Group of Death draws mixed reaction

The look on France coach Raymond Domenech's face said it all as Les Bleus were the second team drawn in Group C after the Netherlands. Being placed alongside the Dutch was bad enough, but Domenech's expression of horror signalled the realisation that worse was to come. Romania were next out of the pot, then the hammer blow – Italy. The Group of Death. Every tournament has to have one and UEFA EURO 2008™ has not disappointed with the UEFA EURO 2000™ and 2006 FIFA World Cup finalists scheduled to reprise their rivalry on 17 June in Zurich. The two sides also met in qualifying, as did the Netherlands and Romania, so it was a time to renew acquaintances when the four coaches faced reporters together after today's draw in Lucerne. "Va bene?" asked a journalist as Roberto Donadoni took his place at the table. The Italy coach shrugged and smiled wryly. Domenech could not hide his disappointment though, admitting he would rather have "avoided these three teams" before leaving early.

Roberto Donadoni, Italy coach
It was not an easy qualifying round and now we have not been too fortunate with this draw. I had a gut feeling that it would turn out this way but you cannot change the rules and when you get to a final, every opponent is tough. I spoke with Marco before the draw and told him I thought we were going to play each other and that's the way it's worked out. We have to meet France again which is tough, but every past match is history. We now look forward to the next game.

Raymond Domenech, France coach
I am not happy, nothing I wanted has worked out. In fact, I don't think we're the happiest four coaches here after the draw and the way it worked out. We would love to have avoided the three other teams but now we've got it we'll have to deal with it. I would have also preferred to have played in Austria and not Switzerland.

Marco van Basten, Netherlands coach
You can say we have a really heavy group. We have to play against the World Cup finalists Italy and France. These are the two big countries. They have lots of experience, good players, so we have a really hard group. In the last World Cup we had a 'group of death' and I am very curious what they will call this one. We start against Italy, then France and then Romania so it will be a tough group for us. Italy is a real football nation that always gets far in tournaments. The same goes for France in recent years. This will be a very tough job.

Victor Piţurcă, Romania coach
It is a very nice and easy group, with the world champions, the World Cup runners-up and Holland who we know very well. We hope it will be an extraordinary experience for us and why shouldn't we be one of the two teams to qualify?

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