UEFA Euro 2000



The 2000 UEFA European Football Championship, also known as Euro 2000, was the 11th UEFA European Football Championship, which is held every four years and organised 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. 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 finals saw the first major UEFA competition contested in the King Baudouin Stadium (formerly the Heysel Stadium) since the events of the 1985 European Cup Final and the Heysel Stadium disaster, with the opening game being played in the rebuilt stadium.

Summary
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, and a 3–2 win over England, in which they came back from 2–0 down. Romania was the other qualifier from the group, beating England with a late penalty in their last group game.

Belgium had a surprise exit in the group stage, winning the tournament's first game against Sweden, but losing to Turkey and Italy. 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. Also in Group D, Denmark's three losses with eight goals conceded and none scored set a new record for the worst team performance in the group stages of a Euros. Group C was memorable for the match between FR 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. FR Yugoslavia managed to go through as well, despite losing because Norway and Slovenia played to a draw.

Italy and Portugal maintained their perfect records in the quarter-finals, beating Romania and Turkey, respectively, and the Netherlands started a goal-avalanche against FR 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. 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.

Qualification


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

Qualified teams
The following 16 teams participated in the tournament:

Final draw
The composition of pots 1 to 3 was based on the teams' UEFA coefficient at the end of 1999. The finals draw took place on 12 December 1999.

Team base camps
The 16 national teams each stayed in their own "team base camp" during the tournament.

Squads
For the list of all squads that played in the tournament, see UEFA Euro 2000 squads.

Match officials
On 15 February 2000, UEFA appointed 12 referees, 16 assistant referees and four fourth officials for the competition, including a referee and an assistant referee from the Confederation of African Football. The event saw assistant referees being allowed to intervene an ongoing game, in particular to help the match official apply the 10-metre rule when deciding free-kicks – as well as warn the referee instantly if he had booked or ejected the wrong player, something that was not possible in previous tournaments. Also, fourth officials were given a larger role in assisting to take command of the match if any decisions are gone unnoticed by the referee or an assistant referee. The German referee Markus Merk was selected to referee the opening game between Belgium and Sweden.

Group stage


The teams finishing in the top two positions in each of the four groups progress to the quarter-finals, while the bottom two teams in each group were eliminated.

All times are local, CEST (UTC+2).

Tiebreakers
If two or more teams finished level on points after completion of the group matches, the following tie-breakers were used to determine the final ranking:


 * 1) greater number of points in the matches between the teams in question;
 * 2) greater goal difference in matches between the teams in question;
 * 3) greater number of goals scored in matches between the teams in question;
 * 4) greater goal difference in all group games;
 * 5) greater number of goals scored in all group games;
 * 6) higher coefficient derived from Euro 2000 and 1998 World Cup qualifiers (points obtained divided by number of matches played);
 * 7) fair play conduct in Euro 2000;
 * 8) drawing of lots.

Knockout stage
The knockout stage was a single-elimination tournament with each round eliminating the losers. Any game that was undecided by the end of the regular 90 minutes, was followed by up to thirty minutes of extra time. For the second time the golden goal system was applied, whereby the first team to score during the extra time would become the winner. If no goal was scored there would be a penalty shoot-out to determine the winner. For the second time the final was won by a golden goal.

All times are local, CEST (UTC+2).

Goalscorers
Patrick Kluivert and Savo Milošević were the top goalscorers with five goals each.


 * 5 goals
 * Patrick Kluivert
 * Savo Milošević


 * 4 goals


 * Nuno Gomes


 * 3 goals


 * 🇫🇷 Thierry Henry
 * Sérgio Conceição
 * 🇸🇮 Zlatko Zahovič


 * 2 goals


 * 🇨🇿 Vladimír Šmicer
 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Alan Shearer
 * 🇫🇷 Youri Djorkaeff
 * 🇫🇷 David Trezeguet
 * 🇫🇷 Sylvain Wiltord


 * 🇫🇷 Zinedine Zidane
 * 🇮🇹 Filippo Inzaghi
 * 🇮🇹 Francesco Totti
 * Frank de Boer
 * Marc Overmars


 * Boudewijn Zenden
 * 🇪🇸 Gaizka Mendieta
 * 🇪🇸 Alfonso
 * 🇹🇷 Hakan Şükür


 * 1 goal


 * 🇧🇪 Bart Goor
 * 🇧🇪 Émile Mpenza
 * 🇨🇿 Karel Poborský
 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Steve McManaman
 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Michael Owen
 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Paul Scholes
 * 🇫🇷 Laurent Blanc
 * 🇫🇷 Christophe Dugarry
 * 🇩🇪 Mehmet Scholl
 * 🇮🇹 Antonio Conte
 * 🇮🇹 Alessandro Del Piero


 * 🇮🇹 Marco Delvecchio
 * 🇮🇹 Luigi Di Biagio
 * 🇮🇹 Stefano Fiore
 * Ronald de Boer
 * 🇳🇴 Steffen Iversen
 * Costinha
 * Luís Figo
 * João Pinto
 * 🇷🇴 Cristian Chivu
 * 🇷🇴 Ionel Ganea
 * 🇷🇴 Viorel Moldovan


 * 🇷🇴 Dorinel Munteanu
 * 🇸🇮 Miran Pavlin
 * 🇪🇸 Joseba Etxeberria
 * 🇪🇸 Pedro Munitis
 * 🇪🇸 Raúl
 * 🇸🇪 Henrik Larsson
 * 🇸🇪 Johan Mjällby
 * 🇹🇷 Okan Buruk
 * Ljubinko Drulović
 * Dejan Govedarica
 * Slobodan Komljenović


 * Own goal
 * Dejan Govedarica (playing against the Netherlands)

Awards

 * UEFA Team of the Tournament

(5 goals each)
 * Golden Boot
 * Patrick Kluivert
 * Savo Milošević

UEFA Player of the Tournament
 * 🇫🇷 Zinedine Zidane

Prize money
A sum of CHF120 million was awarded to the 16 qualified teams in the competition. France, the winners of the tournament, received a total prize money of CHF14.4 million. Below is a complete list of the allocations:

Extra payment based on teams performances:
 * Winner: CHF14.4 million
 * Runner-up: CHF13.2 million
 * Semi-finals: CHF10.2 million
 * Quarter-finals: CHF7.8 million
 * Group stage:
 * Third place: CHF5.4 million
 * Fourth place: CHF4.8 million

On 9 July 2000, UEFA refused to hand FR Yugoslavia their prize money of CHF7.8 million, because of alleged ties between the Football Association of FR Yugoslavia and Slobodan Milošević's government. However, no connections were found and the Yugoslavian governing body later received their money with an additional bonus.

Slogan and theme song
The slogan of the competition was "Football without frontiers". "Campione 2000" by E-Type was the official anthem of the event.

Match ball
Adidas Terrestra Silverstream was unveiled as the official match ball of the competition on 13 December 1999 at Constant Vanden Stock Stadium, Anderlecht's home arena by Alessandro Del Piero, Edwin van der Sar, Zinedine Zidane and Luc Nilis.

Mascot
The official mascot for the tournament was Benelucky (a pun on Benelux), named 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").

Sponsorship
UEFA distinguishes between global sponsors and national sponsors. Global Euro sponsors can come from any country and have exclusive worldwide sponsorship rights for a UEFA Euro championship. National (event) sponsors come from a host country and only have sponsorship rights within that country.