UEFA Euro 2020 qualifying

The UEFA Euro 2020 qualifying tournament is an upcoming football competition that will be played from March 2019 to March 2020 to determine the 24 UEFA member men's national teams that will enter into the UEFA Euro 2020 final tournament. The competition will be linked with the 2018–19 edition of the UEFA Nations League, giving countries a secondary route to qualify for the final tournament. For the first time since 1976, no team will automatically qualify for the UEFA European Championship as the host country.

A total of 55 national teams will participate in the qualifying process, with Kosovo taking part for the first time.

Teams
All 55 UEFA national teams are eligible to compete in the UEFA Euro 2020 qualifying tournament. The 55 members will be divided into ten groups, with five of them containing five teams, and five of the groups containing six teams.

Format
There will be no automatic qualifying berth, and all 55 UEFA national teams, including the 12 national teams whose countries will stage matches, must compete in the qualifiers for the 24 places at the finals tournament. As the host cities were appointed by UEFA in September 2014, before the qualifiers of UEFA Euro 2020, it is possible for the national teams from the host cities to fail to qualify for the finals tournament.

With the creation of the UEFA Nations League starting in 2018, the 2018–19 UEFA Nations League will be linked with UEFA Euro qualifying, providing teams another chance to qualify for UEFA Euro 2020.

The main qualifying process will now begin in March 2019 instead of immediately in September 2018 following the 2018 FIFA World Cup, and will end in November 2019. The format will remain largely the same, although only 20 of the 24 spots for the finals tournament will be decided from the main qualifying process, leaving four spots still to be decided. Following the admission of Kosovo to UEFA in May 2016, it was announced that the 55 members at the time would be drawn into 10 groups after the completion of the UEFA Nations League (five groups of five teams and five groups of six teams, with the four UEFA Nations League Finals participants guaranteed to be drawn into groups of five teams), with the top two teams in each group qualifying. The draw seeding will be based on the overall rankings of the 2018–19 UEFA Nations League. The qualifiers will be played on double matchdays in March, June, September, October and November 2019.

Next, a total of 16 teams will participate in the play-offs, taking place in March 2020, offering a second chance to qualify for UEFA Euro 2020. The 16 teams will be selected based on their performance in the UEFA Nations League. The 16 teams will be divided into four paths, each containing four teams, with one team from each path qualifying for the final tournament. Each league will have its own play-off path if at least four teams are available. The Nations League group winners will automatically qualify for the play-off path of their league. If the group winners have already qualified through the classic qualifying group stage, they will be replaced by the next best ranked teams in the same league. However, if there are not enough teams in the same league, then the group winners will be replaced by the next best team in the overall ranking, but group winners cannot face teams from a higher league.

A bottom up process from League D to A is used to select the 16 teams which will compete in the playoffs. First, all available group winners are selected. Then, if a group winner has already qualified, they will be replaced by the next best team in the same league. If there are not enough teams in a given league, then if there is a group winner, the best ranked team of a lower league will be selected. If there is no group winner available in the league, then the best team in the overall ranking will be selected.

A bottom up process from League D to A is also used to form the four play-off paths. A path is formed with four teams from the same league. If there are more than four teams qualified for the play-offs in a given league, then a draw will occur to determine which teams will participate in the play-off path of that league. The remaining teams will be drawn into paths with teams of higher leagues. This process ensures that the group winners do not have to compete with teams from a higher league. A draw will take place to allocate the teams which did not win their group.

Each play-off path will feature two single-leg semi-finals, and one single-leg final. The best-ranked team will host the fourth-ranked team, and the second-ranked team will host the third-ranked team. The host of the final will be decided by a draw, with semi-final winner 1 or 2 hosting the final. The four play-off path winners will join the 20 teams which have already qualified for UEFA Euro 2020.

Tiebreakers
If two or more teams are equal on points on completion of the group matches, the following tie-breaking criteria are applied:


 * 1) Higher number of points obtained in the matches played among the teams in question;
 * 2) Superior goal difference in matches played among the teams in question;
 * 3) Higher number of goals scored in the matches played among the teams in question;
 * 4) Higher number of goals scored away from home in the matches played among the teams in question;
 * If, after having applied criteria 1 to 4, teams still have an equal ranking, criteria 1 to 4 are reapplied exclusively to the matches between the teams in question to determine their final rankings. If this procedure does not lead to a decision, criteria 6 to 10 apply;
 * 1) Superior goal difference in all group matches;
 * 2) Higher number of goals scored in all group matches;
 * 3) Higher number of away goals scored in all group matches;
 * 4) Higher number of wins in all group matches;
 * 5) Higher number of away wins in all group matches;
 * 6) Fair play conduct in all group matches (1 point for a single yellow card, 3 points for a red card as a consequence of two yellow cards, 3 points for a direct red card, 4 points for a yellow card followed by a direct red card);
 * 7) Position in the UEFA Nations League overall ranking.

a. - When there are two or more teams tied in points, criteria 1 to 4 are applied. After these criteria are applied, they may define the position of some of the teams involved, but not all of them. For example, if there is a three-way tie on points, the application of the first four criteria may only break the tie for one of the teams, leaving the other two teams still tied. In this case, the tiebreaking procedure is resumed, from the beginning, for those teams that are still tied.
 * Notes

Criteria for overall ranking
To determine the overall rankings of the European Qualifiers, results against teams in sixth place are discarded and the following criteria are applied:
 * 1) Position in the group;
 * 2) Higher number of points;
 * 3) Superior goal difference;
 * 4) Higher number of goals scored;
 * 5) Higher number of goals scored away from home;
 * 6) Higher number of wins;
 * 7) Higher number of wins away from home;
 * 8) Fair play conduct (1 point for a single yellow card, 3 points for a red card as a consequence of two yellow cards, 3 points for a direct red card, 4 points for a yellow card followed by a direct red card);
 * 9) Position in the UEFA Nations League overall ranking.

Schedule
Below is the schedule of the UEFA Euro 2020 qualifying campaign.

Qualifying group stage
The qualifying group stage draw will be held on 2 December 2018 at the Convention Centre Dublin in Dublin, Republic of Ireland. The 55 teams will be drawn into 10 groups (five groups of five teams and five groups of six teams).

The teams will be seeded based on the 2018–19 UEFA Nations League overall ranking. The four participants of the 2019 UEFA Nations League Finals are guaranteed to be drawn into groups of five teams. Matches will take place from 21 March to 19 November 2019.

Play-offs
Teams which fail in qualifying group stage may still qualify for the final tournament via the play-offs. Each league in the UEFA Nations League will be allocated one of the four remaining UEFA Euro 2020 places. Four teams from each league which have not already qualified for the European Championship finals will compete in the play-offs of their league, to be played in March 2020. The play-off berths will be first allocated to each pool winner, and if any of the pool winners have already qualified for the European Championship finals, then to the next best ranked team of the division, etc.

Draw
The qualifying play-off draw will take place on 22 November 2019 in order to determine the paths which the non-group winners will participate in. The final hosts will also be drawn between the two semi-final pairings.

Overall ranking
The overall rankings will be used for seeding in the UEFA Euro 2020 final tournament draw.