The European Football Championship is one of the largest tournaments held between the teams of national teams. Only the world championship is larger than it . National teams from all over the world have the right to take part in it, while the European championship, as you can understand by its name, is limited exclusively to the countries of the European continent.
In this article, we will talk about the Euro 1992 - a tournament that turned out to be extremely unusual due to some details of the qualification, as well as due to the unexpected performance of one of the countries, which no one really counted on. Please note that this championship is different in format from what the European Championship looks like today. At Euro 1992, there were only two groups, of which there were two teams that went directly to the semifinals, a completely different scheme compared to the recently completed similar tournament in 2016, in which there were 6 groups, and the playoff stage began with 1 / 8 finals. Well, it's time to take a look at how this championship went.
Qualified Teams
As everyone is well aware, in order to get into the final part of the tournament, the teams need to qualify - the same thing happened with Euro 1992. European teams were divided into seven qualification groups, from each of which the first place went to the final part. That is how the five teams ended up in the final part - France, Scotland, Germany, Holland and England. But what about the other three participants? How did they end up at Euro 1992? In fact, there is no big secret in this, but each team had its own reasons, which are worth writing in more detail.
Sweden
So, the first team that ended up in the final part of the Euro 1992 football tournament without going through the qualifying tournament was the Swedish national team. The thing is that it was in this country that this championship was held. The Swedes argued over the right to host the European Championship with Spain, which, in principle, had more chances from a sporting point of view. However, the Spaniards for 1992 received the right to host several major sports tournaments, including the Olympic Games, so the right to host Euro 1992 football went to Sweden. The national team of this country, by tradition, did not have to go through the qualification round in order to be in the final part of the tournament. The team received a ticket there automatically.
CIS team
In this case, the story is much more interesting and unusual. How did the CIS team get to the 1992 Euro? Why has no one heard of her before? Moreover, the CIS team did not even take part in the qualifying qualifying tournament - how did it end up in Sweden?
The thing is that just at this period came the collapse of the Soviet Union. The USSR national team has always been very strong. In 1960, she even won the first ever European football championship. And, of course, in her qualification group she won first place, which ensured her access to the playoff stage. But, unfortunately, in the period between the qualification and the final tournaments, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics collapsed, and by the beginning of the 1992 European Championships in Sweden, the newly independent countries had not yet managed to organize their sports, in particular football, activities.
Therefore, it was decided to send athletes from countries that were previously part of the Soviet Union to the European Championships under the flag of the CIS. Thus, in the qualifying tournament and in Euro 1992 itself, the rosters were practically no different - with the exception of several countries that refused to expel their players: these were the Baltic powers, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
Denmark national team
Well, another country that deserves special attention is Denmark. Euro 1992 is a tournament that could have turned out quite differently, because the Danes in their qualifying group took only second place. The first won the team of Yugoslavia - but it was disqualified. This happened because the country started a war, and therefore it was decided to remove the team from participating in the European Championship, and instead the Danish team went to the tournament, which otherwise would have remained out of work. As it turned out, this decision greatly influenced what the results of Euro 1992 were.
Well, with the qualifications everything is clear, now you know all eight teams that ended up in the final part of the competition. The time has come to examine in detail how the main tournament went and what surprises he presented to the fans.
Group A
The selection of Euro 1992 was left behind, and now you can find out what happened in the final part of the European Championship. As mentioned earlier, eight teams were divided into two parts: from each of the two best teams got into the playoffs.
In group A - Swedes, Danes, French and English. For the Swedes, this was a debut performance, while the British and Danes visited the final stage of the European Championship three times before. The French had a slightly less impressive indicator in this column - twice, but at the same time they could boast that they had won the tournament before last, that is, the 1984 European Championship. And therefore, everyone was quite surprised by the result of the opening match, in which the French could not defeat the hosts of the tournament - the game ended with a score of 1: 1.
The Danes, in turn, parted peace with the British. In the second round, the latter also played a goalless draw with the French, while the Swedes sensationally beat the Danes and practically guaranteed themselves a place in the playoffs. The third round was really amazing, in which the Danes and Swedes defeated the French and the British, respectively, with a score of 2: 1.
Thus, the Swedes, from whom no one expected any impressive performances, left the group from the first place, while the Danish team, which could not even qualify, ended up in the semifinals.
Group B
What happened in the second group? There were no special surprises here - the Dutch and Germans were the favorites, although the latter had some uncertainty. Indeed, the strongest team of West Germany ceased to exist at the 1990 World Championships - the two halves of the country reunited, as a result of which the German team went to the 1992 European Championships. However, this practically had no effect on the performances of the Germans, while the collapse of the Soviet Union had a great impact on the national team, and no one expected former greatness from it.
For the Scots, this tournament was the first in history, but they could not create such a sensation as the Swedes. In the first match, they lost to the Dutch national team, while the two transforming teams could not identify the winner. In the second round, the Germans gathered their strength and beat the Scots 2-0, and the Dutch, like the German team, tied with the CIS team. And only the last round put all the dots on the “and”. The Dutch defeated the Germans with a score of 3: 1, securing a way out of the group from the first place, and the suddenly shot Scots saved the Germans from failure by defeating the CIS team with a score of 3: 0.
First semifinal
As a result, two semifinal pairs were formed - the winner of the first group played with the team that took second place in the second, while the winner of the second opposed the second place of the first.
The first semi-final was held between the national teams of Germany and Sweden. Already in the 11th minute, Hassler opened the score, pushing the German national team ahead, but the first half was not so bright, so the opponents left for the break with a score of 1-0 in favor of the Germans. The second half began much more vigorously - in the 59th minute Ridle doubled the advantage of the German national team, but almost immediately after that the Swedes earned a penalty, which was realized by Brolin. The match was drawing to a close when Riedle put an end to this confrontation before the final whistle - only Kenneth Andersson's goal, scored after sixty seconds, could sweeten the pill. The match ended with the score 3: 2 - the German team went to the final of Euro 1992.
Second semifinal
The second playoff match was no less dramatic than the first. The Dutch team and the Danish team took part in it. Euro 1992 was remembered for what the latter were able to achieve - everyone was amazed that they were able to leave the group, but the team did not stop there.
At the very beginning of the meeting, Henrik Larsen opened an account, taking the Danish team forward. The Dutch were able to answer already in the 23rd minute, when Dennis Bergkamp equalized. The restored balance did not last long - after some time, Larsson scored twice, again taking his team forward. It would seem that the sensation is already close, and the Danes may be in the finals of the European Championship - but just before the final whistle, Frank Rijkard suddenly equalized, transferring the game to overtime.
In extra time, goals were not scored, so it was time for a series of penalty shoot-outs. It was in the course of it that the main sensation occurred when the Danish goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel parried off a shot by Marco van Basten, thereby taking his team to the final.
The final
It would seem that in the final, the German team was an obvious favorite, which won the World Cup two years ago, and in the 1988 European Championships reached the semifinals. However, in reality, everything turned out quite differently - already in the 19th minute, Jon Jensen scored a goal, putting the Danes ahead. Such an account lasted on the scoreboard for an hour. After this time, Kim Villefort doubled the advantage of the Danes, thereby completely removing the Germans from the game. The match ended - it was a real sensation, because the tournament was won by a team that, in fact, did not qualify and should not take part in it.
Top scorers
As you can see, the maximum number of matches that football players could play in this tournament is 5, that is, three group matches, a semi-final and a final. Therefore, it was extremely unlikely that in the end it would be possible to single out a specific winner by the number of goals. And so it happened - at this tournament the title of the best scorer was divided among themselves by representatives of four countries that reached the semifinals. Swedes Henrik Larsen, Dane Thomas Brolin, Dutchman Denis Bergkamp and German Karl-Heinz Riedle scored three goals each. According to modern rules, the Golden Boot would go to the player who spent less time on the field during the tournament, but then this rule did not work, so the award was divided among all four forwards.
Tournament team
Expectedly the best goalkeeper of the tournament was Peter Schmeichel. The defensive line was composed of two Frenchmen, Jocelyn Angloma and Laurent Blanc, and two Germans, Andreas Breme and Jürgen Kohler. Two players from the German national team, Stefan Effenberg and Thomas Hessler, as well as Dutchman Rud Gullit and Dane Brian Laudrup were also noted in the midfield. Two Dutchmen suddenly appeared in an attack, and the first was Dennis Bergkamp, who became one of the owners of the Golden Boot. But the pair was not made up of any of the remaining three top scorers, but his teammate Marco van Basten. It was these players who were recognized as the best at the last tournament, which definitely turned out to be one of the most sensational in the history of world football and was remembered by fans for a long time.