Euro 2012 draw: Dream Draw & Warsaw, or Ugly in Ukraine?

The Euro 2012 draw takes place at the Palace Ukraina in Kiev this evening. We’ll have all the ball-popping excitement on our live blog this afternoon – but first, here’s the best, worst and middle-of-the-road possible outcomes.

First off, when it comes to the top seeds in Pot 1 we’re hoping for a place in either Group A or C, which will mean we avoid the thousand-mile expanses of Ukraine in favour of fixtures in the much more accessible Poland. So there’s a 50-50 chance of that, the absolute best possible result would be to draw the Poles from the top seeds – which would mean we avoid both top seeds Spain and Holland and the journey to Ukraine.

In Pot 2 (Germany, England, Italy and Russia), the one side we really don’t want to get is Germany, who, having taken the World Cup by storm last year, have matured into a phenomenal side and coasted through their group.

We’d take England over the rest, surely. It’s been too long since we crossed swords with our nearest and dearest neighbours, who (a) aren’t really that good, (b) are burdened with biannual crazy expectations and (c) are likely to be without their top player Wazza “Wayne” Rooney for all three group games.

Trap would probably prefer a date with his old Mafiosi chums ahead of another game against Russia, who beat the crap out of us twice in the qualifiers, including in the most one-sided 0-0 draw anyone has ever seen.

Pot 3 includes Portugal, Croatia, Sweden and Greece. None of those four would really have the entire country quaking in our boots, although Portugal would be a pretty daunting third seed in a group that also included Spain and Germany, say.

A bully-boy spanking of North Korea apart, the Portuguese were dire at the World Cup two years ago while Croatia haven’t reached the highs of 2008 over the last few years. Sweden would be a tough nut to crack – we also face them in the 2014 World Cup qualifying – and Greece are, well, Greece. Ugly to watch, and probably hard to beat. They went through qualifying unbeaten and conceded just five goals in the process.

The Absolute Best Case Scenario Group

Poland, England, Croatia

The Fancy Our Chances Group

Ukraine, Italy, Greece

The Bit of a Bitch Group

Holland, Russia, Sweden

The Holy Crap Group

Spain, Germany, Portugal

Click here to follow our live blog from 1pm today

Main picture: National Stadium in Warsaw (Tom Dulat/Getty Images)