Cabra Hoop wrote: Looking at things at this far out its likely that some of the 12 hosts nations may miss out on qualifying...Scotland, Azerbijan, Hungary, Romania, Ireland, Denmark are all not certain to qualify. Of those Scotland and Azerbijan are in the most peril..

Should Azerbaijan not make it, have we any idea who might end up playing in Baku?

If it should be some of the teams which don't take many travelling fans, there could be some seriously small crowds in Baku, a la Europa League Final.

P.S. Went to Baku for an NI game in 2017 - absolutely fascinating place, and dead cheap once you've got the airfare over you.

If the six top seeds are Italy, Belgium, Spain, England, Germany and France (for the sake of argument), then either Belgium or France would be there. I can't see many of their fans going to Baku, tbh. I heard that the rankings will be based solely off the final qualifier rankings and the first four of those have maximum points and the other two have lost one game so far so they are quite possibly the top six teams.

They are effectively out already.  They need Kosovo, North Macedonia & Armenia to qualify to even get a playoff.  

The draw is too complicated as it is with all the hosts.  So there will be no other restrictions on who can play there unless a certain neighbour qualifies.  

It will be tough on the fans of the 3 countries that go there particularly on the team in the middle game in Rome.  

Lovely spot as you say but a long way away and will involve a lot of travelling.  The good news is that tickets will be no problem for anyone who goes there.  

If Italy are top seeds none of the top seeds go to Baku in the group stages

Sochi and baku could have worked or even volgograd. The Russians going with fricken st petersburg didn't help. 

Also apologies to Territorial but the Dutch will most likely be top seeds and not Germany.  They own the H2H.  

Forgot about the fact the Dutch had the head to head & the fact it was paired with Italy.

Assuming Italy are a top seed and Azerbaijan don't qualify, every other team in that group will have two games in Baku and one game in Rome. That is a total disaster, frankly.

Tbf, why should the Russians move to a minor, provincial city to compensate for a screw-up by UEFA?

Moscow has direct, non-stop flights to Baku, but St. Petersburg is Putin's home city, so you can guess why they were chosen instead.

And while Sochi or Volgograd might be closer geographically, but they still don't have a direct service to Baku (nor anywhere else much!)

I was thinking Budapest would have been much better to pair with Baku than Rome, since they had direct, non-stop (and v.cheap) flights to Baku when I went there. A quick check shows that they still have, though only as far as April; perhaps they haven't confirmed their summer 2020 schedules yet?

Easy to get, but maybe not so easy to afford?

Category 3 tickets are "only" €30, but will probably be miles from the action in a huge stadium with running track.

If you want a decent seat, they're €75 (Cat.2) and €125 (Cat.1)

https://www.strikeronline.ie/uefa-unveil-ticket-prices-for-euro-2020" rel="nofollow - https://www.strikeronline.ie/uefa-unveil-ticket-prices-for-euro-2020

colemanY2K wrote: I wasn't suggesting the Russians do anything of the sort. Just that it was a poor decision from uefa given the Russians had picked st petersburg. I merely threw sochi or volgograd out there as examples of potential host cities. I could easily have said moscow or yekaterinburg.

Fair do's.

Wizzair are, I believe, the only airline that fly direct from Budapest to Baku and if you believe they wouldn't be at least €350 one way each next summer, I think you have a misplaced sense of the altruism of airline pricing.

There should be a few charter flights between Rome and Baku (especially between the games, seeing as they will be able to fill them both ways) but beyond that it's a disaster of a venue and that may be very apparent next summer.

Hell, it was apparent with the ticket sales: only the cheapest ones sold out.

I would be prepared to bet I know rather more about airline pricing than you, for a variety of reasons, but thanks for putting me right anyhow! 

And I've flown Wizzair many times, including BUD to GYD.

Anyhow, even if you can't keep the price down by booking Wizzair early, the availability of direct flights from Budapest must at least provide fare competition for other, indirect routes.

SuperDave84 wrote: There should be a few charter flights between Rome and Baku (especially between the games, seeing as they will be able to fill them both ways)

No reason why there couldn't be charters from Budapeast, either.

And air travel aside, Budapest is a much cheaper place to visit than Rome, which would have helped those stretched to make it to Baku as well.

Anyhow, it's all academic...

Okay, so I retract what I said. Wizzair tickets for Budapest to Baku next summer are already on sale.

There is a last 16 game in Budapest on Sunday 28 June and the winner is in the quarter final on Saturday 4 July in Baku. There is a Wizzair flight out of Budapest on 2 July arriving in Baku on 3 July and tickets are 38,990 HUF, which is round about €117 (albeit for Wizzair discount members only, but it's a sign up of €79.99 a year for up to six people).

And a Wizzair name change fee can be done online, up to three hours before flight departure time, for €45, so if you wanted to make a few quid (and, you know, don't have huge scruples about taking advantage of fans who have already been screwed around by UEFA's ridiculous scheduling), you could buy a dozen seats on that flight now (€1,564 including two Wizzair group member annual fees), make your way to Budapest for that last 16 game, find 12 fans after the match who don't have flights to Baku but want to go, and sell them your twelve seats for €300 a pop. Add on the €540 for the name changes (12 x €45) and you're down €2,100 but up €3,600. Easy money. Hell, even if you sold them for €200, you'd be up a few hundred quid.

The runners up in the Baku group also get to go back for a quarter final if they beat the runners up in Group B.  So they could play their opening game in Baku, travel to Rome, back to Baku on to Amsterdam and then back to Baku.  

The 3rd team in Group E (Dublin) could also end up in the Baku quarter final albeit after beating the Dutch in Budapest.  I might be giving you a call next June about one of those flights.