UEFA Euro 2012 not improve; however, in the end, UEFA affirmed their selection. The draw for the UEFA Euro 2012 qualifying competition took place in Warsaw on 7 February 2010. Fifty-one teams entered to compete for the fourteen remaining places in the finals, alongside co-hosts Poland and Ukraine. The teams were divided into nine groups, with the draw using the new UEFA national team coefficient for the first time in order to determine the seedings. As defending champions, Spain was automatically top seeded. The qualifying process began in August 2010 and concluded in November 2011. At the conclusion of the qualifying group stage
UEFA Euro 2012 statistics 2012 qualifying was required to serve the balance of any suspension unserved by the end of qualifying either in the Euro 2012 finals (for any player on a team that qualified, whether he was selected to the final squad or not) or in World Cup qualifying (for players on teams that did not qualify). Any player receiving a single yellow card during two of the three group stage matches and the quarter-final match was suspended for the following match. A single yellow card did not carry over to the semi-finals. This meant that no player could have been suspended for