Türkiye launches Euro 2024 bid in Armenia

Turkish national football team begins its quest for a place in the 2024 European Championships in an away game against Armenia on March 25 in Yerevan.

The game may add to recent diplomatic efforts for reconciliation between the two neighboring countries.

On the pitch, it looks set to be a tricky group for Türkiye to advance from, as Croatia is a major competition regular and Wales has reached three of the last four major tournaments.

With those two nations facing off in Split on the same night, Türkiye must make a fast start with one or potentially both of the sides guaranteed to drop points on opening night.

Türkiye cruised to promotion in the Nations League after remarkably finding itself down in League C, but the team completely took its eye off the ball, drawing at home to Luxembourg and losing in the Faroe Islands after promotion was secured.

They are the only two blips in Türkiye's last eight matches since it lost to Portugal in a World Cup playoff, winning its other six matches since.

Türkiye and Armenia were drawn together in qualifying for the 2010 World Cup, with Türkiye winning both games home and away 2-0.
The match comes at a time when the tense relations between the two neighbors thaw.

Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan paid a visit to Türkiye on Feb. 15 and held talks with Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu in the Turkish capital Ankara to express his country's solidarity with Türkiye in the wake of the Feb. 6 deadly earthquakes, which claimed more than 50,000 lives.

Mirzoyan also visited Adıyaman, one of the quake-hit provinces where the Armenian teams were delivering humanitarian aid.

"Armenia has offered a hand of friendship and solidarity in our difficult time," Çavuşoğlu...