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LONDON. — Europe is preparing for Uefa’s first full-blown “week of football” as the marathon Euro 2016 qualifying competition gets into full swing — although it promises to be a distinctly underwhelming experience.
Uefa has heralded the new setup as “great news for football fans” but there is risk that the six solid days of international football could end up making it like background music in a shopping centre, always being played somewhere but with nobody really paying much attention.

Albania, who kicked off with a 1-0 win in Portugal, will try to pull off two more surprises when they host Denmark and visit Serbia.

Portugal themselves will start life under new coach Fernando Santos, although he will not be on the touchline for Tuesday’s visit to Denmark as he starts an eight-game ban.

Santos, who led Greece to the round-of-16 at the World Cup, has replaced Paulo Bento, who left by mutual consent following the Albania debacle.

World champions Germany visit neighbours Poland on Saturday in arguably the top clash of the six days, while neighbours Romania and Hungary, who met in the World Cup qualifiers, do battle again in Bucharest on the same day.

Apart from that, there is precious little to get excited about in the 52 games which feature the usual mismatches, such as England-San Marino today, Belgium-Andorra tomorrow, Luxemburg-Spain on Sunday and Malta-Italy on Monday. Only one match, Bosnia-Belgium on Monday, features two teams who were both at the World Cup in Brazil.

International matches have traditionally been concentrated into one or two days per month, creating a certain sense of occasion and anticipation, although that has gradually diminished over the years due to the sheer quantity of games played. — Soccernet.