PARIS: After a gruelling qualifying campaign, Euro 2016 gets underway on Friday with Cristiano Ronaldo and the rest of the continent’s biggest stars descending on France having to fend off minnows aiming to make their presence felt.
This will be the first 24-team European Championship, a month-long marathon a far cry from the eight-nation event when France with Michel Platini were last hosts in 1984.
France launch the tournament with a Group A game against Romania on Friday. Les Bleus remain the last host country to lift the trophy — named after a Frenchman, Henri Delaunay — and also won the World Cup as hosts in 1998, when Didier Deschamps was the captain.
Now he is the coach of a side looking to lift the spirits of a nation beset by social unrest and fears of a repeat of the Paris attacks last November. The tension has made some players nervous however.
France has ramped up the presence of security forces but fans will still come in vast numbers to attend matches from Lens in the north of the country to Nice on the Cote d’Azur and the Stade de France, which will host the final on July 10.
