European Championship
The history of the continent’s activity

The European Championship, known also as the continent’s facing , is one of the most important football events of European or world football. This is for some reason. Firstly, football was born in this continent. In Europe is played qualitative football regarding the annual activities of the clubs, where the most important players of the world are part of these clubs. Due to the increase of the quality of the game and the development of the game in Europe , the European Championship has increase its weight, making itself more important regarding the sportive aspect and the marketing aspect , which can be proved by the doubled figures. From a modest tournament with the participation of only 4 teams in 1960, now in France it will have 24 finalist teams. A record number. Through a fast navigation in the history of the European championships , we aim to bring to the reader the atmosphere that will accompany until next June , when we will follow the emotions of the first participation in such an event of the Albanian National team.

The Trophy and the medals of the European Championship
The Henri Delaunay Trophy, which is awarded to the winner of the European Championship, is named in honor of Henri Delaunay, the first General Secretary of UEFA, who came up with the idea of a European championship but died years prior to the first tournament. The trophy was created by his first son , Pierre. The trophy is awarded to the winning team for four years to keep , until the next tournament , and of course after making a copy of it. For the 2008 tournament, Trophy was remodeled, making it larger, as the old trophy was overshadowed by UEFA’s other trophies such as the Europa Champions League , UEFA Europa League etc. The new trophy , is made of pure silver. The old marble plinth has been replaced with silver , in order to be more stable. Once , the names of the winning countries were engraved in the old plinth , but now with the new trophy they are engraved on the back.

The players and coaches of the winning teams and runner-up teams are awarded gold and silver medals. The runner-up team receives a plaque. Though there was no third place playoff, UEFA decided in the 2012 edition to award the semi-final losers (Germany and Portugal) bronze medals for the first time. The ‘small’ final is held only in the first six championships. After Euro’80 , organized in Italy , the final for the third and fourth place was never played again.

Format changes of the activity
Until 1980, only four teams competed for the finals of the European Championship. In the European Championship of Italy , until 1996 , 8 teams competed in the final phase. After the new developments in the beginning of 1990 (after the collapse of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavian republic ) new federation begun to take shape. For the first time in the final phase of a European Championship , organized in England in 1996, 16 teams participated. After three decades , in the European of 2016 that will be held in France, will see for the first time 24 teams participating in the final phase.
The decision for the expansion of the European championship of 2016 has been taken before the beginning of the European Championship of 2008. Such a decision , found the disapproval of 2 big federations , that of Germany and England. But despite this , an agreement was achieved for the expansion of the format. The high quality that the finals of 2008 , organized in Switzerland and Austria , produced showed that the decision for the expansion of the format was the right one. During the finals of the last two championships , the quality of the game has increased , and beside the classic football teams of the continent , other teams have made performances that have increased significantly their quality of game. The fact that in the forthcoming European Championship of France , teams that represent small countries approves the previous statement. Countries such as Albania , Iceland and Wales are a novelty for the new championship. In the eliminatory phase, except San Marino and Gibraltar , all the other teams are capable to produce surprises , even though they are Luxemburg, Faroe Iceland and even Lichtenstein. This shows the huge development of football.

The organization in more than a country
The immense desire to organize the European Championship, made that a lot of countries throw their candidature to organize an European Championship. At the beginning of the new century , for the first time an European Championship was held in two countries at the same time. That was the European championship of 2000 that was organized in Belgium and Holland. The opening game was held in one country ,and the final in the other one , according to the system. The next championship , turned to the traditional way , being organized only in Portugal. But the next 2 championships after that were organized in two countries ,simultaneously. In 2008 in Austria and Switzerland and after 4 years in Poland and Ukraine. Despite the difficulties created by this way of organization regarding the movement of the football players and especially of media and fans (noted mostly in the last European Championship) this formula is well received and considered successful .
The remarks for difficulties of the journey , caused by the distance between two big countries like Poland and Ukraine , were not taken into consideration. On the contrary , after returning the classical formula of organizing the championship in only one country ( France 2016) , it is decided that the next European championship of 2020 , be organized in different countries , in order to give this activity an all-inclusive format , as a chance to satisfy many countries. Despite the offers made by Turkey , the trio Ireland-Wales- Scotland and the duo Azerbaijan-Georgia for the Euro 2020, a decision was take for the change of formula in December 2012. The tournament will be held in 13 countries , like never before. This was the latest structural change that was made to the organization of the European Championship.

Hot numbers of the European championships

1. The first European is won by the Soviet Union. The special feature was not the victory of the Soviets , but their star player , different from other teams of that time or even today that have a forward for their favorite player , the soviets had a goalkeeper. Lev Jashin , whose fame crossed not only the Soviet Union but the entire communist world and was made famous and popular in the entire world. That’s why he won the Ballon d’Or , being the only goalkeeper to have won such a trophy.
2. In the third European Championship , an unprecedented event occurred. Greece was eliminated in the first round because it did not accept to play against Albania ( as an excuse they mentioned the absurd Law of War with Albania).
3. In the third European Championship another feature happened , regarding the final of the tournament , that was played between Italy and Yugoslavia. To declare the winner , two final matches were played. The first one ended in a draw and after extra time UEFA decided that after two days the final should be played again. In the other final , Italy was crowned winner after winning 2-0.
4. The final of the European championship 1989 was the first one that required the penalty shootouts. Germany participated in this event as the champions in charge of the European of 1972 and World Champions of 1974 and played gains Czechoslovakia. In order to determine the winner the penalties were shot. Uli Hoenes lost a penalty for the Germans and on the other side Panenka executed a perfect shot. This shot entered in the history of football.
5. The European championship of 1988 , won by Holland , was the last one of UEFA with few members. Three years later the process of collapse of Soviet Union and Yugoslavia started , a process that foresaw the creation of other states and new federations and national football teams. Today the number is 54.
6. Denmark was the winner of Euro 1992, after beating Germany in the finals. The entire adventure of the Danish team , seems like a Cinderella story. The Danes were not qualified for the final and they were enjoying their vacations on the beach. But a sudden decision of UEFA brought them back in the field. Yugoslavia was expelled from the competition (soon was to be divided) due to the Yugoslav war. It’s place was filled by Denmark, which went beyond predictions at the end of the activity, by totally deserving the win. Nobody could predict such a thing.
7. For the first time in 1996 , in the European championship organized in England, the Golden Goal was applied. The rule was that the team who scored the goal in extra time , wins the game. After the scoring moment the game ended. Germany played the final against the Czech Republic. It was a repetition of the final of 20 years ago , but with big changes in both teams. Germany was not the Federal Republic of Germany and the Czech Republic was divided and was not Czechoslovakia anymore. Germany won the trophy with a ‘Golden Goal’ scored by Bierhoff.
8. The European championship of the new century was won by France. In 2000 , the competition was organized in two countries. Italy and France were in the final , and to decide the winner , extra time was needed. At the last moments when Italy was ahead by 1-0 , France scored the equalizer. Extra time was needed. The French scored and the match terminated. The killer ‘Golden Goal ‘ was still in play. This was the last tournament to use the ‘Golden Goal’. It was not applied anymore in other activities.
9. After four years the European championship was held in Portugal. The small country triumphed over Spain , which was the main candidate for organizing such a huge activity. Portugal started the European campaign , aiming to be the host country , and going for the title as well. Everything went well , until the final with Greece. The small country form the Balkan , beat Portugal 1-0 , thus winning the European Championship title. Before the start of the competition , the win of Greece was 150-1.
10. Two of the last championships of 2008 and 2012 , were organized according to the formula of 2 host countries. The first one was held in Austria –Switzerland and the second one in Poland and Ukraine. In both competitions the winner was Spain. Spain became the first team in the history of European Championships to win two times in a row. It also went for the World champion title in 2010.