Complete guide to Euro 2020: schedule, groups, teams, and cities

England currently boasts two teams in Champions League final, one team in UEFA final, is this our year? Gareth Southgate has recently pushed the team to achieve an incredible 9 goals in the FIFA World Cup 2022 qualifiers in March. The Lions look in great form with a positive outlook as Southgate says the team 'shouldn't be afraid' of saying they want to win.

Southgate said of the competition, "We understand that expectations change. We shouldn't be afraid of saying we want to go and win. We know there is some improvement for us to do. We've started to beat some of the top teams over the last couple of years, we have to do that consistently and if we are to win this tournament the way this draw looks we would have to do that on two or three occasions... So we have to allow everybody to dream, we want to dream ourselves but we've got to make sure we won't just win because we're at home, we won't just win because we're an exciting team, we've got to get all the parts right and that's got to be our aim.''

On Friday, June 11, 2021, the first match of Euros 2020 kicks off. Tune in to watch Italy vs Turkey at the Olympic Stadium in Rome, which will initiate a Euro2020 that comes to us a year late. Here is the most complete guide to the Euros 2020: schedule, venues, teams, players...

Euro2020 kicks off on June 11, 2021 and runs for 31 days. The tournament leads up to a final, if all goes well, on July 11, 2021 at Wembley Stadium in London.

The Euros 2020 is a unique European Championship. It is the first to be held from one end of Europe to the other. Eleven cities will host matches of the continental competition: St. Petersburg (Russia), Baku (Azerbaijan), Amsterdam (Netherlands), Bucharest (Romania), Copenhagen (Denmark), Glasgow (Scotland), Rome (Italy), Seville (Spain), London (United Kingdom), Munich (Germany) and Budapest (Hungary).

Despite the seemingly difficult travel pressure on the players, the distance between the most distant venues (Baku and Glasgow) is 4,240 km, which can be covered in just 3 hours by plane. In other words, the distance between venues should not be a problem or hindrance for the players.

Obviously, the pandemic will affect the capacity of the stadiums which, on average, has been reduced by 40% among the 11 stadiums. This means that, of the 3 million tickets UEFA had planned to sell, only 1.17 million will be sold at the end. Requests for tickets have exceeded 28 million.

As for ticket prices, they range from 50 to 185 euros, although packages that reach a staggering 10,000 euros have been sold, giving holders the right to see all the matches.

The 24 teams that have reached the finals will include nine of the ten teams that have won the European Championship before. Only Greece, the 2004 winners, will be absent from Europe’s show stopping football event.

Spain and Germany are the only teams with three trophies a piece, followed by France with two Euro cups. Italy, Russia, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Denmark and Portugal have all been victorious at one European Championship in their history. The absent Greece team completes the list of winners of the 15 European Championships played so far.

The Portuguese Cristiano Ronaldo, who could play his last European Championship (he is 36 years old), will defend the title won in 2016. He will do so with an exciting new generation of players led by Bruno Fernandez, Joao Felix and Bernardo Silva.

North Macedonia is the only team that will make its debut in these finals. It will do so after earning its place in the 2019 Nations League playoffs. The fact that they are newcomers does not diminish them being an opponent to be reckoned with, as they proved by beating Germany at home in the qualifiers for the World Cup in Qatar.

In spite of everything (and with market data in hand), the great favourite this year is France: current World Champions and with a team valued at 1,060 million euros. Importantly, they have Kylian Mbappé, the most expensive player of the competition, with a value of 160 million euros.

England (1.01 billion euros), Germany (942 million euros) and Spain (855 million euros) are the most valuable teams after France.

To ensure that everything runs smoothly, UEFA has recruited more than 12,000 volunteers from all over Europe. These participants will be in charge of everything in the stadiums, providing accreditation, managing guests, helping with transportation and providing support to the public and to the teams.

And what about the mascot? Skillzy will be the mascot of the Euros 2020. He's a character with clear inspiration from street football and freestyle, but he has also sparked concerns recently due to the possibility of the mascot scaring the little ones.

And now let's review the calendar and groups!

Turkey, Italy, Wales and Switzerland make up Group A and will debut on the 11th of June.

Denmark, Finland, Belgium and Russia start their finals on the 12th of June.

Netherlands, Ukraine, Austria and North Macedonia debut on the 13th of June.

England, Croatia, Scotland and the Czech Republic kick off from the 13th of June.

Spain, Sweden, Poland and Slovakia begin their semifinal fight on the 14th of June.

Group F consists of Germany, France, Portugal and Hungary who will debut on the 15th of June.