UEFA Euro 1968



The 1968 UEFA European Football Championship final tournament was held in Italy. This was the third European Football Championship, an event held every four years and organised by UEFA. The final tournament took place between 5 and 10 June 1968.

It was in this year that the tournament changed its name from the European Nations' Cup to the European Championship.

There were also some changes in the tournament's qualifying structure, with the two-legged home-and-away knock-out stage being replaced by a group phase.

Only four countries played in the final tournament. There were semi-finals, the final and a third place match.

The hosts were only announced after the qualifying round, which meant that they had to qualify along with all the others for the final stage.

Qualification
The qualification competition was played in two stages: a group stage (taking place from 1966 until 1968) and the quarter-finals (played in 1968). There were eight qualifying groups of four teams each with the exception of group 4, which only had three. The matches were played in a home-and-away basis. Victories were worth 2 points, draws 1 point, and defeats 0 points. Only group winners could qualify for the quarter-finals. The quarter-finals were played in two legs on a home-and-away basis. The winners of the quarter-finals would go through to the final tournament.

The following teams participated in the final tournament:


 * 1 Bold indicates champion for that year

Final tournament


All time are CEST/UTC+2

Semi-finals
Match decided by toss of coin: Italy captain Giacinto Facchetti called correctly.

Final
As the match ended in a draw, a replay was played to determine the winner.

Top scorers
Seven goals were scored by six different players in the five matches, for an average of 1.4 goals per game. None of the goals were credited as own goals. Yugoslavia's Dragan Džajić was the top scorer by virtue of being the only player to score more than one goal.


 * 2 goals
 * Dragan Džajić
 * 1 goal
 * 🇮🇹 Luigi Riva
 * 🇮🇹 Angelo Domenghini
 * 🇮🇹 Pietro Anastasi
 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Geoff Hurst
 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Bobby Charlton

Awards

 * UEFA Team of the Tournament