Johan Djourou (Switzerland)

Position Defender

Club Hamburg

Date of birth 18 January 1987

The centre-back moved to Arsène Wenger’s Arsenal from second division club Etoile Carouge at the age of 16 in 2004. He played only 86 league games during 10 years at the north London club but was a respected member of the squad before joining Hamburg in 2014. There he has been mainly fighting relegation - as well as his team-mate Valon Behrami at half-time against Wolfsburg in April 2015. He was born in the Ivory Coast as a result of his father’s extra-marital affair in 1986. Back in Switzerland, Joachim Djourou told his Swiss wife, Danièle, what had happened. Daniéle, however, did not react how one might expect and Johan Djourou told Blick in 2014: “My mum in Switzerland did not have any kids at the time and, while she was disappointed with what my dad had done, she forgave him and did not hesitate to adopt me.”

Pedro (Spain)

Position Forward

Club Chelsea

Date of birth 28 July 1987

Strong, fast and tireless but not on a rich run of form. When he made his debut for CD Raqui in Tenerife, where his father worked on a petrol station forecourt, Pedro’s nickname was “mascot” because of his size. He arrived at Barcelona in 2004 and made his first-team breakthrough four years later. The sports centre where he played as a boy is now called Pedro Rodríguez, and at the Canary Islands zoo he used to visit there’s a sea lion named Pedrito in his honour. In 2014 Pedro celebrated Pedrito’s birthday by taking him a cake covered in fish. He told the press: “Pedrito’s doing well.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Pedro laughs during a training session in Schruns this week. Photograph: Pierre-Philippe Marcou/AFP/Getty Images

Owain Fon Williams (Wales)

Position Goalkeeper

Club Inverness Caledonian Thistle

Date of birth 17 March 1987

The guitarist who strums the tracks to sing along to at the team hotel and in his spare time sells his own oil paintings. Fon Williams, a brilliant artist, got £450 apiece for his first two works after they went on display at Cardiff’s Kooywood Gallery last year. From Gwynedd, in north-west Wales, Fon Williams was first called up to the Wales squad in 2009 and sat on the bench for 29 games across six years before Chris Coleman brought him on to a huge ovation with 16 minutes to go against Holland last November. Wales lost 3-2 but it was quite a moment to finally see Fon Williams in action, a reward for his commitment over the years.

Jan Vertonghen (Belgium)

Position Defender

Club Tottenham Hotspur

Date of birth 24 April 1987

His decision to choose Tottenham over Arsenal four years ago raised more than a few eyebrows but given recent events in north London, Vertonghen can feel pretty smug. Having grown up with Toby Alderweireld and Christian Eriksen at Ajax’s famed youth academy, the 29-year-old looked at home in Tottenham’s push for the Premier League title and will play a big role in Belgium’s campaign in France, even if it is as a left-back. Headmits to enjoying reading in his spare time rather than playing video games. Vertonghen won a lot of sympathy in October 2015 when his team-mates were turning up in their posh cars - Axel Witsel in a Cadillac, Kevin De Bruyne in a fancy SUV - and the Tottenham defender was dropped off by his mum in a nine-year-old Toyota Corolla. He was even given a goodbye kiss. The Corolla has a huge emotional significance for the family Vertonghen. It was the last car his parents bought before his dad passed away. Vertonghen doesn’t have a car in Belgium and always stays with his family when the national squad come together. In London he drives a Porsche.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jan Vertonghen speaks to the press as Belgium start their Euro 2016 preparations. Photograph: Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images

Dmitri Kombarov (Russia)

Position Defender

Club Spartak Moscow

Date of birth 22 January 1987

Kombarov was a first-choice pick under Fabio Capello at the World Cup but the current coach, Leonid Slutsky, prefers Yuri Zhirkov. He has an identical twin: Kirill, a right-sided defender, is a team-mate at Spartak Moscow but has never received a senior international call-up. Kirill became more famous than his Euro 2016-bound brother for a brief period in 2014 when he was criticised for hiring a muzzled bear to perform at his son’s second birthday party.

Julian Weigl (Germany)

Position Midfielder

Club Borussia Dortmund

Date of birth 8 September 1995

No one - apart from Thomas Tuchel perhaps - could have foreseen what an impact the talented midfielder would have in his first season as a Bundesliga player. Signed from second division 1860 Munich in the summer of 2015 he has played almost all of Dortmund’s games in 2015-16, becoming a leader in midfield at the age of 20. “He has taken a taxi into the limelight,” wrote Süddeutsche Zeitung in August 2015. One of the reasons he is so mature is that the controversial 1860 Munich manager Ricardo Moniz (it is still difficult to know whether he was a genius or mad, according to Süddeutsche) made him captain when he was 18. “He will become a man now,” said Moniz. A qualified retail salesman, Weigl did some of his qualification in the Borussia fan shop. “I nearly sold my own shirt,” he said.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Julian Weigl made his Germany debut in the pre-Euro 2016 friendly against Slovakia. Photograph: Patrik Stollarz/AFP/Getty Images

Yaroslav Rakitskiy (Ukraine)

Position Defender

Club Shakhtar Donetsk

Date of birth 3 August 1989

In May 2015 Olga Rakitskaya organised a concert, attended by her husband’s Shakhtar team-mates and their families. The evening’s main highlight was the video of her song, “Hello, my city” – a sentimental tune about a wish to return home to a city long departed. Darijo Srna’s pregnant wife even cried; the tragic tale surrounding Donetsk is well known and the Croatian right-back has became a genuine “Donchanin”. As for Yaroslav himself, many fans of the national team have been angered that he does not sing the national anthem before games. Olga explains: “Yaroslav is just so focused on the game. I sing for him, by the television set.” There is also another, very trivial, reason – Rakitskiy says he simply cannot sing unless, perhaps, he is drunk.

Darijo Srna (Croatia)

Position Defender

Club Shakhtar Donetsk

Date of birth 1 May 1982

The captain, with a record 129 caps, is slowing down but still effective. He has one tattoo of a footballing deer – ‘srna’ in Croatian – another in tribute to his older brother, Igor, who has Down’s syndrome, and recently donated 100 laptops to Ukrainian children affected by conflict. Career highlights include scoring a 30-yard free-kick against Australia in the 2006 World Cup game which featured Graham Poll’s three yellow-card blunder. Slaven Bilić said of Srna in 2012: “They bring him down and he seems broken, but then he gets up and carries on running. Like he’s Robocop.” In late 2014 Srna bought 20 tonnes of tangerines from the plantations near his home town of Metkovic. He paid to get them shipped to elementary schools in the war-torn Donbass region, where more than 23,000 kids received them along with special postcards bearing his picture.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Darijo Srna, left, heads the ball away during a game against Scotland. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Mehmet Topal (Turkey)

Position Defender

Club Fenerbahçe

Date of birth 3 March 1986

Topal is nicknamed “Spiderman” on account of the good use to which he puts his long legs to win the ball but perhaps his new moniker should be Superman. Few players have been unfortunate enough to have faced, and survived, two attempts on their life. Last April Topal was travelling in a Fenerbahce team bus that was attacked by gunmen on its way to Trabzon airport following their 5-1 win at Caykur Rizespor. Somehow only the driver of the bus, Ufuk Kiran, was injured and, had he not hit the brakes as quickly as he did, the entire squad and staff on board would have veered off a cliff on to the rocks below. Last summer Topal’s car was shot at while he drove home after training. The windows of his Mercedes G63 were strong enough to stop the bullet and saved his life.

Jordi Alba (Spain)

Position Defender

Caps 42

Goals 6

Club Barcelona

Date of birth 21 March 1989

A fundamental part of the side, tireless and relentless, providing a wide attacking outlet from the back. He was released from the Barcelona youth system in 2005 and moved from midfield into defence at Valencia. Barça re-signed him in 2012 for €14m, and he now has a €150m buyout clause. Fast, tetchy and confrontational on the pitch, off it he relaxes by playing chess (“it makes you think”), clothes-shopping, listening to flamenco music and sleeping “for 12 to 13 hours at night. Then I nap for two, three or four hours more. It’s one of the keys to my strength.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jordi Alba, right, during Spain training with David de Gea. Photograph: Pierre-Philippe Marcou/AFP/Getty Images

Aleksandar Dragović (Austria)

Position Defender

Club Dynamo Kyiv

Date of birth 6 March 1991

Still relatively young for a centre-back - 25 - the Austrian with Serbian parents is ready for a new challenge after three mainly successful years at Dynamo Kyiv. He has already earned more than 40 caps for his country and his coach, Marcel Koller, likes that he is comfortable with the ball at his feet and is very good at starting attacks from the back. Caught up in a media storm while at Basel for repeatedly tapping the Swiss sports minister Ueli Maurer on the head during celebrations after winning the Swiss Cup. For Dragović it was just a joke, but the Swiss tabloid press went after him and he was forced to apologise, despite Maurer saying he had not been offended.

John Guidetti (Sweden)

Position Forward

Caps 7

Goals 0

Club Celta Vigo

Date of birth 15 April 1992

Predicted a huge future in the game after joining Manchester City as a 15-year-old but he never made it at the Premier League club. He had an exceptional loan spell at Feyenoord in 2011-12. His career was revived by joining Celta Vigo in the summer of 2015. A hugely charismatic figure, the Swedish public fell in love with him during the Under-21 European Championship, when his leadership and tireless running (and goals) won the title. A joker in the dressing room, he was widely praised for going for a kick-about in a local park with an eight-year-old after the Champions League final in 2015. Also famous for his post-match interview after Sweden had beaten Denmark in the Under-21 Euros: “When you lose 4-1 it’s a bit embarrassing. We’re the best in the Nordics!” The eyes grow a little wild. “We’re going to play in the final! We’re Sweden! The rest can just go home! We were superior. Totally superior. This is the worst team we’ve met in the tournament.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest John Guidetti celebrates scoring against Denmark at the Under-21 European Championship in 2015. Photograph: Matej Divizna/Getty Images

Éder (Portugal)

Position Striker

Club Lille OSC

Date of birth 22 December 1987

The only out-and-out striker in the Portugal squad had a difficult upbringing. Éder was born in Guinea-Bissau but his parents moved to Portugal when he was young and struggled for money so from the age of eight he was living at a boarding college called Lar o Girassol. He was raised there, without his family, and played for the amateur club Ademia until he was 18. “It helped me to grow into the man that I have become and aided my football career. Of course, at times it was a little bit tough, which is normal, but I enjoyed it a lot,” he told the Swansea City website in 2015. “I met so many of my friends there, and it was good to have that life experience.”