Paris (AFP)

France will have its eye on Thursday on the semi-finals of the Euro play-offs, rescheduled for the summer of 2021, since the results of these will depend on the last opponent of the Blues in the toughest group of the tournament, alongside from Portugal and Germany.

The last 4 tickets for the European Championship will not be distributed until November 12, after the finals of the various routes, but the semi-finals, scheduled for Thursday, will already allow the Blues to see a little more clearly on what will await them from June 11 to July 11.

If Romania, one of the twelve host countries of the Euro traveling Thursday (8:45 p.m.) in Iceland, wins the ticket allocated to the winner of lane A, group F of the final tournament (France, Portugal, Germany) will be completed. by the winner of lane D, the weakest on paper (with semi-finals Georgia-Belarus and North Macedonia-Kosovo).

A slight respite that the Blues would undoubtedly not disdain, in a group where they will already face the 2014 world champions and the 2016 European champions. Especially since, since the transition to 24 nations qualified during the Euro- 2016 played in France, the third in a group can qualify for the round of 16, and an easy victory could be an asset in this regard.

Conversely, if the victory in path A falls to one of the three other selections that make it up (Iceland, Bulgaria, Hungary), it is this one which will complete group F. A defeat of Romania in Iceland Thursday, and France would already be assured of seeing its group completed by a new tough opponent.

- Baptism by fire -

Iceland, in particular, would not be a gift.

The islanders had created a surprise during Euro-2016 by eliminating England and going to the quarters ... where they had been sharply stopped by France (5-2).

A victory for Romania in track A would be synonymous with a baptism of fire of magnitude for the winner of track D: none of these countries has participated in an edition of the Euro in its young history - Georgia and Belarus (ex-USSR) as well as North Macedonia (ex-Yugoslavia) have been independent since 1991, Kosovo has claimed its own vis-à-vis Serbia since 2008 -.

But facing, for a first international competition, a trio Germany-France-Portugal can be seen as just as exciting as terrifying by these four selections.

In path B (Bosnia-Herzegovina-Northern Ireland and Slovakia-Ireland), the interest can be sporty as well as symbolic: on the one hand, the Slovakian (with Marek Hamsik in particular) and Bosnian (Miralem Pjanic, Edin Dzeko) selections are attractive on paper;

on the other, a final between the two Ireland is possible.

Track C, finally, is that of Norway and its very promising duo Martin Odegaard-Erling Haaland.

The Scandinavians receive Serbia in the semi-finals, while Scotland, one of the future host countries of the Euro, welcomes Israel.

Odegaard, finally retained by Zinédine Zidane within the workforce of Real after years of loans, and Haaland, who continues to stack goals in Dortmund, can at respectively 21 and 19 bring their selection to his first Euro since 2000 .

© 2020 AFP