Past tournaments

Past tournaments - Euro 96

24May 2012

EURO2012

In our continued build up to the 2012 European Championships then we will look at past tournaments and recall some of the drama in them. Germany have good reason to remember 1996 because this was the last time that they won a major international tournament. This was supposed to be England's year and they went into the event led by coach Terry Venables full of expectation as the host nation.

England got away to a nervous start only drawing 1-1 with Switzerland in their group but ended it beating Holland by a score of 4-1 in one of the games of the tournament. Croatia were also lighting up the event but they were dumped out in the last eight stage by Germany. The semi-final between Germany and England will be forever remembered for the quality of the football which ultimately ended in a German victory on penalties.

Euro 96 will also be remembered because of the number of penalty shoot-outs. In the seven knockout games, no fewer than four went to a penalty shoot-out. England and France were involved in two each but the final came down to the two teams that had qualified from Group C which were Germany and the Czech Republic.

Germany had already beaten the Czech's 2-0 in the group stages and were behind after the Czech's took the lead in the final in the 58th minute. But an extra time winner meant that the trophy was going back to Germany and 1996 was the last time that Germany tasted international success.