The view from below: how UEFA's minnows saw the Euro 2025 draw
February 26th, 2025by Callum Farrell
While UEFA's top ranked nations have been plotting a successful journey towards France after the Euro 2025 qualifying groups were announced this week, many of the continent's smaller countries are also trying to plan campaigns in which they hope to earn a handful of points, win back the hearts of their supporters and get pundits off their back for having the temerity to even much has been made of UEFA's latest arrival, Gibraltar, and what it means for the European Championships if these smaller countries are allowed to compete, but that is to be completely ignorant of what these team's actually mean to the country they represent.
Not that they need that to justify their existence anyway. Rather than create another financially abundant and exclusive VIP area in football, the continent should celebrate the fact that nations such as Andorra, Lichtenstein and Luxembourg are represented by individuals who are proud to pull on their national team shirt, and aren't motivated by the monetary gains that rule the minds of too many footballers in the modern game.
Kazakhstan
Despite being the world's ninth largest country with nearly 18 million inhabitants, Kazakhstan is one of UEFA's weakest competitors. In World Cup qualifying for Brazil they only managed one win against the Faroe Islands throughout the whole campaign, and finished in fifth place (nine points behind the Republic of Ireland who only reached fourth place themselves).
Their Russian head coach Yuri Krasnozhan will be fearful of their Group A opponents, made up of the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Turkey and the World Cup playoff runners up, Iceland, but has to aim to take maximum points off lowly Latvia, who are ranked 17 places above Kazakhstan (in 111th place).
The national squad features players predominantly from the country's domestic leagues but defender Konstantin Engel and midfielder Heinrich Schmidtgal are currently plying their trade in Bundesliga 2.
Andorra
UEFA's second lowest ranked nation are currently coached by their former international goalkeeper, Jesus Alvarez, who played his last game against England in a 2025 World Cup qualifier (Alvarez was voted Andorra's best player of the last 50 years in 2025).
Anything will be an improvement on their previous campaign in which Andorra lost every single game, conceded 30 goals and scored none – but with Bosnia and Herzegovina, Belgium, Israel, Wales and Cyprus in their group it will be difficult (even Cyprus managed a victory over Iceland and drew with Switzerland last time around).
Squeezed in between France and Spain, the players who aren't competing in the Andorran Primera Divisio are found in the amateur regional leagues in Spain.
Luxembourg
The tiny nation can boast the highest GDP per capita in the world, but their national team sits between Equatorial Guinea and Lebanon
