italy
Croatia
Ireland

Group B
Spain
Germany
Sweden
Czech Republic

Group C
Netherlands
England
Greece
France

Group D
Ukraine
Russia
Portugal
Denmark

Tournament Opener: Poland v. Italy

Some pretty balanced groups all around. Just for fun, here are two more simulations:


Draw Simulation #2

Group A
Poland
Russia
Sweden
Denmark

Group B
Netherlands
England
Greece
Czech Republic

Group C
Spain
Germany
Croatia
France

Group D
Ukraine
Italy
Portugal
Ireland

Tournament Opener: Poland v. Russia (the ol' eastern European rivalry renewed on the big stage)

That sure be an entertaining (and tough) Group C.


Draw Simulation #3

Group A
Poland
Russia
Greece
Denmark

Group B
Spain
England
Portugal
France

Group C
Netherlands
Italy
Sweden
Czech Republic

Group D
Ukraine
Germany
Croatia
Ireland

Tournament Opener: Poland v. Russia

...I'm pretty sure this draw would every England fan's worst nightmare, putting the Three Lions in the Group of Death with Spain, Portugal, and France.

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As you know, there a ton of possibilities, but these should give you an idea of a) just how strong and deep the field is, b) just how hard it will be for both co-hosts to make deep runs in this tournament, and c) just how entertaining Euro 2012 promises to be.

As I said earlier, the draw takes place tomorrow at noon ET. If you can't watch, I'll be sure to post the outcome here soon thereafter, with some live tweeting to go with it.

In the meantime, expect a couple more mock draws to pop up on Twitter. There's no stopping the USSD Mega Draw Simulator!