Euro Qualification

First UEFA European Championship was held in 1960 year, under the name “UEFA European Nations Cup”. The name was changed to UEFA European Championship in 1968 year. The tournament is football competition between men`s national teams of members of the UEFA. Since 1960 year the tournament starts in every 4 year (every even year between UEFA World Cup). During the years the tournament rules were changed. It starts with 4 teams in final stage, in 1980 was involved group stage and the winners of group stage was 8 teams in finals. During 1996 year the tournament was extended to 16 teams. Since 2016 year the tournament was extended to 24 teams in the finals. To qualify for the finals, national teams have to win a qualifying spot from groups are to win the play-off. The qualification round is in group format, and the groups is drawn by UEFA. In qualifying groups each team plays 2 matches against every other team from group, one as host and one as guest. National teams are ranked in groups according to points they won, goal difference number of goals scored in matches between the teams with equal result, goal difference from all matches in groups.

In finals the competition also starts with group stage – six groups each with four teams. The next stage is Round of 16 where participate 6 group winners, 6 runners up in groups, and the 4 best third place teams. From this round till the end of the competition it`s a knockout competition.

The countries with most European Championship titles won are, Germany and Spain, both with 3 titles, France in second place with 2 titles, and Russia (SSSR), Italy, Czech Republic, Portugal, Netherlands, Denmark and Greece split third place with 1 title.