European cup history (Euro Cup) actually began from Henri Delaunay’s idea in the late decades of the 1920s. Henri Delaunay is the Secretary of the French Football Federation (FFF). At that time, Delaunay see any imbalance between the two poles, in which Latin American countries are too strong for Europe. Uruguay won the Olympic gold medal in 1924 and 1928. In fact, Uruguay was appointed to host the World Cup I in 1930 in honor of his achievement.
Delauney idea is actually quite simple. Delauney want to increase the frequency of matches between the countries of Europe by holding a competition among nations. Unfortunately, the idea Delauney ignored by UEFA (Union of European soccer). UEFA European Club Championships held instead that became known as the Champions Cup, UEFA Cup and Winners Cup began in 1954.
This makes Delauney disappointed, and fell ill and died in November 1955. The death of one of the elders of the European football is very surprising UEFA officials. In UEFA congress in 1957, Delauney old idea that was finally approved. Congress also decided to France as the host of the first European Cup in 1960 as a form of homage to the Delauney. At this event, the Soviet Union (now Russia) who won after the grounding of Yugoslavia with a score of 2-1 in extra time.
Since then, every four years UEFA staged event ‘Mini World Cup’. The development of the grand event that continues to happen. For example, the number of participants lasted a second European Cup in Spain, 1964, swelled from 17 countries to 29 countries. These include marked swelling of the entry of Britain and Italy in the arena of European grand event. But the final round of the same format as the first, the four teams that qualified for the finals. This time the host Spain in the final overthrow of the Soviet Union defending champion with a score of 2-1.
Due to increasing number of participants, the game format was changed. Each participant must be a group winner and runner up in advance to qualify for the finals. This format is the standard format adopted by every European Cup event till now.
And now, European Cup 2012 will be held in two countries, Poland and Ukraine.
List of host :
- French (1960)
- Spain (1964)
- Italy (1968)
- Belgium (1972)
- Yugoslavia (1976)
- Italy (1980)
- France (1984)
- West Germany (1988)
- Sweden (1992)
- England (1996)
- Belgium & Netherlands (2000)
- Portugal (2004)
- Austria & Switzerland (2008)
- Poland & Ukraine (2012)
List of winners :
- Soviet Union (1960)
- Spain (1964)
- Italy (1968)
- West Germany (1972)
- Czechoslovakia (1976)
- West Germany (1980)
- France (1984)
- Netherlands (1988)
- Denmark (1992)
- Germany (1996)
- France (2000)
- Greece (2004)
- Spain (2008)
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