Euro 2000 fates pair England with Germany

Fate stepped in to guide the Euro 2000 draw in Brussels this afternoon with old rivals Germany and England drawn together for the second time in a week.

The Tokyo World Cup qualifying draw last Tuesday pitched these two rivals together and now they are due to meet in the Euro 2000 finals at Charleroi in the pick of the first phase contests in an attractive and open draw.

Only yesterday the German press was packed with comments from former Internazionale and national team star Karl-Heinze Rummenigge predicting a coming crisis for the German side under coach Erich Ribbeck and the media remains very critical of the squad and its form.

England coach Kevin Keegan was named German Player of the Year twice during his time at the end of the 1970s with Hamburg SV. Keegan speaks German well and has close friends in the country. The meeting of the two countries in the 2002 World Cup campaign has already generated substantial hype but they are some distance away in time and both nations may well have iundergone significant changes by this time next year.

Keegan gave interviews in Tokyo claiming he will quit his job next summer if Euro 2000 turns out badly and admitted he would have walked out on the national team job after the play-offs if his side had lost to Scotland. Ribbeck is only one bad result away from a new media storm of protest and must first negotiate the warm up friendlies in th first part of the year.

If the World Cup games are some distance away the Euro finals will be here very quickly and the cramped Charleroi venue for the game could create a real test for tournament security and more ticket chaos for both large travelling sets of support. Germany were drawn with Portugal in the World Cup 1998 qualification campaign and their two games with the Portuguese exposed weaknesses that saw them dumped oput of the last World Cup finals.

While immediate attention is drawn to the England and Germany clash the rest of the competition could be dominated by events in Group D.

This section is undoubtedly the strongest with favourites and co-host Holland due to meet world champions France and 1992 champions Denmark. The quartet is completed by the Czech Republic who won all ten qualifying games. All four countries are previous winners of the competition and their games will set the tone for the entire finals. The winner coud well come from this section but the hard task of qualifying for the next round from Group D may sap the strength of the teams who go through with injuries and suspensions to contend with.

Belgium won in Italy last month at Lecce with an excellent performance and the two sides were drawn together at the 1980 finals. Italians will expect their team to progress but this section is also tough with Turkey and Sweden also included.

The draw will bring back memories for Slovenian coach Srecko Katanec. He was an outstanding midfielder for the Yugoslav national team of the early 1990s and must now plot the Yugoslav's defeat with his new side. Katanec is still enjoying hero status in Slovenia for their excellent play-off win last month and he won more than 30 caps for the Yugoslavs.

The meeting of Spain and Norway will see two of the outstanding European national teams compete in one of the most attractive games of the first phase.