When it comes to the European Championships, every team wants to get off to the best possible start in the group stage, and if you can advance to the knockout stage as winners of the group, all the better.
However, historical data shows that, since a group stage was introduced to the final tournament in 1980, only 50% of the tournament winners have lifted the trophy after winning their group. In a competition where momentum is so important, it’s perhaps surprising that only five of the winners since 1980 have been the top team in their respective group.
Of course, the latest team to fit into that category are Portugal, who took advantage of the change in format in 2016 by winning the tournament having finished third in their group without even winning a match. With Euro 2020 following the same 24-team structure, there is an opportunity for another side to overcome the Euro 2020 odds and do similar.
Looking back through the annals of European Championship history, the first two tournament winners both did so after winning their groups — West Germany in 1980 and France in 1984. Then came two successive Euros where a second-placed team from the group stage won the tournament — the Netherlands in 1988 and surprise winners Denmark in 1992.
Germany’s win at Euro 96 came after they had topped their group, but both France in 2000 and Greece in 2004 lifted the trophy after finishing second. Spain’s two successive triumphs in 2008 and 2012 came on the back of first-place group-stage finishes, before Portugal’s unlikely success five years ago.
The data proves that it is not always the team that starts best who triumphs in the end, and there will be a number of teams hoping that they can recover from poor starts in this summer’s Euros to go on and make their own history.
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