UEFA Euro 1996

UEFA Euro 96
England '96
Tournament details
Host country	England
Dates	8–30 June
Teams	16
Venue(s)	8 (in 8 host cities)
Final positions
Champions	Germany (3rd title)
Runners-up	Czech Republic
Tournament statistics
Matches played	31
Goals scored	64 (2.06 per match)
Attendance	1,275,857 (41,157 per match)
Top scorer(s)	Alan Shearer (5 goals)
Best player(s)	Matthias Sammer
	← 1992 2000 →

Last updated March 27, 2024

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.

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.

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.^[3] All candidates had to submit their plans by 10 December 1991.^[4]

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.^[5] 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.^[5]

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.^[6] 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.^[7] 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 tie-breaking criteria.^[8]

Group B had Western European France and Spain, along with Balkan World Cup participants Romania and Bulgaria. France and Spain dominated the group,^[9]^[10] with France avenging Bulgaria for the 1994 qualification debacle,^[11] and World Cup quarter-finalists Romania going home,^[12] 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.^[13]^[14] 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.^[15] In Group D, Croatia qualified for the quarter-finals, with wins over Turkey (1–0) and Denmark (3–0).^[16] 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 (whose "Golden Generation" was competing at its first major tournament), 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.^[17] The English progressed 4–2 on spot kicks.^[18] France and Netherlands also played out a 0–0 draw, with France winning the penalty shootout 5–4.^[19] 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.^[20] Czech Republic progressed after beating Portugal 1–0.^[21]^[22]

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.^[23] 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.^[24]

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.^[25] 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.^[26] UEFA cited the increased number of international teams following the recent break up 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.^[27] Forty-seven teams ultimately entered to compete for the fifteen remaining places in the finals, alongside hosts England.^[28]

The draw for the qualifying competition took place in Manchester on 22 January 1994.^[29] 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 conclusion 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 were able to qualify for their first European Championship: Bulgaria, Switzerland, and Turkey. Croatia, the Czech Republic, and Russia competed for the first time in their own right since the dissolution of Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and the Soviet Union (though the Russian team is considered by FIFA to be the direct descendant of the Soviet Union and CIS teams that had appeared in six past tournaments and the Czech team is the descendant of the Czechoslovakia team). 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:

Team	Qualified as	Qualified on	Previous appearances in tournament^{[upper-alpha 1]}
England	Host	5 May 1992	4 (1968, 1980, 1988, 1992)
Spain	Group 2 winner	11 October 1995	4 ( 1964 , 1980, 1984, 1988)
Russia ^{[upper-alpha 2]}	Group 8 winner	11 October 1995	6 ( 1960 , 1964, 1968, 1972, 1988, 1992)
Switzerland	Group 3 winner	15 November 1995	0 (debut)
Croatia	Group 4 winner	15 November 1995	0 (debut)
Scotland	4th best runner-up	15 November 1995	1 (1992)
Bulgaria	2nd best runner-up	15 November 1995	0 (debut)
Germany ^{[upper-alpha 3]}	Group 7 winner	15 November 1995	6 ( 1972 , 1976, 1980 , 1984, 1988 , 1992)
Romania	Group 1 winner	15 November 1995	1 (1984)
Turkey	3rd best runner-up	15 November 1995	0 (debut)
Denmark	5th best runner-up	15 November 1995	4 (1964, 1984, 1988, 1992 )
Czech Republic ^{[upper-alpha 4]}	Group 5 winner	15 November 1995	3 (1960, 1976 , 1980)
Italy	1st best runner-up	15 November 1995	3 ( 1968 , 1980 , 1988)
France	6th best runner-up	15 November 1995	3 ( 1960 , 1984 , 1992)
Portugal	Group 6 winner	15 November 1995	1 (1984)
Netherlands	Play-off winner	13 December 1995	4 (1976, 1980, 1988 , 1992)

↑ Bold indicates champion for that year. Italic indicates host for that year.
↑ From 1960 to 1988, Russia competed as the Soviet Union, and in 1992 as CIS.
↑ From 1972 to 1988, Germany competed as West Germany.
↑ From 1960 to 1980, the Czech Republic competed as Czechoslovakia.

Final draw

The draw for the final tournament took place on 17 December 1995 at the International Convention Centre in Birmingham.^[30] Only four teams were seeded: England (as hosts), Denmark (as holders), Spain and Germany (as the two highest ranked teams). The remaining twelve teams were all unseeded and could be drawn in any group.^[30]

Pot 1: Seeded teams	Pot 2: Unseeded teams
England (hosts)^{[lower-alpha 1]}	Bulgaria	Italy	Russia
Denmark (holders)^{[lower-alpha 2]}	Croatia	Netherlands	Scotland
Germany	Czech Republic	Portugal	Switzerland
Spain	France	Romania	Turkey

Automatically selected as a top-seeded team into pot 1, irrespective of their ranking position.

↑ Hosts England were automatically assigned to group position A1.
↑ Defending champions Denmark were automatically assigned to Pot 1, and could be drawn into group position B1, C1 or D1.

Draw procedure:^[30]

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.
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.
Finally, the four top-seeded teams were drawn from the separate Pot 1 bowl, and placed consecutively into position 1 of each group bowl.
While it was decreed in advance ahead of the draw, that England's group would be Group A (irrespective of their drawn group label), the remaining three groups then consecutively had the three remaining letters (B, C and D) 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.^[30]

The draw resulted in the following groups:^[31]

Group A
Team
England
Switzerland
Netherlands
Scotland

Group B
Team
Spain
Bulgaria
Romania
France

Group C
Team
Germany
Czech Republic
Italy
Russia

Group D
Team
Denmark
Portugal
Turkey
Croatia

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.

London Manchester Liverpool Birmingham Leeds Sheffield Nottingham Newcastle		London	Manchester
		Wembley Stadium	Old Trafford
		Capacity: 76,567	Capacity: 55,000

		Liverpool	Birmingham
		Anfield	Villa Park
		Capacity: 42,730	Capacity: 40,310

Leeds	Sheffield	Nottingham	Newcastle
Elland Road	Hillsborough	City Ground	St James' Park
Capacity: 40,204	Capacity: 39,859	Capacity: 30,539	Capacity: 36,649

Squads

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

Finals format

To accommodate the expansion from an 8-team finals tournament to 16 teams, the format was changed from that used in 1992 with the addition of two extra groups in the group stage, and an extra round in the knockout phases. The four groups (A to D) still contained four teams each, with the top two from each group still going through to the knockout phase. 8 teams then went into the new quarter-finals, ahead of the usual semi-finals and final, with 8 teams going out at the group stage. The format is exactly the one which was applied to the 1958, 1962, 1966 and 1970 World Cups, except for the absence of a third place play-off.

Match ball

A custom version of the Adidas Questra, the Questra Europa, was the official match ball of the championships. The design of the ball included a reworking of the England badge, and was the first coloured ball in a major football tournament.^[32]

Match officials

Match officials are listed in the two collapsed tables below.

Country	Referee	Assistants		Fourth official	Matches refereed
Austria	Gerd Grabher	Egon Bereuter	Manfred Zeiszer	Günter Benkö	Netherlands 1–4 England
Belarus	Vadim Zhuk	Yuri Dupanov	Aleh Chykun	Kazimir Znaydinsky	France 1–1 Spain
Belgium	Guy Goethals	Marc Van den Broeck	Stany Op de Beeck	Michel Piraux	Italy 0–0 Germany
Bulgaria	Atanas Uzunov	Ivan Borissov Lekov	Iordan Iordanov	Stefan Ormandjiev	Switzerland 0–0 Netherlands
Czech Republic	Václav Krondl	Milan Brabec	Otakar Draštík	Jiří Ulrich	Scotland 1–0 Switzerland
Denmark	Peter Mikkelsen	Jens Larsen	Henning Knudsen	Knud Erik Fisker	Bulgaria 1–0 Romania
Denmark	Kim Milton Nielsen	Carl-Johan Christensen Meyer	Torben Siersen	Lars Gerner	Russia 0–3 Germany
England	David Elleray	Anthony Bates	Peter Walton	Stephen Lodge	Germany 2–0 Czech Republic
England	Dermot Gallagher	Phil Joslin	Mark Warren	Paul Durkin	France 3–1 Bulgaria
France	Marc Batta	Pierre Ufrasi	Jacques Mas	Alain Sars	Croatia 3–0 Denmark Spain 0–0 England (Quarter-final)
Germany	Bernd Heynemann	Hans Wolf	Harald Sather	Hartmut Strampe	Croatia 0–3 Portugal
Germany	Hellmut Krug	Klaus Plettenberg	Egbert Engler	Hermann Albrecht	Romania 0–1 France Czech Republic 1–0 Portugal
Hungary	Sándor Puhl	László Hamar	Imre Bozóky	Sándor Piller	Portugal 1–0 Turkey Germany 1–1 England (Semi-final)
Italy	Piero Ceccarini	Enrico Preziosi	Fabrizio Zanforlin	Alfredo Trentalange	Spain 1–1 Bulgaria
Italy	Pierluigi Pairetto	Donato Nicoletti	Tullio Manfredini	Marcello Nicchi	Scotland 0–2 England Czech Republic 1–2 Germany (Final)
Netherlands	Mario van der Ende	Jan Dolstra	Berend Talens	René Temmink	Denmark 1–1 Portugal
Russia	Nikolai Levnikov	Serguei Foursa	Sergei Frantsuzov	Sergei Khusainov	Turkey 0–3 Denmark
Scotland	Leslie Mottram	Robert Orr	John Fleming	Hugh Dallas	Italy 2–1 Russia France 0–0 Czech Republic (Semi-final)
Spain	Manuel Díaz Vega	Joaquín Olmos González	Fernando Tresaco Gracia	José María García-Aranda	England 1–1 Switzerland
Spain	Antonio López Nieto	Victoriano Giráldez Carrasco	Manuel López Fernández	Juan Ansuátegui Roca	Czech Republic 2–1 Italy France 0–0 Netherlands (Quarter-final)
Sweden	Anders Frisk	Mikael Nilsson	Sten Samuelsson	Morgan Norman	Russia 3–3 Czech Republic
Sweden	Leif Sundell	Kenneth Petersson	Mikael Hansson	Karl-Erik Nilsson	Netherlands 0–0 Scotland Germany 2–1 Croatia (Quarter-final)
Switzerland	Serge Muhmenthaler	Ernst Felder	Martin Freiburghaus	Urs Meier	Turkey 0–1 Croatia
Turkey	Ahmet Çakar	Akif Uğurdur	Turgay Güdü	Oğuz Sarvan	Romania 1–2 Spain

Group stage

The teams finishing in the top two positions in each of the four groups progress to the quarter-finals, while the bottom two teams in each group were eliminated from the tournament. For the first time at a European Championship three points were awarded for a win, with one for a draw and a none for a defeat.

All times are local, BST (UTC+1).

Tiebreakers

For the first time in the history of the European Championship, the position of teams tied on points was decided by their head-to-head record, and not goal difference.^[33] If two or more teams finished level on points after completion of the group matches, the following tie-breakers were used to determine the final ranking:

Higher number of points obtained in the matches played between the teams in question;
Superior goal difference resulting from the matches played between the teams in question (if more than two teams finish equal on points);
Higher number of goals scored in the matches played between the teams in question (if more than two teams finish equal on points);
If, after having applied criteria 1 to 3 to more than two teams, two teams still have an equal ranking, criteria 1 to 3 are reapplied exclusively to the matches between the two teams in question to determine the final rankings of the two teams. If this procedure does not lead to a decision, criteria 5 to 9 apply in the order given;
Superior goal difference in all group matches;
Higher number of goals scored in all group matches;
Position using UEFA's national team coefficient ranking system calculated using average points per game from: the Euro 1992 qualifying stage and final tournament, the 1994 World Cup qualifying stage and final tournament and the Euro 1996 qualifying stage.
Fair play conduct of the teams (final tournament);
Drawing of lots.

Group A

Pos	Team v t e	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	England (H)	3	2	1	0	7	2	+5	7	Advance to knockout stage
2	Netherlands	3	1	1	1	3	4	−1	4^{[lower-alpha 1]}	Advance to knockout stage
3	Scotland	3	1	1	1	1	2	−1	4^{[lower-alpha 1]}
4	Switzerland	3	0	1	2	1	4	−3	1

Source: UEFA
(H) Hosts
Notes:

1 2 Tied on head-to-head result (Netherlands 0–0 Scotland) and overall goal difference (−1). Overall goals for was used as the tiebreaker.

8 June 1996

15:00

England	1–1	Switzerland
Shearer 23'	Report	Türkyilmaz 83' (pen.)

Wembley Stadium, London

Attendance: 76,567

Referee: Manuel Díaz Vega (Spain)

10 June 1996