Posted on by nick

UEFA Euro 2008

UEFA Euro 2008 theme by ace1

Download: UEFAEuro2008.p3t

UEFA Euro 2008 Theme
(16 backgrounds)

This article is about the sporting event. For the video game based on this event, see UEFA Euro 2008 (video game).

UEFA Euro 2008
Fußball-Europameisterschaft 2008
(in German)
Championnat d'Europe de football 2008
(in French)
Campionato Europeo di calcio 2008
(in Italian)
Campiunadi d'Europa da ballape 2008
(in Romansh)
Expect Emotions
Tournament details
Host countriesAustria
Switzerland
Dates7–29 June
Teams16
Venue(s)8 (in 8 host cities)
Final positions
Champions Spain (2nd title)
Runners-up Germany
Tournament statistics
Matches played31
Goals scored77 (2.48 per match)
Attendance1,143,990 (36,903 per match)
Top scorer(s)Spain David Villa (4 goals)
Best player(s)Spain Xavi
← 2004
2012 →

The 2008 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as UEFA Euro 2008 or simply Euro 2008, was the 13th UEFA European Championship, a quadrennial football tournament contested by the member nations of UEFA (the Union of European Football Associations). It took place in Austria and Switzerland (both hosting the tournament for the first time) from 7 to 29 June 2008.

The tournament was won by Spain, who defeated Germany 1–0 in the final. Spain were only the second nation to win all their group stage fixtures and then the European Championship itself, matching France's achievement from 1984. Spain were also the first team since Germany in 1996 to win the tournament undefeated.

Greece were the defending champions going into the tournament, having won UEFA Euro 2004. They recorded the worst finish in Euro 2008, losing their three group fixtures and collecting the least prize money. Throughout 31 matches, the participating nations totalled 77 goals, the same as the previous tournament.

Austria and Switzerland automatically qualified as hosts; the remaining 14 teams were determined through a qualifying tournament, played between August 2006 and November 2007. As European champions, Spain earned the right to compete in the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup in South Africa.

Bid process[edit]

Main article: UEFA Euro 2008 bids

Austria and Switzerland jointly bid to host the games, and facing competition from six other bids: Bosnia and Herzegovina–Croatia, Greece–Turkey, a 4-way Nordic bid (from Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden), Hungary, Russia and Scotland–Republic of Ireland.[1] Austria and Hungary had previously bid together to host Euro 2004, losing out to Portugal, while Sweden had hosted Euro 1992.[1]

Austria–Switzerland, Hungary, Greece–Turkey and the Nordic bid were recommended, in that order, before the final vote by UEFA's National Teams Committee.[2]

The final vote by the UEFA executive committee was:[2]

  1. Austria–Switzerland
  2. Hungary
  3. Greece–Turkey
  4. Nordic
  5. Scotland–Ireland
  6. Russia
  7. Bosnia and Herzegovina–Croatia

The Austria–Switzerland bid became the second successful joint bid in the competition's history, following the UEFA Euro 2000 hosted by Belgium and the Netherlands. The following tournament, held in Poland and Ukraine, became the third jointly hosted tournament.

Summary[edit]

Qualification for Euro 2008 started in August 2006, just over a month after the end of the 2006 FIFA World Cup. The qualifying tournament was contested by national teams from each of UEFA's member associations except Austria and Switzerland, who had automatically qualified for the final tournament as hosts, and Montenegro, who came into existence too late to be admitted to UEFA. England was the only seeded team not to qualify for the tournament proper, whereas Russia was the only unseeded one to qualify. The tournament also marked the debuts of Austria and Poland.

The draw for the final tournament took place on 2 December 2007, and saw Group C immediately labelled as the "group of death", with Italy, France, Romania and the Netherlands competing for the two qualifying places. In contrast, Germany and Portugal were deemed to have an easy draw, as the tournament structure meant they could not meet Italy, France, the Netherlands or Spain until the final.

In the group stage, Croatia, Spain and the Netherlands all qualified with maximum points. Austria and Switzerland were not expected to progress, despite the advantage of being the hosts. In Group A, the Swiss lost their captain, Alexander Frei, to injury in their first game and became the first team to be eliminated from the tournament, after losing their first two matches. Switzerland managed to beat the group winner Portugal in their last game.

In Group B, Austria managed to set up a decisive final game against Germany, dubbed "Austria's final".[3] However, they lost by one goal, making Euro 2008 the first European Championship not to have one of the host nations present in the knockout stage. In an exciting final game in Group A, an injury- and suspension-hit Turkey came back from 2–0 down to beat the Czech Republic 3–2, after an uncharacteristic handling mistake by Petr Čech, in the last few minutes, left Nihat Kahveci with the simplest of finishes.

In the same game, goalkeeper Volkan Demirel was shown a red card for pushing Czech striker Jan Koller to the ground. The Turks joined Portugal as the qualifiers from Group A. France were the high-profile victims of Group C, recording just one point from a goalless draw against Romania in their opening game. Italy beat the French, on the final day, to finish on four points and join the Netherlands in the quarter-finals. Finally, in Group D, Greece failed to reproduce the form of their shock 2004 win, and ended the tournament with no points. Russia qualified at the expense of Sweden, after beating them in a final game decider, joining Spain in the knockout stage.

Torrential rain during the Group A match between Switzerland and Turkey on 11 June resulted in the pitch at St. Jakob-Park in Basel requiring to be re-laid. The new pitch was installed in advance of the quarter-final match between Portugal and Germany on 19 June.[4] In the quarter-finals, the Portuguese team was unable to give their coach, Luiz Felipe Scolari, a fitting send-off – following the mid-tournament announcement that Scolari would be leaving to join English club Chelsea – losing in an exciting game against Germany. Turkey continued their streak of last-gasp wins, equalising at the end of extra-time against Croatia and advancing on penalties. Coached by Dutchman Guus Hiddink, Russia eliminated the Netherlands with two extra-time goals. The last quarter-final match saw Spain defeat Italy on penalties, after a goalless draw in regular time.

The Spanish football team touring Madrid as champions

Turkey's progress was halted by Germany in the semi-finals. Turkey entered the game with nine of their squad members missing due to injury or suspension, but still scored the first goal. Later, they levelled the score at 2–2, before Germany scored the winning goal in the final minute. The world television feed of the match was intermittently lost during the match, which prevented the broadcast of Germany's second goal.

This was due to a thunderstorm at the broadcasting relay station in Austria, despite the game being played in Switzerland. Swiss Television SRG SSR still had a feed, because of their own broadcasting facilities at the venue. During the lost world feed, German and Austrian television ZDF and ORF started to broadcast the feed of German-speaking Swiss channel SF 1.

This act ensured that the German goal was actually broadcast in Germany although not in Turkey.[5] Spain won the second semi-final against Russia by three goals to nil, through second-half goals from Xavi, Daniel Güiza and David Silva, earning Spain their first appearance in a major final for 24 years.

In the final, held at Vienna's Ernst-Happel-Stadion, Spain became European champions for the second time after Fernando Torres' first-half goal proved enough to defeat Germany. Though Germany had a strong start, Spain started to look more dangerous after they had settled.

After half an hour, Xavi played a pass in behind the Germany back line towards Torres, who outmuscled a hesitant Philipp Lahm and clipped the ball over the diving Jens Lehmann and just inside the far post. That goal proved to be the only goal of the game, which Spain dominated despite Germany having the majority of the possession,[6] and Spain were crowned UEFA Euro 2008 champions.

Qualification[edit]

Main article: UEFA Euro 2008 qualifying

The draw for the qualifying round took place in Montreux, Switzerland on 27 January 2006 at 12:00 CET.

The qualifying process commenced a month after the 2006 World Cup. Austria and Switzerland automatically qualified for the tournament finals as host nations.

The qualifying format was changed compared to previous tournaments. The winners and runners-up from seven groups automatically qualified for the Championship, with the hosts filling the other two slots in the 16-team tournament. The change means there were no play-offs between teams finishing in second place in the groups – they qualified directly for the finals. Teams that finished outside the top two positions in their groups failed to qualify. Group A contained eight teams, and the others contained seven.

12 out of 16 teams who qualified for previous tournament also qualified, but the hosts, Austria, and Poland made their debuts at the European Championship. Romania and Turkey returned after missing out the 2004 tournament. For the first time since 1984, no teams from Great Britain or Ireland qualified, including 2006 World Cup quarter-finalists England.[7] Other notable absentees were 2006 World Cup quarter-finalists Ukraine, and Denmark, who failed to qualify for the first time since 1980. Bulgaria and Latvia also failed to qualify after playing in Euro 2004.

Qualified teams[edit]

Team Qualified as Qualified on Previous appearances in tournament[A]
 Austria Co-host 12 December 2002 0 (debut)
  Switzerland 2 (1996, 2004)
 Germany[B] Group D runner-up 13 October 2007 9 (1972, 1976, 1980, 1984, 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004)
 Greece Group C winner 17 October 2007 2 (1980, 2004)
 Czech Republic[C] Group D winner 17 October 2007 6 (1960, 1976, 1980, 1996, 2000, 2004)
 Romania Group G winner 17 October 2007 3 (1984, 1996, 2000)
 Poland Group A winner 17 November 2007 0 (debut)
 Italy Group B winner 17 November 2007 6 (1968, 1980, 1988, 1996, 2000, 2004)
 France Group B runner-up 17 November 2007 6 (1960, 1984, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004)
 Croatia Group E winner 17 November 2007 2 (1996, 2004)
 Spain Group F winner 17 November 2007 7 (1964, 1980, 1984, 1988, 1996, 2000, 2004)
 Netherlands Group G runner-up 17 November 2007 7 (1976, 1980, 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004)
 Portugal Group A runner-up 21 November 2007 4 (1984, 1996, 2000, 2004)
 Turkey Group C runner-up 21 November 2007 2 (1996, 2000)
 Russia[D] Group E runner-up 21 November 2007 8 (1960, 1964, 1968, 1972, 1988, 1992, 1996, 2004)
 Sweden Group F runner-up 21 November 2007 3 (1992, 2000, 2004)
  1. ^ Bold indicates champion for that year. Italic indicates host for that year.
  2. ^ From 1972 to 1988, Germany competed as West Germany.
  3. ^ From 1960 to 1980, the Czech Republic competed as Czechoslovakia.
  4. ^ From 1960 to 1988, Russia competed as the Soviet Union, and in 1992 as CIS.

Final draw[edit]

The draw for the final tournament took place on 2 December 2007 at the Lucerne Culture and Congress Centre in Switzerland.[8]

As was the case at the 2000 and 2004 finals, the finalists were divided into four seeding pots, based on the 2007 edition of the UEFA national team coefficient ranking, which measured performance of teams in the 2006 FIFA World Cup qualifying and Euro 2008 qualifying,[9] with each group having one team drawn from each pot. In a return to the format used at Euro 1992 and Euro 1996 the games in each group were held at just two stadia, with the seeded team playing all three matches in the same city. Switzerland and Austria, as co-hosts, were automatically assigned to positions A1 and B1, respectively. The remaining 14 teams were split into four pots, with title-holders Greece seeded alongside the Netherlands in Pot 1.[10]

UEFA came under heavy criticism from Raymond Domenech, manager of France, who was not satisfied with his team's position in the draw,[11] and was also in favour of having 2006 FIFA World Cup winners Italy as top seed.[12] On 22 November 2007, Giorgio Marchetti, UEFA's professional football director, announced that a review of the coefficient ranking system was under way for future European Championships.[8]

Pot 1[a]
Team Coeff Rank[9]
 Greece (holders)[b] 2.167 11
CategoriesGames, Sports

One Reply to “UEFA Euro 2008”

  1. Inspired by the PS3 game & this summers major sporting event. With custom icons & 16 Euro 2008 themed backgrounds in both SD & HD

Comments are closed.