UEFA Euro 1996


The 1996 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as Euro 96, was the 10th UEFA European Championship, a quadrennial football tournament contested by European nations and organised by UEFA. It took place in England from 8 to 30 June 1996. It was the first European Championship to feature 16 finalists, following UEFA's decision to expand the tournament from eight teams.
Matches were staged in eight cities and, although not all games were sold out, the tournament holds the European Championship's second-highest aggregate attendance and average per game for the 16-team format, surpassed only in 2012.
The tournament was the first European Championship where three points were awarded for a win during the qualification and finals group stages, as opposed to the old system of two points for a win, reflecting the growing use of this system in domestic leagues throughout the world during the previous decade.
Germany won the tournament, beating the Czech Republic 2–1 in the final with a golden goal from Oliver Bierhoff during extra time; this was the first major competition to be decided using this method. This was also Germany's first major title won as a unified nation, adding to the two European Championship titles won by West Germany prior to reunification. It's the most recent men's Euros that a non-Iberian or Mediterranean team won.

Bid process

At the time of the bidding process, it had not yet been confirmed that 16 teams would be participating. Instead, the bids were largely prepared as if hosting an eight-team tournament, meaning only four venues were due to be required. All candidates had to submit their plans by 10 December 1991.
The hosting of the event was contested by five bids: Austria, England, Greece, the Netherlands and Portugal. The English bid was selected by the UEFA Executive Committee at a meeting in Lisbon on 5 May 1992. In the year preceding the decision, the English FA had dropped plans to also bid for the 1998 World Cup in order to gain the support of other UEFA members who were planning to bid for that event.

Summary

Group matches

The hosts, England, drew 1–1 with Switzerland in the opening match of Group A when Alan Shearer's 23rd-minute goal was cancelled out by a late Kubilay Türkyilmaz penalty kick. England defeated rivals Scotland 2–0 in their next game, and then produced one of their finest performances ever with a 4–1 win over the Netherlands. Patrick Kluivert's late goal for the Netherlands secured his team second place in the group and ensured that Scotland would exit another major competition on goals scored.
File:Scotland-holland euro 96.jpg|thumb|left|A Group A game between Scotland and the Netherlands at Villa Park
Group B had Western European France and Spain, along with Balkan World Cup participants Romania and Bulgaria. France and Spain dominated the group, with France avenging Bulgaria for the 1994 qualification debacle, and World Cup quarter-finalists Romania going home, with no points and only one goal scored.
Groups C and D saw the Czech Republic and Croatia, whose national teams had only recently come into existence, qualify for the knockout stage. The Czechs lost to Germany, the eventual group winners, in their opener, but then defeated Italy and drew with Russia. Italy's defeat meant they had to beat Germany in their final game to progress, but the World Cup finalists could only manage a 0–0 draw and were eliminated. In Group D, Croatia qualified for the quarter-finals, with wins over Turkey and Denmark. The loss to the Croats ultimately sent the Danes, the surprise champions of 1992, home. Turkey became the first team since the introduction of a group stage to be eliminated without gaining a point or scoring a goal.
The other three quarter-finalists were Portugal, Spain, and a France team featuring a young Zinedine Zidane.

Quarter-finals and semi-finals

The knockout stage was characterised by negative, defensive play; as a result, only nine goals were scored in the seven games and four of the matches were decided on penalties. The first quarter-final between the hosts and Spain ended goalless, after Spain had two goals disallowed and two claims for a penalty denied. The English progressed 4–2 on spot kicks. France and Netherlands also played out a 0–0 draw, with France winning the penalty shootout 5–4. Jürgen Klinsmann opened the scoring for Germany in their match against Croatia. A goal from Davor Šuker evened the score after 51 minutes, before Matthias Sammer of Germany scored eight minutes later, and the game ended 2–1 to Germany. Czech Republic progressed after beating Portugal 1–0.
File:Wembley Twin Towers.jpg|thumb|The view of Wembley Stadium from Wembley Way before the semi-final between Germany and England
The first semi-final, featuring France and Czech Republic, resulted in another 0–0 draw and penalties. Reynald Pedros was the one player to miss in the shootout, as Czech Republic won the penalty shoot-out 6–5. The other semi-final was a repeat of the 1990 World Cup semi-final between Germany and England. Alan Shearer headed in after three minutes to give his side the lead, but Stefan Kuntz evened the score less than 15 minutes later, and the score remained 1–1 after 90 minutes. In extra time, Paul Gascoigne came very close to scoring a golden goal, but fractionally missed a cross from Shearer in front of the empty goal, Darren Anderton hit the post, and Kuntz had a goal disallowed for pushing. Neither team was able to find a second goal. In penalties, both sides scored their first five kicks, but in the sixth round, Gareth Southgate had his penalty saved, allowing Andreas Möller to score the winning goal.

Final match

The final saw the Czech Republic hoping to repeat Euro 1976 when Czechoslovakia defeated West Germany; the Germans were aiming to win their third European Championship. Patrik Berger scored from a penalty in 59th minute to put the Czechs ahead. German substitute Oliver Bierhoff scored in the 73rd minute to make it 1–1. Five minutes into extra time, Bierhoff's shot was mishandled by Czech goalkeeper Kouba and the ball ended up in the back of the net for the first golden goal in the history of the competition. Germany were European champions again, but for the first time as a unified country.

Qualification

On 30 November 1992, UEFA formally decided to expand the tournament to sixteen teams. UEFA cited the increased number of international teams following the dissolution of the Soviet Union and of Yugoslavia – rising from 33 UEFA members in 1988 to 48 by 1994 – as a driving factor behind the expansion. 47 teams eventually entered to compete for the fifteen remaining places in the finals, alongside hosts England.
The draw for the qualifying competition took place in Manchester on 22 January 1994. The teams were divided into eight groups, each containing either six or five teams. The qualifying process began in April 1994 and concluded in December 1995. At the end of the qualifying group stage in November 1995, the eight group winners qualified automatically, along with the six highest-ranked second-placed teams. The remaining two second-placed teams, the Netherlands and the Republic of Ireland, contested a one-off play-off match in England to decide the final qualifier.

Qualified teams

With the extended format, three teams qualified for their first European Championship: Bulgaria, Switzerland, and Turkey. Croatia, the Czech Republic, and Russia competed independently for the first time since the dissolution of Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and the Soviet Union respectively. Seven of the eight participants at the previous tournament in 1992 were again present, with only Sweden – despite also having finished third in the World Cup two years earlier – missing out. Italy and Spain qualified after missing out Euro 1992 and Romania and Portugal after 12 years.
The following sixteen teams qualified for the finals:

Final draw

The draw for the final tournament took place on 17 December 1995 at the International Convention Centre in Birmingham. Only four teams were seeded: England, Denmark, Spain and Germany. The remaining twelve teams were all unseeded and could be drawn in any group.
Draw procedure:
  1. The unseeded teams were first drawn one by one without being revealed from Pot 2, and placed consecutively into four group bowls labelled I to IV. The teams drawn first, fifth and ninth were put into the Group I bowl; second, sixth and tenth were put into the Group II bowl; third, seventh and eleventh were put into the Group III bowl; and fourth, eighth and twelfth were put into the Group IV bowl.
  2. The team drawn first from each group bowl was placed into position 4 in their group; the team drawn second in position 3; and the team drawn third in position 2.
  3. Finally, the four top-seeded teams were drawn from the separate Pot 1 bowl, and placed consecutively into position 1 of each group bowl.
  4. Although it was decreed in advance ahead of the draw, that England's group would be Group A, the remaining three groups then consecutively had the three remaining letters drawn from yet another bowl to decide the letter name of their group, which also determined what venues they would play at.
The balls were drawn by UEFA figures Gerhard Aigner and Lennart Johansson.
The draw resulted in the following groups:

Venues

Since the implementation of the Taylor Report in 1990, following the 1989 Hillsborough stadium disaster, England now had enough all-seater stadia of sufficient capacity to hold an expanded tournament due to the necessary stadium refurbishment by its leading clubs. The stadium capacities listed in the table are for the time of the tournament.

Squads

Each national team had to submit a squad of 22 players, three of whom must be goalkeepers.