UEFA Euro 2000
UEFA Euro 2000
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UEFA Euro 2000

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.

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. 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.

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.

A high-scoring championship with many exciting matches and an elite standard of play, Euro 2000 is often labelled by football writers as one of the greatest international tournaments of all time.

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

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.

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.

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, and a 3–2 victory against England, in which they came back from 2–0 down. Romania was the other qualifier from the group, beating England with a late penalty in their last group game.

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