The1992 UEFA European Football Championship was hosted by Sweden between 10 and 26 June 1992. It was the ninthUEFA European Championship, which is held every four years and supported byUEFA.
It was the last tournament with only eight participants, to award the winner of a match with only two points, and before the introduction of theback-pass rule, the latter of which was brought in immediately after the tournament was completed. When the next competition was held in1996, 16 teams were involved and were awardedthree points for a win.
On 16 December 1988, following a decision made by the UEFA Executive Committee, Sweden was chosen over Spain to host the event.[2] Spain was at a disadvantage as they had already been chosen to host theEXPO 1992 inSeville and the1992 Summer Olympics inBarcelona.[2][3]
Scotland and the hostsSweden made their respective debuts despite having already made many appearances at theWorld Cup.France qualified for the first Euro in which they were not the hosts. They played after missing theprevious tournament.
The draw for the final tournament took place on 17 January 1992 inGothenburg. Only two teams were seeded: Sweden (as hosts) and the Netherlands (as holders).[10][11] The remaining six teams were all unseeded and could be drawn in any group. Months after the draw, Yugoslavia was banned from participating and replaced by Denmark, which had come second in the qualifying group.
In the draw procedure, the unseeded teams were drawn one by one. The first two were placed in position 4 of each group, the next two in position 3, and the last two in position 2. The two seeded teams were then drawn and placed consecutively into position 1 of the groups.
^Hosts Sweden were automatically assigned to position A1.
^Defending champions the Netherlands were automatically assigned to position B1.
^Yugoslavia were to participate in the final tournament asFR Yugoslavia. However, theFederal Republic of Yugoslavia was placed under sanctions on 30 May 1992 by theUnited Nations Security Council Resolution 757 after the outbreak ofYugoslav Wars.[9] FIFA and UEFA therefore suspended FR Yugoslavia from competitive football on 31 May 1992, meaning they could not participate in the final tournament. Denmark instead took the spot at the final tournament.
Results.Yugoslavia (stripes) qualified and were going to participate asFR Yugoslavia, but banned and replaced by Denmark.CIS (yellow on the right side of the map) qualified asSoviet Union.
The teams finishing in the top two positions in each of the two groups progress to the semi-finals, while the bottom two teams in each group were eliminated from the tournament.
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:
Goal difference in all group matches
Greater number of goals scored in all group matches
It was the last tournament to use the UEFA plus flag logo, and before the tournament was known as "Euro" (it is known as "Euro 1992" only retrospectively). It was also the first major football competition in which the players had their names printed on their backs, around the time that it was becoming a trend in club football across Europe.
The official mascot of the competition was arabbit coincidentally named Rabbit, dressed in a Swedish football jersey, as well as head and wristbands.[22]
