UEFA Euro 2000

Europees Voetbalkampioenschap België/Nederland 2000 (in Dutch) Championnat d'Europe de football Belgique/Pays-Bas 2000 (in French) Fußball-Europameisterschaft Belgien/Niederlande 2000 (in German)
👁 Image Football without frontiers
Tournament details
Host countries	Belgium Netherlands
Dates	10 June – 2 July
Teams	16
Venue	8 (in 8 host cities)
Final positions
Champions	👁 Image  France (2nd title)
Runners-up	👁 Image  Italy
Tournament statistics
Matches played	31
Goals scored	85 (2.74 per match)
Attendance	1,122,833 (36,220 per match)
Top scorer(s)	👁 Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Savo Milošević 👁 Netherlands Patrick Kluivert (5 goals each)
Best player	👁 France Zinedine Zidane
← 1996 2004 →

The 2000 UEFA European Football Championship, also known as Euro 2000, was the 11th UEFA European Championship, a football tournament held every four years and organised by UEFA, the sport's governing body in Europe.^[1]

The finals tournament was played between 10 June and 2 July 2000, and co-hosted by Belgium and the Netherlands, the first time the tournament had been held in more than one nation. Spain and Austria also bid to host the event.^[2] The finals tournament was contested by 16 nations; with the exception of the hosts, Belgium and the Netherlands, the finalists had to go through a qualifying tournament to reach the final stage. France won the tournament by defeating Italy 2–1 in the final, via a golden goal.^[3] Germany were defending champions but were eliminated in the Group Stage.

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.

With many high scoring games and a positive standard of play, Euro 2000 is often labelled by football writers as one of the greatest international tournaments of all time.^[4][5][6][7]

Belgium and the Netherlands were selected as co-hosts on 14 July 1995 by the UEFA Executive Committee at a meeting in Geneva, Switzerland.^[8][9]

Football hooliganism was a significant problem in the Netherlands in the 1990s, especially the fierce rivalry between Ajax and Feyenoord. There were concerns that hooliganism would overshadow the finals. Many instances of violence occurred, including several football riots in Rotterdam between 1995 and 1999, which would host the Euro 2000 final. One of the most infamous incidents was the Battle of Beverwijk in 1997. Although the violence is normally associated with domestic clubs, there were concerns that it could attach to the Dutch national team.^[10][11]

Violence did eventually occur during the Euro 2000 finals, albeit not involving the Dutch team. On 17 June, 174 England fans were arrested in Brussels, Belgium, following violence with Germans and local Turkish groups ahead of an England v Germany match.^[12]

One of the biggest surprises of the tournament was Portugal, winning Group A with three wins, including a 3–0 victory against Germany, with Sérgio Conceição scoring a hat-trick,^[13] and a 3–2 victory against England, in which they came back from 2–0 down.^[14] Romania was the other qualifier from the group, beating England with a late penalty in their last group game.^[15]

Belgium had a surprise exit in the group stage, winning the tournament's first game against Sweden,^[16] but losing to Turkey and Italy.^[17][18] 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.^[19] 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.^[20] FR Yugoslavia managed to go through as well, despite losing because Norway and Slovenia played to a draw.^[21]

👁 Image

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; Raúl 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 – apart from 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.^[22] 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.^[23][24]

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.^[25]

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. Notably, this was the only European Championship Belgium appeared in between 1984 and 2016.

As of 2024, this was the only time Norway qualified for the European Championship finals, the last time they qualified for a major tournament until the 2026 FIFA World Cup as well as the only time that Croatia failed to qualify for the European Championship finals since gaining independence.

Team	Qualified as	Qualified on	Previous appearances in tournament[A]
👁 Image  Belgium	Co-host	14 July 1995	3 (1972, 1980, 1984)
👁 Image  Netherlands			5 (1976, 1980, 1988, 1992, 1996)
👁 Image  Czech Republic[B]	Group 9 winner	9 June 1999	4 (1960, 1976, 1980, 1996)
👁 Image  Norway	Group 2 winner	8 September 1999	0 (debut)
👁 Image  Sweden	Group 5 winner	8 September 1999	1 (1992)
👁 Image  Spain	Group 6 winner	8 September 1999	5 (1964, 1980, 1984, 1988, 1996)
👁 Image  Italy	Group 1 winner	9 October 1999	4 (1968, 1980, 1988, 1996)
👁 Image  Germany[C]	Group 3 winner	9 October 1999	7 (1972, 1976, 1980, 1984, 1988, 1992, 1996)
👁 Image  France	Group 4 winner	9 October 1999	4 (1960, 1984, 1992, 1996)
👁 Image  Romania	Group 7 winner	9 October 1999	2 (1984, 1996)
👁 Image  FR Yugoslavia[D]	Group 8 winner	9 October 1999	4 (1960, 1968, 1976, 1984)
👁 Image  Portugal	Best runner-up	9 October 1999	2 (1984, 1996)
👁 Image  Denmark	Play-off winner	17 November 1999	5 (1964, 1984, 1988, 1992, 1996)
👁 Image  England	Play-off winner	17 November 1999	5 (1968, 1980, 1988, 1992, 1996)
👁 Image  Slovenia	Play-off winner	17 November 1999	0 (debut)
👁 Image  Turkey	Play-off winner	17 November 1999	1 (1996)

The finals draw took place 15:00 CET on 12 December 1999, at the Brussels Expo in Belgium; and was streamed live on UEFA's official website.^[26]

The composition of pots 1 to 4 was based on the teams' UEFA national team coefficient ranking at the end of 1999,^[27] with the exception of pot 1 automatically top seeding Germany as holders along with co-hosts Belgium and Netherlands.^[28][29][26]

Pot 1 Team Coeff Rank 👁 Image  Germany (holders)[a] 2.278 7 👁 Image  Belgium (co-hosts)[b] 2.375 5 👁 Image  Netherlands (co-hosts)[c] 2.250 8 👁 Image  Spain[d] 2.611 1

Pot 2 Team Coeff Rank 👁 Image  Romania 2.600 2 👁 Image  Norway 2.500 3 👁 Image  Sweden 2.389 4 👁 Image  Czech Republic 2.300 6

Pot 3 Team Coeff Rank 👁 Image  FR Yugoslavia 2.222 9 👁 Image  Portugal 2.100 11 👁 Image  France 2.100 12 👁 Image  Italy 2.063 13

Pot 4 Team Coeff Rank 👁 Image  England 2.000 15 👁 Image  Turkey 1.938 18 👁 Image  Denmark 1.938 19 👁 Image  Slovenia 1.000 37

Prior to the draw, the seeded teams in Pot 1 were assigned positions: Germany (defending champion) to A1, Belgium (co-host) to B1, Spain (highest coefficient) to C1, and the Netherlands (co-host) to D1. Teams were drawn consecutively from Pots 2 to 4 into a group, with each team then being assigned a specific position (for the purposes of determining the match schedules in each group).^[26]

The draw resulted in the following groups:^[30][31]

Group A Team 👁 Image  Germany 👁 Image  Romania 👁 Image  Portugal 👁 Image  England

Group B Team 👁 Image  Belgium 👁 Image  Sweden 👁 Image  Turkey 👁 Image  Italy

Group C Team 👁 Image  Spain 👁 Image  Norway 👁 Image  FR Yugoslavia 👁 Image  Slovenia

Group D Team 👁 Image  Netherlands 👁 Image  Czech Republic 👁 Image  France 👁 Image  Denmark

Capacity figures are those for matches at UEFA Euro 2000 and are not necessarily the total capacity that the stadium is capable of holding.^[32]

Belgium		Netherlands
Brussels	Bruges	Amsterdam	Rotterdam
King Baudouin Stadium	Jan Breydel Stadium	Amsterdam Arena	Feijenoord Stadion
Capacity: 50,000	Capacity: 30,000	Capacity: 52,000	Capacity: 51,000
👁 Image	👁 Image	👁 Image	👁 Image
👁 UEFA Euro 2000 is located in Belgium 👁 Brussels Brussels 👁 Bruges Bruges 👁 Liège Liège 👁 Charleroi Charleroi		👁 UEFA Euro 2000 is located in Netherlands 👁 Rotterdam Rotterdam 👁 Amsterdam Amsterdam 👁 Eindhoven Eindhoven 👁 Arnhem Arnhem
Liège	Charleroi	Eindhoven	Arnhem
Stade Maurice Dufrasne	Stade du Pays de Charleroi	Philips Stadion	GelreDome
Capacity: 30,000	Capacity: 30,000	Capacity: 33,000	Capacity: 30,000
👁 Image	👁 Image	👁 Image	👁 Image

The 16 national teams each stayed in their own "team base camp" during the tournament.^[33]

Team	Base camp	Ref.
Belgium	Lichtaart	[34][35]
Czech Republic	Knokke-Heist	[36]
Denmark	Brunssum	[37]
England	Spa/Waterloo	[33][38]
FR Yugoslavia	Edegem	[35][39]
France	Genval	[40]
Germany	Vaals	[41]
Italy	Grobbendonk	[42][43]
Netherlands	Hoenderloo	[35][44]
Norway	Knokke-Heist	[35][45]
Portugal	Ermelo	[35][46]
Romania	Grimbergen/Arnhem	[47]
Slovenia	Soestduinen	[48][49]
Spain	Tegelen	[50]
Sweden	Oisterwijk	[51]
Turkey	Delden	[52]

Each national team had to submit a squad of 22 players, three of whom had to be goalkeepers.

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.^[53] 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.^[54] 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.^[54]

The German referee Markus Merk was selected to referee the opening game between Belgium and Sweden.^[55]

Referees	Assistant referees	Fourth officials
👁 Austria Günter Benkö	👁 Belarus Yuri Dupanov	👁 Belgium Michel Piraux
👁 Denmark Kim Milton Nielsen	👁 Belgium Roland Van Nylen	👁 Greece Kyros Vassaras
👁 Egypt Gamal Al-Ghandour	👁 Bulgaria Ivan Lekov	👁 Norway Terje Hauge
👁 England Graham Poll	👁 Denmark Jens Larsen	👁 Slovakia Ľuboš Micheľ
👁 France Gilles Veissière	👁 England Philip Sharp
👁 Germany Markus Merk	👁 France Jacques Poudevigne
👁 Italy Pierluigi Collina	👁 Germany Kurt Ertl
👁 Netherlands Dick Jol	👁 Italy Sergio Zuccolini
👁 Portugal Vítor Melo Pereira	👁 Mali Dramane Dante
👁 Scotland Hugh Dallas	👁 Malta Emanuel Zammit
👁 Spain José María García-Aranda	👁 Netherlands Jaap Pool
👁 Sweden Anders Frisk	👁 Republic of Ireland Eddie Foley
👁 Switzerland Urs Meier	👁 Romania Nicolae Grigorescu
👁 Slovakia Igor Šramka
👁 Spain Carlos Martín Nieto
👁 Sweden Leif Lindberg
👁 Turkey Turgay Güdü

👁 Image

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).

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:^[56]

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.

Pos	Team v t e	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	👁 Image  Portugal	3	3	0	0	7	2	+5	9	Advance to knockout stage
2	👁 Image  Romania	3	1	1	1	4	4	0	4
3	👁 Image  England	3	1	0	2	5	6	−1	3
4	👁 Image  Germany	3	0	1	2	1	5	−4	1

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Pos	Team v t e	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	👁 Image  Italy	3	3	0	0	6	2	+4	9	Advance to knockout stage
2	👁 Image  Turkey	3	1	1	1	3	2	+1	4
3	👁 Image  Belgium (H)	3	1	0	2	2	5	−3	3
4	👁 Image  Sweden	3	0	1	2	2	4	−2	1

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Pos	Team v t e	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	👁 Image  Spain	3	2	0	1	6	5	+1	6	Advance to knockout stage
2	👁 Image  FR Yugoslavia	3	1	1	1	7	7	0	4[a]
3	👁 Image  Norway	3	1	1	1	1	1	0	4[a]
4	👁 Image  Slovenia	3	0	2	1	4	5	−1	2

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Pos	Team v t e	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	👁 Image  Netherlands (H)	3	3	0	0	7	2	+5	9	Advance to knockout stage
2	👁 Image  France	3	2	0	1	7	4	+3	6
3	👁 Image  Czech Republic	3	1	0	2	3	3	0	3
4	👁 Image  Denmark	3	0	0	3	0	8	−8	0

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The knockout stage was a single-elimination tournament with each round eliminating the losers.^[56] Any game that was undecided by the end of the regular 90 minutes, was followed by up to thirty minutes of extra time.^[56] For the second time the golden goal system was applied, whereby the first team to score during the extra time would become the winner.^[56] If no goal was scored there would be a penalty shoot-out to determine the winner.^[56] For the second time the final was won by a golden goal.^[56]

As with every tournament since UEFA Euro 1984, there was no third place play-off.

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

Quarter-finals		Semi-finals		Final
25 June – Bruges
		👁 Image  Spain	1
28 June – Brussels
		👁 Image  France	2
👁 Image  France (g.g.)	2
		24 June – Amsterdam
👁 Image  Portugal	1
		👁 Image  Turkey	0
2 July – Rotterdam
		👁 Image  Portugal	2
👁 Image  France (g.g.)	2
		24 June – Brussels
👁 Image  Italy	1
		👁 Image  Italy	2
29 June – Amsterdam
		👁 Image  Romania	0
👁 Image  Italy (p)	0 (3)
		25 June – Rotterdam
👁 Image  Netherlands	0 (1)
		👁 Image  Netherlands	6
👁 Image  FR Yugoslavia	1

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There were 85 goals scored in 31 matches, for an average of 2.74 goals per match.

5 goals

4 goals

3 goals

2 goals

1 goal

1 own goal

Source: UEFA^[58]

UEFA Team of the Tournament^[59]

Goalkeepers	Defenders	Midfielders	Forwards
👁 France Fabien Barthez 👁 Italy Francesco Toldo	👁 France Laurent Blanc 👁 France Marcel Desailly 👁 France Lilian Thuram 👁 Italy Fabio Cannavaro 👁 Italy Paolo Maldini 👁 Italy Alessandro Nesta 👁 Netherlands Frank de Boer	👁 France Patrick Vieira 👁 France Zinedine Zidane 👁 Italy Demetrio Albertini 👁 Netherlands Edgar Davids 👁 Portugal Rui Costa 👁 Portugal Luís Figo 👁 Spain Pep Guardiola	👁 Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Savo Milošević 👁 France Thierry Henry 👁 Italy Francesco Totti 👁 Netherlands Patrick Kluivert 👁 Portugal Nuno Gomes 👁 Spain Raúl

Golden Boot

• 👁 Netherlands
  Patrick Kluivert (5 goals)
• 👁 Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
  Savo Milošević (5 goals)

UEFA Player of the Tournament

• 👁 France
  Zinedine Zidane^[59]

Prize money

Rank	Team	CHFMillion[60]
1	👁 Image  France	14.4
2	👁 Image  Italy	13.2
3	👁 Image  Netherlands 👁 Image  Portugal	10.2
5	👁 Image  Romania 👁 Image  Spain 👁 Image  Turkey 👁 Image  FR Yugoslavia	7.8
9	👁 Image  Belgium 👁 Image  Czech Republic 👁 Image  England 👁 Image  Norway	5.4
13	👁 Image  Denmark 👁 Image  Germany 👁 Image  Slovenia 👁 Image  Sweden	4.8

A sum of CHF120 million was awarded to the 16 qualified teams in the competition.^[60][61] France, the winners of the tournament, received a total prize money of CHF14.4 million.^[60] Below is a complete list of the allocations:^[61]

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.^[62] However, no connections were found and the Football Association of FR Yugoslavia later received their money with an additional bonus.^[63]

The slogan of the competition was "Football without frontiers".^[64][65] "Campione 2000" by E-Type was the official anthem of the event.^[66]

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The 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.^[67][68]

👁 Image

The official mascot for the tournament was Benelucky^[69] (a pun on Benelux), a lion-devil hybrid with its mane having 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").^[70]

Official Sponsors[71]	Official Suppliers[71]
Carlsberg Coca-Cola Fujifilm Hyundai JVC Mastercard McDonald's Philips PlayStation Pringles PSINet Sportal	Adecco Adidas Cisco Systems Connexxion KLM Lever Fabergé Nestlé Cereals Telfort TotalFina

• UEFA Euro 2000 at UEFA.com
• Official website at the Wayback Machine (archived 9 May 2001)

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