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.
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]
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 were not the hosts. They played after missing the previous tournament.
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.
^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.
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.
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:
Goal difference in all group matches
Greater number of goals scored in all group matches
It was the last tournament to use the UEFA plus flag logo, and before the tournament was known as "Euro" (it is known as "Euro 1992" only retrospectively). It was also the first major football competition in which the players had their names printed on their backs, around the time that it was becoming a trend in club football across Europe.
Mascot
The official mascot of the competition was a rabbit named Rabbit, dressed in a Swedish football jersey, as well as wearing head and wristbands while playing with a ball.[16]
Denmark (1st title)
Germany
Dennis Bergkamp
Tomas Brolin
