The groups

Group A: England, Germany, Portugal, Romania Group B: Belgium, Italy, Sweden, Turkey Group C: Norway, Slovenia, Spain, Yugoslavia Group D: Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Netherlands. Sweden plays Belgium at Brussels in the opener. The final will be at Rotterdam. Group D is considered the toughest, including one of the hosts (the Netherlands), the World Cup champion (France), the 1992 European champion (Denmark) and a team that went 10-0 in qualifying (the Czechs).

England and Germany, also competing in next summer's vote on the host nation for the 2006 World Cup, play June 17 at Charleroi, Belgium. Of all the first-round games, this one will have the tightest security.

"We will prepare for the worst," said Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, who attended the draw.

The 16-nation tournament is being played in Belgium and the Netherlands from June 10 to July 2. Charleroi, about 30 miles south of Brussels, is an old mining center with high unemployment.

The top two teams in each group advance to the quarterfinals. Portugal and Romania also were drawn into Group A.

"I won't do handstands and say it's fantastic, but it's not the hardest group," England coach Kevin Keegan said. "It's a fair group. There was never going to be any easy ones. They are all going to be tough and we have got as tough a group as anybody."

In the 1996 European Championship semifinals, Germany beat England on penalty kicks following a scoreless tie at Wembley. England beat Germany 4-2 in the 1966 World Cup final at Wembley, but Germany won 3-2 four years later in the World Cup quarterfinals, then beat England on penalty kicks in the 1990 World Cup semifinals.

When the Germans won in 1990 and '96, they went on to win the titles.