THE EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIP

The European Championship may have started later than many other continental championships around the world, but is now unquestionably one of the most important international sporting events. Contested every four years in between World Cups, it currently features 16 qualifies but this will be increased to 24 in the future. This page gives an overview of past and future tournaments. Third place matches were only played up to 1980, for later tournaments both losing semi-finalists are listed. For more detailed statistics please see the European Championship Statistics page.

Year	Hosts	Winners	Runners-Up	Third Place
1960	France	U.S.S.R.	Yugoslavia	Czechoslovakia
1964	Spain	Spain	U.S.S.R.	Hungary
1968	Italy	Italy	Yugoslavia	England
1972	Belgium	West Germany	U.S.S.R.	Belgium
1976	Yugoslavia	Czechoslovakia	West Germany	Netherlands
1980	Italy	West Germany	Belgium	Czechoslovakia
1984	France	France	Spain	DEN / POR
1988	West Germany	Netherlands	U.S.S.R.	ITA / FRG
1992	Sweden	Denmark	Germany	NED / SWE
1996	England	Germany	Czech Republic	ENG / FRA
2000	BEL/NED	France	Italy	NED / POR
2004	Portugal	Greece	Portugal	CZE / NED
2008	AUT/SUI	Spain	Germany	RUS / TUR
2012	POL/UKR	n/a	n/a	n/a