Euro 2012 Draw: All You Need to Know

On Friday, the draw for next summer's Euro 2012 finals will take place, and the 16 qualified nations will find out who they will face in the group stages of the tournament in Poland and Ukraine.

BR's Michael Cummings will be running a live blog of the proceedings from 6 p.m. CET (2 p.m. Eastern US / 11 a.m. Pacific). We'll naturally be delivering plenty of reaction immediately afterwards too, so be sure to check back for all the ramifications.

In the meantime, here's everything you need to know ahead of the draw on Friday.

Where Is It Taking Place?

UEFA are hosting the draw at the Ukraine Palace of Arts in Kiev.

According to Wikipedia, Christina Aguilera, Enrique Iglesias and Luciano Pavarotti are the among the notable performers to have graced the venue in the past.

Who Will Be There?

UEFA General Secretary Gianni Infantino will be conducting the draw with the help of TV presenters lga Freimut and Piotr Sobczynski.

UEFA tell us entertainment will be provided by "the P. Virsky Ukrainian National Folk Dance Ensemble, Ukrainian singer Jamala and a surprise international artist."

We should also expect the national managers of each of the 16 qualified teams, along with a host of legendary names from the tournament's previous editions. The Euro 2012 motto is "creating history together," and the organisers have hence invited a collection of former stars.

How Will the Draw Work?

There are four groups of four to be drawn, with each to be comprised of one team from each of the four seeding pots.

Groups A, B, C and D will all consist of  one x Pot A team, one x Pot B team, one x Pot C team and one x Pot D team.

Pot 1 teams will be drawn first, followed by Pot 4, then Pot 3 and finally Pot 2 to make up the groups. This means those in Pot 2 are in for the most agonising wait (not good news for England fans).

We already know Poland are the Pot 1 team in Group A and Ukraine the Pot 1 team in Group D. The hosts have been guaranteed top seeding and a place in the group played out in their home city.

What Are the Seedings?

Aside from the hosts, who automatically go as Pot 1 seeds, the remaining 14 teams have been ranked using the UEFA National Team Coefficient. Here are the pots.

Pot 1: Poland (Group A), Ukraine (Group D), Spain, Netherlands

Pot 2: Germany, Italy, England, Russia

Pot 3: Croatia, Greece, Portugal, Sweden

Pot 4: Denmark, France, Czech Republic, Republic of Ireland

Group of Death?

As with all draws these days, we must address the possibility of a "Group of Death."

It's highly unlikely, but we could potentially see a group containing the behemoths of Spain, Germany, Portugal and France.

Those are arguably the strongest teams in their respective pots, so teams will be desperately hoping to avoid them.

Group of Eternal Life?

According to the UEFA coefficient, here the weakest teams in their respective pots.

Pot 1: Poland

Pot 2: Russia

Pot 3: Sweden

Pot 4: Republic of Ireland

This would suggest the best draw for any team is to find yourself accompanied by three of these in a group. As a caveat, I'd make the case for Poland getting to play in front of partisan crowd, Russia having lost just once in 10 qualifiers and Republic of Ireland riding on a wave of national hysteria.

Sweden were so bad against England at Wembley I can't find anything good to say about them.

A Random Prediction

There's really no point of this final slide, other than to entertain myself with a wild guess at the draw. Oh, and to illustrate once again the fact that each group will consist of seeds from pots 1, 2, 3 and 4.

Group A: Poland, Germany, Portugal, Denmark

Group B: Spain, Russia, Croatia, France

Group C: Netherlands, England, Sweden, Republic of Ireland

Group D: Ukraine, Italy, Greece, Czech Republic