Euro 2016 draw results: Spain handed tricky Group D

If Spain want to challenge for the Euro 2016 title, they’ll have to actually improve from their qualifying and World Cup performances, rather than coasting through. Their group doesn’t have any spectacular teams, but three very good ones. Croatia, the Czech Republic and Turkey will all think they have a very good chance to finish top two.

Meet the teams:

The World Cup was a massive wake-up call for Spain. The core of players who made up the greatest international team in modern history had aged two years too many since Euro 2012, and they got blown out. Despite hints that he might retire, manager Vicente Del Bosque stayed on, and was tasked with blending Spain’s greatest ever players with the generation of young stars that dominated youth tournaments. They’ve yet to recapture their old form -- La Roja were outplayed by and lost to Slovakia once in qualifying -- but still finished top of their group and enter Euro 2016 as one of the favorites to win the competition.

Key player: Thiago Alcantara

Because of Spain’s depth in midfield and a terrible knee injury, Thiago has only played six times for his country. But he’s having his best season yet at Bayern Munich, and by the time the summer rolls around, he could become a key player -- especially with Cesc Fabregas in poor form and Santi Cazorla in a race to get fully fit in time for the tournament. Xavi Hernandez is irreplaceable, but Thiago is the player who has the best chance to come close.

For a team used to qualification, Croatia had a slightly nervous path to France: they comfortably outscored everybody else in Group H, but automatic qualification went to the very last round of fixtures, and while they beat Malta 1-0, they needed eventual group winners Italy to come from behind and beat Norway to finish one point ahead of the Scandinavians. Of course, things might have been slightly more comfortable had the Croats not been docked a point earlier in the campaign for a clearly-visible swastika burned into the pitch of the Poljud stadium.

Deeply sinister crowd trouble aside, Croatia are the usual blend of big, hard defenders and energetic playmaking midfielders with excellent hair. Ivan Rakitic and Luka Modric set aside their domestic differences to form a formidable midfield combination, Darijo Srna is still getting up and down the right flank at the age of 33, and even more incredibly, Ivica Olic, aged 36, has yet to run out of energy and picked up his 100th cap during qualification. We assume they’re all very, very sweaty. It’s not all grizzled old men, however. Over qualification Modric’s heir apparent Alen Halilovic, a mere stripling of 19 years, has been integrated into the squad.

Key player: Ivan Perisic

Going on reputation alone, this place should be taken by one of Modric or Rakitic, but Ivan Perisic gets the nod after outscoring both his more glamorous colleagues (and, indeed, everybody else in the group) over the course of qualification. Quick, skillful, and able to play either wide or central, he excelled for Wolfsburg in 2014-15 and has been a regular in Internazionale’s table-topping side this season.

It wasn’t that long ago that the prospect of facing Turkey at major tournaments sent shivers down the spines of the world’s very best sides -- and not just because of Rüştü Reçber’s war paint. They quite remarkably finished as the third-placed side at the 2002 World Cup, and reached the semifinals of the European Championships six years later.

However, that proved to be the end of their brush with international glory, as their appearance in France next summer will mark their return to the major tournament stage for the first time since 2008. It has been a rather miserable few years in the wilderness for Turkey, in which the story of young playmaker Gökhan Töre threatening teammates Hakan Çalhanoğlu and Ömer Toprak with a firearm was about as exciting as things got.

But slowly, coach Fatih Terim seems to be turning things round. The aforementioned Çalhanoğlu spearheads a new generation of talented players that have already picked up a handful of caps. It’s likely Turkey’s appearance at this tournament will be nothing more than a fleeting experience for these youngsters, who’d impress with anything more than a group stage exit.

Key player: Arda Turan

Barcelona’s Arda Turan hasn’t played domestic football since leaving Atlético Madrid in the summer, though decided to willingly forgo six months of his career in order that he’ll be able to play for the Catalan giants at the end of their transfer ban in January. Both Turan and Turkey as a whole will be hoping he sees more than enough football over the second half of the campaign to be match fit for the Euros, as the industrious midfielder, capable of playing both out wide and through the middle, is by far their most proven talent.

The Czech Republic have a mixed history at the European Championships. Crowned winners while playing as Czechoslovakia in 1976, things have been rather mixed since. The first tournament played under their new name was in England in 1996, where they finished as runners up to Germany; eight years later in Portugal they had to settle for third place. But at the last Euros, with their old stars fading, they progressed no further than the quarterfinals.

And so, no one quite knows what to expect from the Czechs in France. Recent squads have been a peculiar combination of aging veterans like captain Petr Čech and Tomáš Rosický, and talented youngsters drawn from the Czech domestic league. They’ll be hoping that from this young crop there will emerge more Karel Poborskýs and Pavel Nedvěds.

But for now, they seem to be a team in transition. They did manage to top their qualifying ground, though the Netherlands’ remarkable implosion made that a more routine task than it otherwise would have been. A good draw and they could make it through into the knockouts, but it’ll be difficult for the Czech Republic to go deep into this tournament.

Key player: Petr Čech

Captain Petr Čech undoubtedly remains the Czech Republic’s best player. By the time the tournament comes around he’ll be 34 years old, though for a goalkeeper that’s a sufficiently spritely age that a couple more appearances at major tournaments isn’t out of the realms of possibility. One thing’s for sure: the Czechs will want him to stick around for as long as he can. He’s still one of the top goalkeepers on the planet, and the race for his signature after he left Chelsea in the summer was indicative of the esteem in which he’s held.