Before everyone goes booking flights and match tickets to the Euros, we still need to know who it is we will be watching the Boys In Green beat in France. All will be revealed in the coming weeks and Balls is here to your guide to the group stages.
When is the Euro 2016 draw?
The draw itself will take place on December 12th in Paris at approximately 18:00 local time, 17:00 Irish time. There are 24 teams to come out of their respective pots on the 12th with the home nation France and the 23 qualifiers divided into 6 different groups of 4, labelled groups A-F.
The draw itself will run so that the pots will empty one at a time. The top seeds in pot 1 will be drawn first out followed by pot 2, pot 3 and finally, the only pot that matters, pot 4.
In accordance with the rankings, the hardest possible group that could come out of the pots system would be Germany, Italy, Czech Republic and Turkey while the easiest group, if there is such a thing, would be Belgium, Ukraine, Hungary and Northern Ireland. Come September, Ireland will play all three of the teams they have been drawn against once with the two teams with the best results qualifying automatically to the last 16.
There will also be four teams qualifying for the last 16 as the best third placed teams in the competition meaning that it isn't totally unlikely that Ireland won't make the knockout stages of the competition.
A favourable group for Martin O'Neill's men would serve as the perfect appetiser for the McGregor v Aldo bout due to take place later that night, here's hoping we get it.
For all the up to the minute news on Euro 2016 make sure to keep it here on Balls.ie
