Ku Big 12 Football Championships
Melanie Wendelberger
The UEFA European Football Championship,[1] less formally the European Championship and informally the Euro or Euros,[2][3] is the primary association football tournament organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA). The competition is contested by UEFA members' senior men's national teams, determining the continental champion of Europe.[4][5] It is the second-most watched football tournament in the world after the FIFA World Cup; the Euro 2016 final was watched by a global audience of around 600 million.[6] The competition has been held every four years since 1960,[7][8][9] except for 2020, when it was postponed until 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe, but kept the name Euro 2020. Scheduled to be in the even-numbered year between FIFA World Cup tournaments, it was originally called the European Nations' Cup before changing to its current name in 1968. Since 1996, the individual events have been branded as "UEFA Euro [year]".
The seventeen European Championship tournaments have been won by ten national teams: Spain have won four titles, Germany have won three titles, Italy and France have won two titles, and the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, the Netherlands, Denmark, Greece and Portugal have won one title each. To date, Spain is the only team to have won consecutive titles, doing so in 2008 and 2012.
The Henri Delaunay Trophy, which is awarded to the winner of the European Championship,[80] is named in honour of Henri Delaunay, the first General Secretary of UEFA, who came up with the idea of a European championship but died five years before the first tournament in 1960. His son Pierre was in charge of creating the trophy.[81] Since the first tournament it has been awarded to the winning team for them to keep for four years, until the next tournament. This trophy bore the words Coupe d'Europe ("European Cup"), Coupe Henri Delaunay ("Henri Delaunay Cup"), and Championnat d'Europe ("European Championship") on the front and a juggling boy on the back.
For the 2008 tournament, the Henri Delaunay Trophy was remodelled to make it larger, as the old trophy was overshadowed by UEFA's other trophies such as the new European Champion Clubs' Cup. The new trophy, which is made of sterling silver, now weighs 8 kilograms (18 lb) and is 60 centimetres (24 in) tall, being 2 kilograms (4.4 lb) heavier and 18 centimetres (7.1 in) longer than the old one. The marble plinth that was serving as base was removed. The new silver base of the trophy had to be enlarged to make it stable. The names of the winning countries that had appeared on the plaques glued to the plinth are now engraved on the back of the trophy,[82] under the word Coupe Henri Delaunay and are written in English rather than French its predecessor had. Since 2016, the juggling boy was returned on the trophy's back.
The players and coaches of the winning team and the runner-up team are awarded gold and silver medals, respectively. Each association that competes in the final tournament receives a commemorative plaque. Each time the team losing semi-finalist, as well as each finalist, receive a dedicated plaque. Though there is no longer a third place play-off, UEFA decided in the 2008 edition to award the semi-final losers (Turkey and Russia) bronze medals for the first time,[83] and did the same in the 2012 edition when Germany and Portugal received bronze medals.[84] However, UEFA decided that losing semi-finalists would no longer receive medals from the 2016 edition onwards.[85] Bronze medals were previously awarded for winners of the third place play-off, the last of which was held in 1980.[86]
Before 1980, only four teams qualified for the final tournament. From 1980, eight teams competed. In 1996 the tournament expanded to 16 teams, since it was easier for European nations to qualify for the World Cup than their own continental championship; 14 of the 24 teams at the 1982, 1986 and 1990 World Cups had been European, whereas the European Championship finals still involved only eight teams.
In 2007, there was much discussion about an expansion of the tournament to 24 teams, started by Scotland and the Republic of Ireland, due to the increased number of football associations in Europe after the break-ups of Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, and the inclusion of Israel and Kazakhstan. The new president of UEFA, Michel Platini, was reported to be in favour of expansion which proved an accurate assumption. Whilst on 17 April 2007, UEFA's executive committee formally decided against expansion in 2012, Platini indicated in June 2008 that UEFA will increase participation from 16 to 24 teams in future tournaments, starting from 2016.[87] On 25 September, it was announced by Franz Beckenbauer that an agreement had been reached, and the expansion to 24 teams would be officially announced the next day.[88]
The competing teams are chosen by a series of qualifying games: in 1960 and 1964 through home and away play-offs; from 1968 through a combination of both qualifying groups and play-off games. The host country was selected from the four finalists after they were determined through qualifying.
To qualify, a team must finish in one of the direct qualifying spots or win a play-off. After this, a team proceeds to the finals round in the host country, although hosts qualify for the tournament automatically.
The groups for qualification are drawn by a UEFA committee using seeding. Seeded teams include reigning champions and other teams based on their performance in the preceding FIFA World Cup qualifying and the last European Championship qualifying. To obtain an accurate view of the teams' abilities, a ranking is produced. This is calculated by taking the total number of points won by a particular team and dividing it by the number of games played, i.e. points per game. In the case of a team having hosted one of the two previous competitions and therefore having qualified automatically, only the results from the single most recent qualifying competition are used. If two teams have equal points per game, the committee then bases their positions in the rankings on:
The qualifying phase is played in a group format, the composition of the groups is determined through means of a draw of teams from pre-defined seeded bowls. The draw takes place after the preceding World Cup's qualifying competition. For UEFA Euro 2020, the group qualifying phase consisted of ten groups; five of six teams and the remainder of five teams each.
Each group is played in a league format with teams playing each other home and away. The top two teams then qualified for the final tournament, with remaining places decided by playoffs depending on their ranking in the UEFA Nations League. As with most leagues, the points are awarded as three for a win, one for a draw, and none for a loss. In the eventuality of one or more teams having equal points after all matches have been played, the following criteria are used to distinguish the sides:
Sixteen teams progressed to the final tournament for the 2012 tournament. They were joint hosts Poland and Ukraine, the winners and the highest ranked second-placed team from the nine qualifying groups as well as the winners of four play-off matches between the runners-up of the other groups. These sixteen teams were divided equally into four groups, A, B, C and D, each consisting of four teams. The groups were drawn up by the UEFA administration, again using seeding. The seeded teams being the host nations, the reigning champions, should they qualify, and those with the best points per game coefficients over the qualifying phase of the tournament and the previous World Cup qualifying. Other finalists were assigned to by means of a draw, using coefficients as a basis.
For the 2016 tournament, the expansion to 24 teams means that the teams will be drawn into six groups of four, with the six group winners, six group runners-up and the four best third-placed teams advancing to the round of 16 when it becomes a knockout competition.[85]
The groups are again played in a league format, where a team plays its opponents once each. The same points system is used (three points for a win, one point for a draw, no points for a defeat). A schedule for the group matches will be drawn up, but the last two matches in a group must kick off simultaneously. The winner and runner-up of each group progress to the next round, where a knockout system is used (the two teams play each other once, the winner progresses), this is used in all subsequent rounds as well. The winners of the quarter-finals matches progress to the semi-finals, where the winners play in the final. If in any of the knockout rounds, the scores are still equal after normal playing time, extra time and penalties are employed to separate the two teams. Unlike the FIFA World Cup, this tournament no longer has a third place playoff.
Possibly the most dominant team in Illinois football history was the 1914 squad. The squad was only coach Robert Zuppke's second at Illinois and would be the first of four national championship teams he would lead in his 29 years at Illinois. The Fighting Illini defense shut out four of its seven opponents, yielding only 22 points the entire 1914 season, and the averaged up an incredible 32 points per game, including a 51-0 shellacking of Indiana on Oct. 10. This team was so good that no one scored a point against them until Oct. 31, the fifth game of the seven-game season. The closest game of the year, two weeks later, wasn't very close at all, a 21-7 home decision over Chicago. Leading the way for Zuppke's troops was right halfback Bart Macomber. He led the team in scoring. Left guard Ralph Chapman was named to Walter Camp's first-team All-America squad, while left halfback Harold Pogue, the team's second-leading scorer, was named to Camp's second team.
The 1919 team was the only one of Zuppke's national championship squads to lose a game. Wisconsin managed to defeat the Fighting Illini in Urbana in the third game of the season, 14-10, to temporarily knock Illinois out of the conference lead. However, Zuppke's men came back from the Wisconsin defeat with three consecutive wins to set up a showdown with the Buckeyes at Ohio Stadium on Nov. 22 to determine the conference champion. Illinois scored first on a first-quarter touchdown and never looked back. The Fighting Illini added a field goal before allowing a Buckeye touchdown and conversion. With the final score, 9-7, in Illinois' favor, the Illini won the conference title and were later named national champions. Right guard Clarence Applegran was named to Eckersall's second-team All-America squad, and left tackle Burt Ingwersen and center John Depler were both members of Walter Camp's second-team All-America squad.
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