What is the UEFA Euros?

Europe’s best national teams will compete in the UEFA Euros, a month-long 24-team tournament to be held in France this summer.

The UEFA European Championship, or the Euros, is a quadrennial soccer tournament contested by the best men’s national teams in, you guessed it, Europe. This year’s competition will be held in France, the third time the country has hosted.

Qualifying for Euro 2016 began all the way back in September 2014, when UEFA’s 53 member nations battled it out for a place in France this summer.

The tournament has adopted a slightly different format this year, as the field has been expanded from 16 teams to 24. The countries will be divided into six groups of four teams. The top two finishers in each group, plus the four best third-place sides, will qualify for the round of 16. From there, it will be a straight, single-game knockout competition.

The decision to expand the field — after five consecutive 16-team tournaments — has not been universally popular. Many pundits think the extra teams will simply water down the field and that the group stages will feel like an extended qualifying process. The presence of sides like Albania, Hungary, Iceland and Northern Ireland in the group stages certainly adds weight to this view.

Still, more teams means more games, and more bad teams means more potential surprises. Then again, someone’s going to have to sit through Hungary vs. Iceland, so maybe we should reserve judgment until after the tournament.

France are the favorites to win Euro 2016 at home, but they face stiff competition in Spain — who are aiming to win an unprecedented third consecutive Euros — and 2014 World Cup winners Germany. Italy, Belgium and England will also be hoping for deep runs.

Euro 2016 gets under way Friday as France take on Romania in the Stade de France in St. Denis.