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In Switzerland, pulling out the draws for the 2008 European Championship qualifiers, undoubtedly one of the strongest is Group B, where, together with the Lithuanian national team, will play such famous teams as the finalists of the 2000 championships Italy and France, as well as Ukraine, who qualified for the upcoming World Cup this summer, and well-known teams from Scotland and the Faroe Islands. The official UEFA website provides the reactions of all the group's head coaches to the draws.
France national team coach Raymond Domenech: "You can't say draws are good or bad - first of all you have to play the matches. I am happy that we will play against a team like Italy, I wanted to play against them for a long time. You can't say it will be easy, because I remember when people thought we would easily qualify for the World Cup, and look how everything turned out in reality. At the moment, our priority is the World Cup, and after that we will think about the European Championship."
Italy national team coach Marcelo Lippi: "Our group is very interesting and very difficult. There are such strong teams with great traditions like France, and Ukraine was probably the best team in the 2006 World Cup qualifiers. Scotland is also improving very quickly and can be dangerous. However, we are more interested in future opponents in Germany now. We will start thinking about France and others after the World Cup."
Ukraine national team coach Oleg Blokhin: "We always get one of the strongest groups in the qualifiers, but the principles of the Ukrainian national team remain the same - we respect all opponents and fear nothing. Not many called us favorites in the 2006 World Cup qualifiers, but we won our group and will travel to Germany this summer. Now we will also fight for a ticket to Euro-2008."
Scotland national team coach Walter Smith: "A very strong group - Italy, France and Ukraine all made it to the World Cup by winning their groups. It will be very important to start the qualifying tournament successfully, so that there will be no need to chase later, as it was in the World Cup qualifiers."
Lithuania national team coach Algimantas Liubinskas: "I think we got into one of the strongest qualifying groups, but such powerful opponents will only give motivation to the team to play as best as possible. The matches against European giants Italy and France in Lithuania will be a real football celebration, we have never played against the French before. I am glad that at least we managed to avoid Group A, where three teams from the former Soviet Union will play."
Georgia national team coach Klaus Toppmöller: "It's a good group, there are good teams in it - three of them will play in the World Cup in Germany. It will be difficult for us, but certainly interesting. I have very good memories of the 'Hampden Park' stadium in Glasgow, I hope we will play there as well as Bayer Leverkusen did in the 2001/02 UEFA Champions League final."
