UEFA Euro 2020 final

The UEFA Euro 2020 final was an association football match that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, England, on 11 July 2021, to determine the winners of UEFA Euro 2020. It was the sixteenth final of the UEFA European Championship, a quadrennial tournament contested by the senior men's national teams of the member associations of UEFA to decide the champions of Europe. Originally scheduled for 12 July 2020, the match had been postponed along with the rest of the tournament due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe. The match was contested between Italy, in their fourth Euro final, and England, in their first ever Euro final, and just their second final at any major tournament, after the 1966 FIFA World Cup final.

In front of a crowd of 67,173, limited by COVID-19 restrictions, with an estimated global audience of 328 million, England's Luke Shaw opened the scoring in the second minute of the match, the fastest and earliest goal ever scored in a European Championship final. Leonardo Bonucci – who was later named the man of the match – scored an equaliser midway through the second half. With the score 1–1 after extra time, England gained a 2–1 advantage in the penalty shoot-out after two kicks each, but their last three takers all missed, and Italy won 3–2.

This was Italy's first major title since the 2006 FIFA World Cup, and their first European Championship since winning it on home soil in 1968; in terms of European Championship titles, it put Italy level with France on two titles, and one title behind Spain and Germany. England became the third nation in the 21st century to lose the European Championship final on home soil, following Portugal in 2004 and France in 2016. After the match, England's unsuccessful penalty takers (Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka) were subjected to racial abuse on social media, which was investigated by the Metropolitan Police. The event was also marred by crowd disorder as roughly six thousand ticketless England supporters fought police and security in attempts to breach the stadium.

UEFA Euro 2020 was the sixteenth edition of the European Football Championship, UEFA's football competition for national teams, held between 11 June and 11 July 2021 in eleven cities, all in different countries from each other. Qualifying rounds were held between March and November 2019, in which fifty-five teams were divided into ten groups of five or six, playing each other on a home-and-away round-robin tournament basis. The top two teams in each group qualified for the finals, along with four additional teams, determined by a combination of their 2018–19 UEFA Nations League performance and a series of play-off games. In the finals, the 24 teams were divided into six groups of four with each team playing each other once within the group. The two top teams from each group along with the four best third-placed sides advanced to a knock-out phase.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe during 2020, the tournament was postponed to summer 2021, while retaining the name Euro 2020 and using the same host venues. Alongside special rules regarding COVID-19, UEFA also allowed more substitutions than had originally been planned and implemented video assistant referee (VAR) for the first time.

Before the tournament, England were considered by bookmakers to be second favourites to win it, behind France; Italy were seventh favourites and were described by Evan Bartlett of the i newspaper as "potential dark horses". The two sides were ranked fourth and seventh, respectively, in the FIFA World Rankings released before the start of the tournament. Both are former FIFA World Cup champions, Italy winning four times, most recently in 2006, and England winning once, in 1966. However, Italy had failed to qualify for the 2018 FIFA World Cup, the first time they had missed the tournament since 1958. England, meanwhile, finished fourth at the tournament, their best finish since 1990. Italy won the European Championship in 1968 as the hosts; England's best performance in the competition was to reach the semi-finals twice, in 1968 and 1996. In the previous European Championship, Italy were eliminated in the quarter-finals on penalties to Germany, while England went out in the round of 16 after a shock defeat to newcomers Iceland.

Italy had previously played in three European Championship finals; they beat Yugoslavia in 1968 after a replay, lost to France in 2000 via a golden goal and lost to Spain in 2012. They entered the final on a 33-match unbeaten run, the third-longest in international football history behind the 35-match streaks of Brazil (1993–1996) and Spain (2007–2009), having last lost 1–0 to Portugal in the 2018–19 UEFA Nations League on 10 September 2018. Italy were also on a 27-match unbeaten run in competitive fixtures, only behind the 29-match streak of Spain from 2010 to 2013.

The final was England's first at a major tournament since the 1966 World Cup, the only other final they had reached. England also became the third nation of the 21st century to play in a European Championship final as hosts after Portugal in 2004 and France in 2016. Both previous hosts lost their respective finals, Portugal against Greece and France against Portugal. In the 20th century, three host countries made it to the final and all won – Italy in 1968, Spain in 1964 and France in 1984. Despite the final taking place in London, Italy were the "home team" for administrative purposes.