The2000 UEFA European Football Championship, also known asEuro 2000, was the 11thUEFA European Championship, afootball tournament held every four years and organised byUEFA, the sport's governing body in Europe.[1]
The finals tournament was played between 10 June and 2 July 2000, and co-hosted by Belgium and the Netherlands, the first time the tournament had been held in more than one nation. Spain and Austria also bid to host the event.[2] The finals tournament was contested by 16 nations; with the exception of the hosts,Belgium and theNetherlands, the finalists had to go through a qualifying tournament to reach the final stage.France won the tournament by defeating Italy 2–1 inthe final, via agolden goal.[3]Germany were defending champions but were eliminated in the Group Stage.
A high-scoring championship with many exciting matches and an elite standard of play, Euro 2000 is often labelled by football writers as one of the greatest international tournaments of all time.[4][5][6][7]
Football hooliganism was a significant problem in the Netherlands in the 1990s, especially thefierce rivalry betweenAjax andFeyenoord. There were concerns that hooliganism would overshadow the finals. Many instances of violence occurred, including several football riots inRotterdam between 1995 and1999, which would host the Euro 2000 final. One of the most infamous incidents was theBattle of Beverwijk in 1997. Although the violence is normally associated with domestic clubs, there were concerns that it could attach to the Dutch national team.[10][11]
Violence did eventually occur during the Euro 2000 finals, albeit not involving the Dutch team. On 17 June, 174 England fans were arrested in Brussels, Belgium, following violence with Germans andlocal Turkish groups ahead of an England v Germany match.[12]
One of the biggest surprises of the tournament was Portugal, winning Group A with three wins, including a 3–0 victory against Germany, withSérgio Conceição scoring a hat-trick,[13] and a 3–2 victory against England, in which they came back from 2–0 down.[14] Romania was the other qualifier from the group, beating England with a late penalty in their last group game.[15]
Belgium had a surprise exit in the group stage, winning the tournament's first game against Sweden,[16] but losing to Turkey and Italy.[17][18] They finished third in Group B, behind Italy and Turkey. The other co-host and favourite, theNetherlands, progressed as expected from Group D, along with World Cup winners France. The Netherlands won the group, by beating France in their last group match.[19] Also in Group D, Denmark's three losses with eight goals conceded and none scored set a new record for the worst team performance in the group stages of a Euros. Group C was memorable for the match between FR Yugoslavia and Spain. Spain needed a win to ensure progression, but found themselves trailing 3–2 afterSlobodan Komljenović scored in the 75th minute. The Spanish side rescued their tournament by scoring twice in injury time to record a 4–3 victory.[20] FR Yugoslavia managed to go through as well, despite losing because Norway and Slovenia played to a draw.[21]
France and Italy before the final on 2 July
Italy and Portugal maintained their perfect records in the quarter-finals, beating Romania and Turkey, respectively, and the Netherlands started a goal-avalanche against FR Yugoslavia, winning 6–1. Spain fell 2–1 to France; Raúl missed a late penalty that ended Spanish hopes.
Italy eliminated the Netherlands in the semi-finals, despite going down to ten men and facing twopenalty kicks. Italian goalkeeperFrancesco Toldo, who had been drafted into the starting XI asGianluigi Buffon missed the tournament through injury, made two saves in the penalty shootout – apart from his penalty save in normal time – to carry the Italians to the final.
In the other semi-final, Portugal lost in extra time to France afterZinedine Zidane converted a controversial penalty kick. Several Portuguese players challenged the awarding of the penalty for a handball and were given lengthy suspensions for shoving the referee.[22] France won the tournament, defeating Italy 2–1 in the final with a golden goal byDavid Trezeguet after equalising with a last-minute goal, and became the first team to win the European championship while being world champion.[23][24]
Qualification for the tournament took place throughout 1998 and 1999. Forty-nine teams were divided into nine groups and each played the others in their group, on a home-and-away basis. The winner of each group and the best runner-up qualified automatically for the final tournament. The eight other runners-up played an additional set of play-off matches to determine the last four qualifiers.Belgium andthe Netherlands automatically qualified for the tournament as co-hosts. Notably, this was the only European Championship Belgium appeared in between 1984 and 2016.
As of2024, this was the only timeNorway qualified for the European Championship finals, the last time they qualified for a major tournament until the2026 FIFA World Cup as well as the only time thatCroatia failed to qualify for the European Championship finals since gaining independence.
The finals draw took place 15:00CET on 12 December 1999, at theBrussels Expo in Belgium; and was streamed live on UEFA's official website.[26]
The composition of pots 1 to 4 was based on the teams'UEFA national team coefficient ranking at the end of 1999,[27] with the exception of pot 1 automatically top seeding Germany as holders along with co-hosts Belgium and Netherlands.[28][29][26]
Automatically selected as a top-seeded team into pot 1, irrespectively of their ranking position.
^Defending champions Germany (coefficient 2.278; rank 7th) were automatically assigned to position A1.
^Co-hosts Belgium (coefficient 2.375; rank 5th) were automatically assigned to position B1.
^Co-hosts Netherlands (coefficient 2.250; rank 8th) were automatically assigned to position D1.
^Highest ranked Spain (coefficient 2.611; rank 1st) were automatically assigned to position C1.
Prior to the draw, the seeded teams in Pot 1 were assigned positions: Germany (defending champion) to A1, Belgium (co-host) to B1, Spain (highest coefficient) to C1, and the Netherlands (co-host) to D1. Teams were drawn consecutively from Pots 2 to 4 into a group, with each team then being assigned a specific position (for the purposes of determining the match schedules in each group).[26]
The draw resulted in the following groups:[30][31]
On 15 February 2000,UEFA appointed 12 referees, 16 assistant referees and four fourth officials for the competition, including a referee and an assistant referee from theConfederation of African Football.[53] The event saw assistant referees being allowed to intervene an ongoing game, in particular to help the match official apply the 10-metre rule when deciding free-kicks – as well as warn the referee instantly if he had booked or ejected the wrong player, something that was not possible in previous tournaments.[54] Also, fourth officials were given a larger role in assisting to take command of the match if any decisions are gone unnoticed by the referee or an assistant referee.[54]
The German refereeMarkus Merk was selected to referee the opening game between Belgium and Sweden.[55]
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.
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:[56]
greater number of points in the matches between the teams in question;
greater goal difference in matches between the teams in question;
greater number of goals scored in matches between the teams in question;
greater goal difference in all group games;
greater number of goals scored in all group games;
higher coefficient derived from Euro 2000 and 1998 World Cup qualifiers (points obtained divided by number of matches played);
The knockout stage was asingle-elimination tournament with each round eliminating the losers.[56] Any game that was undecided by the end of the regular 90 minutes, was followed by up to thirty minutes ofextra time.[56] For the second time thegolden goal system was applied, whereby the first team to score during the extra time would become the winner.[56] If no goal was scored there would be apenalty shoot-out to determine the winner.[56] For the second time the final was won by a golden goal.[56]
A sum ofCHF120 million was awarded to the 16 qualified teams in the competition.[60][61] France, the winners of the tournament, received a total prize money of CHF14.4 million.[60] Below is a complete list of the allocations:[61]
Extra payment based on teams performances:
Winner: CHF14.4 million
Runner-up: CHF13.2 million
Semi-finals: CHF10.2 million
Quarter-finals: CHF7.8 million
Group stage:
Third place: CHF5.4 million
Fourth place: CHF4.8 million
On 9 July 2000, UEFA refused to handFR Yugoslavia their prize money of CHF7.8 million, because of alleged ties between theFootball Association of FR Yugoslavia andSlobodan Milošević's government.[62] However, no connections were found and the Football Association of FR Yugoslavia later received their money with an additional bonus.[63]
The official mascot for the tournament wasBenelucky[69] (a pun onBenelux), a lion-devil hybrid with its mane having the flag colours of both host nations. The lion is the national football emblem of the Netherlands and a devil is the emblem of Belgium (the team being nicknamed "the Red Devils").[70]
