UEFA Euro 2000

UEFA Europees Voetbalkampioenschap België/Nederland 2000 (Dutch) UEFA Championnat Européen du Football Belgique/Pays Bas 2000 (French) UEFA Fußball-Europameisterschaft Belgien/Niederlande 2000 (German)
120px UEFA Euro 2000 official logo
Tournament details
Host countries	Belgium  Netherlands
Dates	10 June – 2 July
Teams	16
Venue(s)	8 (in 8 host cities)
Final positions
Champions	France (2nd title)
Runners-up	Italy
Tournament statistics
Matches played	31
Goals scored	85 (2.74 per match)
Attendance	1,122,833 (36,220 per match)
Top scorer(s)	Patrick Kluivert Savo Milošević (5 goals)
Best player	Zinedine Zidane
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The 2000 UEFA European Football Championship, or Euro 2000, was the 11th UEFA European Football Championship, which is held every four years and organized by UEFA, association football's governing body in Europe.

The finals of Euro 2000 were co-hosted (the first time this happened) by Belgium and the Netherlands between 10 June and 2 July 2000. Spain and Austria also bid to host the event.^[1] The final tournament was contested by 16 nations. With the exception of the national teams of the hosts, Belgium and the Netherlands, the finalists had to go through a qualifying round to reach the final stage. France won the tournament, by defeating Italy 2–1 in the final, via a golden goal.

The final saw the first major UEFA competition contested in the King Baudouin Stadium (formerly the Heysel Stadium) since events of the 1985 European Cup Final and Heysel Stadium disaster, with the opening game being played in the rebuilt stadium.

Overview [link]

The French and Italian teams preceding the final match on 2 July 2000.

Italian players Alessandro Del Piero and Francesco Totti during the finals in De Kuip.

One of the biggest surprises of the tournament was Portugal, winning Group A with three wins, including a 3–0 win against Germany, with Sérgio Conceição scoring a hat-trick,^[2] and a 3–2 win over England, in which they came back from 2–0 down.^[3] Romania was the other qualifier from the group, beating England with a late penalty in their last group game.^[4]

Belgium had a surprise exit in the group stage, winning the tournament's first game against Sweden,^[5] but losing to Turkey and Italy.^[6][7] They finished third in Group B, behind Italy and Turkey. The other co-host and favourite, the Netherlands, 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.^[8] Group C was memorable for the match between Yugoslavia and Spain. Spain needed a win to ensure progression, but found themselves trailing 3–2, after Slobodan Komljenović scored in the 75th minute. The Spanish side rescued their tournament by scoring twice in injury time to record a 4–3 victory.^[9] Yugoslavia managed to go through as well, despite losing because Norway and Slovenia played to a draw.^[10]

Italy and Portugal maintained their perfect records in the quarter-finals, beating Romania and Turkey, respectively, and the Netherlands started a goal-avalanche against Yugoslavia, winning 6–1. Spain fell 2–1 to France; Raul missed a late penalty that ended Spanish hopes.

Italy eliminated the Netherlands in the semi-finals, despite going down to ten men and facing two penalty kicks. Italian goalkeeper Francesco Toldo, who had been drafted into the starting XI as Gianluigi Buffon missed the tournament through injury, made two saves in the penalty shootout (in addition to 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 after Zinedine 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.^[11] France won the tournament, defeating Italy 2–1 in the final with a golden goal by David Trezeguet after equalising with a last-minute goal, and became the first team to win the European championship while being world champion.

In Britain, Match of the Day named Stefano Fiore's goal against Belgium the Goal of the Tournament, ahead of Patrick Kluivert's against France and Zinedine Zidane's against Spain.^[12]

Qualification [link]

UEFA Euro 2000 finalists.

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 playoff matches to determine the last four qualifiers. Belgium and the Netherlands automatically qualified for the tournament as co-hosts.

The following 16 teams participated in the tournament:

Venues [link]

Rotterdam	Amsterdam	Brussels	Bruges
Feijenoord Stadion Capacity: 48,500	Amsterdam ArenA Capacity: 51,500	King Baudouin Stadium Capacity: 48,500	Jan Breydel Stadium Capacity: 28,500
Eindhoven	Arnhem	Liège	Charleroi
Philips Stadion Capacity: 32,000	Gelredome Capacity: 28,500	Stade Maurice Dufrasne Capacity: 29,000	Stade du Pays de Charleroi Capacity: 28,000

Note: Capacity figures are those for matches at UEFA Euro 2000 and are not necessarily the total capacity that the stadium is capable of holding.

Mascot [link]

The official mascot for the tournament was Benelucky (a pun on Benelux), a lion-devil with its hair colour being a combination of 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".

Match officials [link]

Referees	Assistant referees	Fourth officials
Günter Benkö	Yury Dupanov	Michel Piraux
Kim Milton Nielsen	Roland Van Nylen	Kyros Vassaras
Gamal Al-Ghandour	Ivan Lekov	Terje Hauge
Graham Poll	Jens Larsen	Ľuboš Micheľ
Gilles Veissière	Philip Sharp
Markus Merk	Jacques Poudevigne
Pierluigi Collina	Kurt Ertl
Dick Jol	Sergio Zuccolini
Vítor Melo Pereira	Dramane Dante
Hugh Dallas	Emanuel Zammit
José García Aranda	Jaap Pool
Anders Frisk	Eddie Foley
Urs Meier	Nicolae Grigorescu
	Igor Sramka
	Carlos Martín Nieto
	Leif Lindberg
	Turgay Güdü

Squads [link]

Seeding [link]

The composition of Pots 1 to 3 was based on the teams' UEFA coefficient at the end of 1999.

Results [link]

Nationale Nederlanden building in Rotterdam with "breakthrough" featuring Edgar Davids.

All times local (CEST/UTC+2)

Group stage [link]

Group A [link]

Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
Portugal	3	3	0	0	7	2	+5	9
Romania	3	1	1	1	4	4	0	4
England	3	1	0	2	5	6	−1	3
Germany	3	0	1	2	1	5	−4	1

12 June 2000
Germany	1 – 1	Romania
Portugal	3 – 2	England
17 June 2000
Romania	0 – 1	Portugal
England	1 – 0	Germany
20 June 2000
England	2 – 3	Romania
Portugal	3 – 0	Germany

Group B [link]

Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
Italy	3	3	0	0	6	2	+4	9
Turkey	3	1	1	1	3	2	+1	4
Belgium	3	1	0	2	2	5	−3	3
Sweden	3	0	1	2	2	4	−2	1

10 June 2000
Belgium	2 – 1	Sweden
11 June 2000
Turkey	1 – 2	Italy
14 June 2000
Italy	2 – 0	Belgium
15 June 2000
Sweden	0 – 0	Turkey
19 June 2000
Turkey	2 – 0	Belgium
Italy	2 – 1	Sweden

Group C [link]

Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
Spain	3	2	0	1	6	5	+1	6
Yugoslavia	3	1	1	1	7	7	0	4
Norway	3	1	1	1	1	1	0	4
Slovenia	3	0	2	1	4	5	−1	2

13 June 2000
Spain	0 – 1	Norway
Yugoslavia	3 – 3	Slovenia
18 June 2000
Slovenia	1 – 2	Spain
Norway	0 – 1	Yugoslavia
21 June 2000
Yugoslavia	3 – 4	Spain
Slovenia	0 – 0	Norway

Group D [link]

Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
Netherlands	3	3	0	0	7	2	+5	9
France	3	2	0	1	7	4	+3	6
Czech Republic	3	1	0	2	3	3	0	3
Denmark	3	0	0	3	0	8	−8	0

11 June 2000
France	3 – 0	Denmark
Netherlands	1 – 0	Czech Republic
16 June 2000
Czech Republic	1 – 2	France
Denmark	0 – 3	Netherlands
21 June 2000
Denmark	0 – 2	Czech Republic
France	2 – 3	Netherlands

Knockout stage [link]

	Quarter-finals				Semi-finals				Final
	24 June – Amsterdam
	Turkey	0
					28 June – Brussels
	Portugal	2
					Portugal	1
	25 June – Bruges
					France (a.e.t.)	2
	Spain	1
									2 July – Rotterdam
	France	2
									France (a.e.t.)	2
	25 June – Rotterdam
									Italy	1
	Netherlands	6
					29 June – Amsterdam
	Yugoslavia	1
					Netherlands	0 (1)
	24 June – Brussels
					Italy (pen.)	0 (3)
	Italy	2
	Romania	0

Quarter-finals [link]

24 June 2000 18:00	Turkey	0 – 2	Portugal	Amsterdam ArenA, Amsterdam Attendance: 45,000 Referee: Dick Jol (Netherlands)
		Report	Nuno Gomes  44', 56'

24 June 2000 20:45	Italy	2 – 0	Romania	King Baudouin Stadium, Brussels Attendance: 42,500 Referee: Vítor Melo Pereira (Portugal)
	Totti  33' Inzaghi  43'	Report

25 June 2000 18:00	Netherlands	6 – 1	Yugoslavia	Feijenoord Stadion, Rotterdam Attendance: 47,700 Referee: José Garcia Aranda (Spain)
	Kluivert  24', 38', 54' Govedarica  51' (o.g.) Overmars  78', 90'	Report	Milošević  90+1'

25 June 2000 20:45	Spain	1 – 2	France	Jan Breydel Stadion, Bruges Attendance: 27,600 Referee: Pierluigi Collina (Italy)
	Mendieta  38' (pen.)	Report	Zidane  32' Djorkaeff  44'

Semi-finals [link]

28 June 2000 20:45	Portugal	1 – 2 (a.e.t.)	France	King Baudouin Stadium, Brussels Attendance: 47,000 Referee: Günter Benkö (Austria)
	Nuno Gomes  19'	Report	Henry  51' Zidane  117'  (pen.)

29 June 2000 18:00	Italy	0 – 0 (a.e.t.)	Netherlands	Amsterdam ArenA, Amsterdam Attendance: 51,300 Referee: Markus Merk (Germany)
		Report
		Penalties
	Di Biagio Pessotto Totti Maldini	3 –1	F. de Boer Stam Kluivert Bosvelt

Final [link]

2 July 2000 20:00	France	2 – 1 (a.e.t.)	Italy	Feijenoord Stadion, Rotterdam Attendance: 48,200 Referee: Anders Frisk (Sweden)
	Wiltord  90+4' Trezeguet  103'	Report	Delvecchio  55'

Statistics [link]

Goalscorers [link]

Average goals [link]

2.74 goals per game

UEFA Team of the Tournament [link]

UEFA Player of the Tournament

• Zinedine Zidane

See also [link]

Dutch fans in Rotterdam during Euro 2000.

• The Official Euro 2000 Album

References [link]

External links [link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: UEFA Euro 2000

• EURO 2000 Official History
• Official Website Archived

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