UEFA Euro 1996

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. 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 (1–0) and Denmark (3–0). 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. The English progressed 4–2 on spot kicks. 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. 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 (although 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: 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 (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. ==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. ==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. ==Match officials==

Match officials are listed in the two collapsed tables below. ==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. 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 ---- ---- Group B ---- ---- Group C ---- ---- Group D ---- ---- ==Knockout stage==

The knockout stage was a single-elimination tournament with each round eliminating the losers. Any game that was undecided by the end of the regular 90 minutes, was followed by up to thirty minutes of extra time. For the first time in a major football competition, the golden goal system was applied, whereby the first team to score during the extra time would become the winner. If no goal was scored there would be a penalty shoot-out to determine the winner. For the first time the final was won by a golden goal. As with every tournament since UEFA Euro 1984, there was no third place play-off. All times are local, BST (UTC+1). Bracket Quarter-finals ---- ---- ---- Semi-finals ---- Final ==Statistics==

Goalscorers Awards ;Team of the Tournament ;UEFA Player of the Tournament • Matthias Sammer ==Marketing==

Slogan and theme songs The competition slogan was Football Comes Home reflecting that the sport's rules were first standardised in the United Kingdom. UEFA President Lennart Johansson had said that the organisation had felt it was time to bring the event "back to the motherland of football". Released as a single, the song topped the UK Singles Chart for a total of two weeks. It was promoted by a video featuring the England squad. "Three Lions" was the official song of the England team, and is the song most strongly connected with the tournament, however the official song of the tournament was "We're in This Together" by Simply Red. The song was performed at the tournament's opening ceremony. Merchandise and mascots The British Royal Mint issued a commemorative £2 coin in 1996, which featured a representation of a football, "1996" in the centre, and 16 small rings representing the 16 competing teams. Further special coins were only issued in the Isle of Man and Gibraltar. The official mascot, 'Goaliath', was designed in a similar fashion to the original World Cup mascot from the 1966 World Cup. Goaliath comprised a lion, the image on the English team crest, dressed in an England football strip and football boots whilst holding a football under his right arm. Sponsorship Video game A video game tie-in was developed by Gremlin Interactive for Windows, DOS, and the Sega Saturn. The Sega Saturn version was the subject of considerable media hype and was a major system-seller for the system in the United Kingdom. ==Controversies==

Terrorist attack A terrorist attack took place in Manchester on 15 June, one day before the group stage match between Germany and Russia was due to take place in the same city. The detonation of a van bomb in the city centre injured 212 people and caused an estimated £700 million worth of damage. Four days after the blast, the Provisional Irish Republican Army issued a statement in which it claimed responsibility, but regretted causing injury to civilians. The Manchester bombing was the first and so far only major terrorist attack in the host city of an ongoing UEFA European Championship. The scheduled match at Old Trafford on the day following the bombing went ahead as planned after the stadium had been heavily guarded overnight and carefully searched; the game, in which Germany defeated Russia 3–0, was watched by a near capacity crowd of 50,700. Empty seats The aggregate attendance of 1,276,000 and average attendance of 41,158 per game were the highest for the European Championship (in its 16-team format) until the 2012 tournament. The large number of empty seats in most of the games not involving England was blamed on a number of factors: a lack of travelling fans from most of the other nations concerned, a lack of interest among locals for games not involving England, kick-offs before 5:00pm that made it hard for children at school and adults at work to attend, steep ticket prices, and UEFA's policy of only selling tickets in blocks (where each block consisted of a set from each of three price bands). Disorder After England's defeat to Germany in the semi-finals, a large-scale riot took place in Trafalgar Square and the surrounding area. Further outbreaks of trouble occurred in the streets of several other towns. The police and German-made cars were targeted, with damage also caused to various other properties. A Russian student was stabbed in Brighton after attackers mistook him for being German. Despite this outbreak, the tournament overall was free of hooliganism, helping rehabilitate England's reputation after their fans' conduct during the previous decades. ==Notes==