The draw, which was held in Switzerland on Sunday, resulted in a tense Group C, also including Romania.

The Italy-France game is expected to be a crunch encounter, as the arch rivals have been in vicious enmity throughout the tournament's qualifiers.

Co-hosts Switzerland will face Czech Republic in the competition's opener on June 7th, with Turkey and Portugal concluding Group A.

Other co-hosts Austria will have to battle Croatia, Germany and Poland in Group B, while holders Greece will be tackled by Russia, Spain and Sweden in Group D.

Managers' Reaction

France coach Raymond Domenech, who seemed frustrated while watching the draw, blasted the seedings which put Italy away from the first pot.

"I have to say the way the seedings are worked out is madness. Not to have Italy, as the world champions, in the first pot is crazy," said Domenech.

"I would have also preferred to have played in Austria and not Switzerland because we would have been hassled less. I am not happy, nothing I wanted has worked out."

For Holland coach Marco Van Basten, the so-called Group of Death' challenge is not a new one.

"At the last World Cup we were already in the 'group of death'. I don't know what we're going to call this one. We're playing the finalists of the last World Cup so we'll have to make sure we're very well prepared," he said.

"I think everything went normally and legally in the draw so what can you say?"

Van Basten's former AC Milan teammate Roberto Donadoni, who is in charge of Italy, also bemoaned his team's luck.

"We didn't have an easy qualification group and we haven't been lucky here either. I had a gut feeling on the way here it would turn out like this, but you cannot change the rules and when you get to a final, every opponent is tough," he said.

"I spoke with Marco before the draw and told him I thought we were going to play each other and thats the way its worked out.

"We have to meet France again which is tough -- but every past match is history. We now look forward to the next game."

Finally, Romania coach Victor Piturca, who could be considered as the unluckiest of all with his team regarded as the group's underdogs, joked that it is 'very nice'.

"For us it's a very nice, easy group. We're up against the world champions, the World Cup runners-up and Holland, who we know are very good," he smiled.

"I hope it will be an extraordinary experience and why shouldn't we be one of the teams to make it through to the quarter-finals?"