UEFA Euro 1992

1992 UEFA European Football Championship
Europamästerskapet i fotboll; Sverige 1992
	Small is Beautiful
Tournament details
Host country	Sweden
Dates	10–26 June
Teams	8
Venue(s)	4 (in 4 host cities)
Final positions
Champions	Denmark (1st title)
Runners-up	Germany
Tournament statistics
Matches played	15
Goals scored	32 (2.13 per match)
Attendance	430,111 (28,674 per match)
Top scorer(s)	Henrik Larsen; Karl-Heinz Riedle; Dennis Bergkamp; Tomas Brolin; (3 goals each)

The 1992 UEFA European Football Championship was hosted by Sweden between 10 and 26 June 1992. It was the ninth UEFA European Championship, which is held every four years and supported by UEFA.

Denmark won the 1992 championship, having qualified only after Yugoslavia was disqualified as a result of the breakup of the country and the ensuing warfare there. Eight national teams contested the final tournament.[1]

The CIS national football team (Commonwealth of Independent States), representing the recently dissolved Soviet Union, whose national team had qualified for the tournament, were present at the tournament. It was also the first major tournament in which the reunified Germany (who were beaten 2–0 by Denmark in the final) had competed.

It was the last tournament with only eight participants, to award the winner of a match with only two points, and before the introduction of the back-pass rule, the latter of which was brought in immediately after the tournament was completed. When the next competition was held in 1996, 16 teams were involved and were awarded three points for a win.

Bid process

On 16 December 1988, following a decision made by the UEFA Executive Committee, Sweden was chosen over Spain to host the event.[2] Spain was at a disadvantage as they had already been chosen to host the EXPO 1992 in Seville and the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona.[2][3]

Summary

Seven of the eight teams had to qualify for the final stage; Sweden qualified automatically as hosts of the event.[4] The Soviet Union qualified for the final tournament shortly before the break-up of the country, and took part in the tournament under the banner of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS),[5] before the former Soviet republics formed their own national teams after the competition. The CIS team represented the following former Soviet nations: Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Moldova, and Tajikistan. Four out of 15 ex-republics were not members of the CIS: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania did not send their players; Georgia was not a member of the CIS at the time, but Georgian Kakhaber Tskhadadze was a part of the squad.

Originally, Yugoslavia qualified for the final stage and were about to participate as FR Yugoslavia, but due to the Yugoslav Wars, the team was disqualified and Denmark, as the runners-up from Yugoslavia's qualifying group, was invited to take part instead.[6] After a draw with England and a loss to host nation Sweden, Denmark beat France in their final group match to qualify for the semi-finals, where they would face the reigning European champions, the Netherlands. Denmark led 2–1 going into the last five minutes, but a Frank Rijkaard equaliser meant the game went to a penalty shoot-out; Danish goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel saved Marco van Basten's kick, giving Denmark a 5–4 win on penalties and a place in the final against reigning world champions Germany.[7] Denmark won the final 2–0 with goals from John Jensen and Kim Vilfort in either half to claim their first European title.[8]

Qualification

Scotland and the hosts Sweden made their respective debuts despite having already made many appearances at the World Cup. France qualified for the first Euro in which they are not the hosts. They played after missing the previous tournament.

As of 2020, this is the last time the Czech Republic (then Czechoslovakia), Italy, Portugal and Spain failed to qualify for the European Championship finals.

Qualified teams

Team	Qualified as	Qualified on	Previous appearances in tournament[upper-alpha 1]
Sweden	Host	16 December 1988	0 (debut)
France	Group 1 winner	12 October 1991	2 (1960, 1984)
England	Group 7 winner	13 November 1991	3 (1968, 1980, 1988)
CIS[upper-alpha 2]	Group 3 winner[upper-alpha 3]	13 November 1991	5 (1960, 1964, 1968, 1972, 1988)
Scotland	Group 2 winner	13 November 1991	0 (debut)
Germany[upper-alpha 4]	Group 5 winner	20 November 1991	5 (1972, 1976, 1980, 1984, 1988)
Netherlands	Group 6 winner	4 December 1991	3 (1976, 1980, 1988)
Denmark	Group 4 runner-up[upper-alpha 5]	31 May 1992	3 (1964, 1984, 1988)

Bold indicates champion for that year. Italic indicates host for that year.
From 1960 to 1988, CIS competed as the Soviet Union.
Replaced the Soviet Union.
From 1972 to 1988, Germany competed as West Germany.
Replaced FR Yugoslavia (after qualifying as Yugoslavia), who were subject to sanctions under UN Security Council Resolution 757 and thus banned from appearing.[9]

Final draw

The draw for the final tournament took place on 17 January 1992 in Gothenburg. Only two teams were seeded: Sweden (as hosts) and the Netherlands (as holders).[10][11] The remaining six teams were all unseeded and could be drawn in any group. Months after the draw, Yugoslavia was banned from participating and replaced by Denmark, which had come second in the qualifying group.

In the draw procedure, the unseeded teams were drawn one by one. The first two were placed in position 4 of each group, the next two in position 3, and the last 2 in position 2. The two seeded teams were then drawn and placed consecutively into position 1 of the groups.

Pot 1: Seeded teams	Pot 2: Unseeded teams
Sweden (hosts)[lower-alpha 1] Netherlands (holders)[lower-alpha 2]	CIS England	France Germany	Scotland ~~Yugoslavia~~[lower-alpha 3]

Hosts Sweden were automatically assigned to position A1.
Defending champions the Netherlands were automatically assigned to position B1.
Yugoslavia were to participate in the final tournament as FR Yugoslavia. However, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was placed under sanctions on 30 May 1992 by the United Nations Security Council Resolution 757 after the outbreak of Yugoslav Wars.[9] FIFA and UEFA therefore suspended FR Yugoslavia from competitive football on 31 May 1992, meaning they could not participate in the final tournament. Denmark instead took the spot at the final tournament.

The draw resulted in the following groups:[12]

Group A
Pos	Team
A1	Sweden
A2	France
A3	~~Yugoslavia~~ → Denmark
A4	England

Group B
Pos	Team
B1	Netherlands
B2	Scotland
B3	CIS
B4	Germany

Venues

Gothenburg	Gothenburg Stockholm Malmö Norrköping	Stockholm
Ullevi		Råsunda Stadium
Capacity: 44,000		Capacity: 40,000

Malmö		Norrköping
Malmö Stadion		Idrottsparken
Capacity: 30,000		Capacity: 23,000

Squads

Each national team had to submit a squad of 20 players.

Match ball

Adidas Etrusco Unico was used as the official match ball of the tournament. The ball was previously used in the 1990 FIFA World Cup.

Match officials

Country	Referee	Linesmen		Matches refereed
Austria	Hubert Forstinger	Johann Möstl	Alois Pemmer	France 1–2 Denmark
Belgium	Guy Goethals	Pierre Mannaerts	Robert Surkijn	Scotland 0–2 Germany
CIS	Alexey Spirin	Victor Filippov	Andrei Butenko	Sweden 1–1 France
Denmark	Peter Mikkelsen	Arne Paltoft	Jørgen Ohmeyer	Netherlands 0–0 CIS
France	Gérard Biguet	Marc Huguenin	Alain Gourdet	CIS 1–1 Germany
Germany	Aron Schmidhuber	Joachim Ren	Uwe Ennuschat	Sweden 1–0 Denmark
Hungary	Sándor Puhl	László Varga	Sándor Szilágyi	France 0–0 England
Italy	Pierluigi Pairetto	Domenico Ramicone	Maurizio Padovan	Netherlands 3–1 Germany
Italy	Tullio Lanese	Domenico Ramicone	Maurizio Padovan	Sweden 2–3 Germany (Semi-final)
Netherlands	John Blankenstein	Jan Dolstra	Robert Overkleeft	Denmark 0–0 England
Portugal	José Rosa dos Santos	Valdemar Aguiar Pinto Lopes	Antonio Guedes Gomes De Carvalho	Sweden 2–1 England
Spain	Emilio Soriano Aladrén	Francisco García Pacheco	José Luis Iglesia Casas	Netherlands 2–2 Denmark (Semi-final)
Sweden	Bo Karlsson	Lennart Sundqvist	Bo Persson	Netherlands 1–0 Scotland
Switzerland	Kurt Röthlisberger	Zivanko Popović	Paul Wyttenbach	Scotland 3–0 CIS
Switzerland	Bruno Galler	Zivanko Popović	Paul Wyttenbach	Denmark 2–0 Germany (Final)

Country	Fourth officials
Austria	Gerhard Kapl
Belgium	Frans van den Wijngaert
CIS	Vadim Zhuk
Denmark	Kim Milton Nielsen
France	Rémi Harrel
Germany	Karl-Josef Assenmacher
Hungary	Sándor Varga
Netherlands	Mario van der Ende
Portugal	Jorge Emanuel Monteiro Coroado
Sweden	Leif Sundell

Group stage

Results. Yugoslavia (stripes) qualified and were going to participate as FR Yugoslavia, but banned and replaced by Denmark. CIS (yellow on the right side of the map) qualified as Soviet Union.

The teams finishing in the top two positions in each of the two groups progress to the semi-finals, while the bottom two teams in each group were eliminated from the tournament.

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

Tiebreakers

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:

Greater number of points in all group matches
Goal difference in all group matches
Greater number of goals scored in all group matches
Drawing of lots

Group 1

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Sweden (H)	3	2	1	0	4	2	+2	5	Advance to knockout stage
2	Denmark	3	1	1	1	2	2	0	3	Advance to knockout stage
3	France	3	0	2	1	2	3	−1	2
4	England	3	0	2	1	1	2	−1	2

Source: UEFA
(H) Hosts

10 June 1992

20:15

Sweden	1–1	France
J. Eriksson 24'	Report	Papin 58'

Råsunda Stadium, Solna

Attendance: 29,860

Referee: Alexey Spirin (CIS)

11 June 1992