The European Championships

The European Championships were first held in 1960 and originally called the Uefa European Nations Cup, Uefa at first struggled to find 16 nations willing to compete, with no British Isles countries entering the first tournament.

The tournament became the European Football Championship in 1968, with eight groups of seeded teams who played each other twice; the top two from each group progressed to the two-legged quarter-finals. The semi-finals were held in the host country.

Until 1976 only four teams entered the final tournament. From 1980 eight teams competed and from 1996 sixteen teams played in the tournament.