The 2012 UEFA European Championship, commonly referred to as Euro 2012, was the 14th European
Championship for men's national football teams organised by UEFA.
The final tournament, held between 8 June and 1 July 2012, was co-hosted for the first
time by Poland and Ukraine, and was won by Spain, who beat Italy 4–0 in the final at
the Olympic Stadium in Kiev, Ukraine.
Poland and Ukraine's bid was chosen by UEFA's Executive Committee in 2007.
The two host teams qualified automatically while the remaining 14 finalists were decided
through a qualifying competition, featuring 51 teams, from August 2010 to November 2011.
This was the last European Championship to employ the 16-team finals format in use since
1996; from Euro 2016 onward, it will be expanded to 24 finalists.
Euro 2012 was played at eight venues, four in each host country.
Five new stadiums were built for the tournament, and the hosts invested heavily in improving
infrastructure such as railways and roads at UEFA's request.
Euro 2012 set attendance records for the 16-team format, for the highest aggregate attendance
and average per game.
Spain became the first team to win two consecutive European Championships, and also three straight
major tournaments.
Spain had already gained entry to the 2013 Confederations Cup by winning the 2010 World
Cup, so runners-up Italy also qualified.
As at Euro 2008 in Austria and Switzerland, both 2012 host nations were eliminated in
the group stage.
Bid process
The hosting of the event was initially contested by five bids representing seven countries:
Croatia–Hungary, Greece, Italy, Poland–Ukraine, and Turkey.
After an initial consideration of the bid data in 2005 by UEFA both the Greek and Turkish
bids were eliminated from the process to leave three candidates.
This was followed by a second round of the selection process which among other included
visits by UEFA to all candidates.
On 18 April 2007, the Poland–Ukraine bid was chosen by a vote of the UEFA Executive
Committee at a meeting in Cardiff.
Poland–Ukraine became the third successful joint bid for the European Championship, after
those of Belgium–Netherlands and Austria–Switzerland.
Their bid received an absolute majority of votes, and was therefore announced the winner,
without requiring a second round.
Italy, which received the remaining votes, had been considered favourites to win the
hosting, but incidents of fan violence and a match fixing scandal were widely cited as
factors behind their failure.
There were some later alterations from the initial bid plan, regarding the venues, before
UEFA confirmed the eight host cities in 2009.
During the preparation process in Poland and Ukraine, UEFA repeatedly expressed concern
about their preparation to host the event, with different candidates reported as being
alternative hosts if they did not improve; however, in the end, UEFA affirmed their selection.
Qualification
The draw for the UEFA Euro 2012 qualifying competition took place in Warsaw on 7 February
2010.
Fifty-one teams entered to compete for the fourteen remaining places in the finals, alongside
co-hosts Poland and Ukraine.
The teams were divided into nine groups, with the draw using the new UEFA national team
coefficient for the first time in order to determine the seedings.
As defending champions, Spain was automatically top seeded.
The qualifying process began in August 2010 and concluded in November 2011.
At the conclusion of the qualifying group stage in October 2011, the nine group winners
qualified automatically, along with the highest ranked second placed team.
The remaining eight second placed teams contested two-legged play-offs, and the four winners
qualified for the finals.
Twelve of the sixteen finalists participated at the previous tournament in 2008.
England and Denmark made their return to the Euro, having last participated in 2004, while
Republic of Ireland returned after a twenty-four year absence to make their second appearance
at a European Championship.
One of the co-hosts, Ukraine, made their debut as an independent nation.
With the exception of Serbia – according to UEFA's ranking at the end of the qualifying
stage – Europe's sixteen highest-ranked teams all qualified for the tournament.
Qualified teams The following sixteen teams qualified for
the finals:
Final draw The draw for the final tournament took place
on 2 December 2011 at the Ukraine Palace of Arts in Kiev, Ukraine.
The hour-long ceremony was hosted by Olga Freimut and Piotr Sobczyński, television
presenters from the two host countries.
As was the case for the 2004 and 2008 finals, the sixteen finalists were divided into four
seeding pots, using the UEFA national team coefficient ranking.
The pot allocations were based on the UEFA national team coefficient rankings of the
sixteen finalists at the end of the qualifying competition in November 2011.
Each nation's coefficient was generated by calculating:
40% of the average ranking points per game earned in the UEFA Euro 2012 qualifying stage.
40% of the average ranking points per game earned in the 2010 FIFA World Cup qualifying
stage and final tournament.
20% of the average ranking points per game earned in the UEFA Euro 2008 qualifying stage
and final tournament.
Aside from the coefficient, three teams were automatically placed in Pot 1.
Ukraine and Poland were both assigned to Pot 1 as the two host nations, despite the fact
that their rankings were the two lowest in the tournament; this also occurred in 2008
when the co-hosts Switzerland and Austria were also ranked below all other qualified
teams.
As defending champions, Spain were also automatically assigned to Pot 1, though their UEFA ranking
at the time of the draw was coincidentally also the best.
In the draw procedure, one team from each pot was drawn into each of the four groups.
The draw also determined which place in the group teams in pots 2–4 would take to create
the match schedule.
With Poland were automatically assigned in advance to A1, and Ukraine to D1, Pot 1 only
had two teams as Spain and the Netherlands were to be drawn into position one in either
group B or C. The balls were drawn by four former players who had each been part of European
Championship winning teams: Horst Hrubesch, Marco van Basten, Peter Schmeichel and Zinedine
Zidane.
Venues
Eight cities were selected by UEFA as host venues.
In a return to the format used at Euro 1992, Euro 1996 and Euro 2008, each of the four
groups' matches were played in two stadiums.
Host cities Warsaw, Gdańsk, Wrocław, Poznań, Kiev, and Lviv are all popular tourist destinations,
unlike Donetsk and Kharkiv, the latter of which replaced Dnipropetrovsk as a host city
in 2009.
In order to meet UEFA's requirement for football infrastructure improvements, five new stadiums
were built and opened in advance of the tournament.
The remaining three stadiums underwent major renovations in order to meet UEFA's infrastructure
standards.
Three of the stadiums are categorised as UEFA's highest category stadiums.
The transport infrastructure in Poland and Ukraine was also extensively modified on the
request of UEFA to cope with the large influx of football fans.
UEFA organised fan zones in the eight host cities.
They were located in the centre of each city, with all 31 matches shown live on a total
of 24 giant screens.
The zones enabled supporters to come together in a secure and controlled environment.
The Warsaw Fan Zone occupied 120,000 square meters and accommodated 100,000 visitors.
In all, the fans zones had a 20% increase in capacity compared to Euro 2008.
Stadiums A total of 31 matches were played during Euro
2012, with Ukraine hosting 16 of them and Poland 15.
Ticketing Tickets for the venues were sold directly
by UEFA via its website, or distributed by the football associations of the 16 finalists.
Applications had to be made during March 2011 for the 1.4 million tickets available for
the 31 tournament matches.
Over 20,000 were forecast to cross the Poland–Ukraine border each day during the tournament.
Over 12 million applications were received, which represented a 17% increase on the 2008
finals, and an all-time record for the UEFA European Championship.
Owing to this over-subscription for the matches, lotteries were carried out to allocate tickets.
Prices varied from €30 to €600.
In addition to individual match tickets, fans could buy packages to see either all matches
played by one team, or all matches at one specific venue.
Team base camps Each team had a "team base camp" for its stay
between the matches.
From an initial list of thirty-eight potential locations, the national associations chose
their locations in 2011.
The teams trained and resided in these locations throughout the tournament, travelling to games
staged away from their bases.
Thirteen teams stayed in Poland and three in Ukraine.
Poland Ukraine
Broadcasting
According to UEFA requirements, TP ensured approximately 2х70 Gbit/sec data communication
speed from Polish stadiums and 2х140 Gbit/sec between Poland and Ukraine.
This was required due to the fact that the matches were broadcast in HD quality.
The multilateral production utilised 31 cameras to cover the action on and around the pitch
at every match, with additional cameras following activities around the game, such as team arrivals
at the stadiums, interviews, and media conferences.
The official Euro 2012 broadcasting centre was located at the Expo XXI International
Centre in Warsaw.
The tournament was broadcast live by around 100 TV channels covering the whole world.
150,000,000 people were expected to watch the matches each day.
Match ball
The Adidas Tango 12 was the official match ball of UEFA Euro 2012.
The ball is named after the original Adidas Tango family of footballs; however, the Tango
12 and its variations have a completely new design.
Variations of the ball have been used in other contemporary competitions including the Africa
Cup of Nations and the Summer Olympics.
It is designed to be easier to dribble and control than the reportedly unpredictable
Adidas Jabulani used at the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
Squads For the list of all squads that played in
the tournament, see UEFA Euro 2012 squads.
Match officials On 20 December 2011, UEFA named twelve referees
and four fourth officials for Euro 2012.
On 27 March 2012, UEFA issued the full list of 80 referees to be used in Euro 2012, including
the assistant referees, the additional assistant referees, and the four reserve assistant referees.
Each refereeing team consisted of five match officials from the same country: one main
referee, two assistant referees, and two additional assistant referees.
All of the main referees, additional assistant referees, and fourth officials were FIFA referees,
and the assistant referees were FIFA assistant referees.
For each refereeing team, a third assistant referee from each country was named to remain
on standby until the start of the tournament to take the place of a colleague if required.
In two cases, for the French and Slovenian refereeing teams, the standby assistant referees
took the place of one of the assistant referees before the start of the tournament.
Continuing the experiments carried out in the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa
League, the two additional assistant referees were used on the goal line for the first time
in European Championship history with approval from the International Football Association
Board.
Final referee; only referee assigned to four matches.
Four match officials, who served only as fourth officials, and four reserve assistant referees
were also named: Results
UEFA announced the schedule for the 31 matches of the final tournament in October 2010, with
the final confirmation of kick-offs times being affirmed following the tournament draw
in December 2011.
Group stage The teams finishing in the top two positions
in each of the four groups progressed to the quarter-finals, while the bottom two teams
were eliminated from the tournament.
Tie-breaking If two or more teams were equal on points
on completion of the group matches, the following tie-breaking criteria were applied:
Higher number of points obtained in the matches played between the teams in question;
Superior goal difference resulting from the matches played between the teams in question;
Higher number of goals scored in the matches played between the teams in question;
Superior goal difference in all group matches; Higher number of goals scored in all group
matches; If two teams tie alone after having met in
the last round of the group stage their ranking is determined by penalty shoot-out.
Position in the UEFA national team coefficient ranking system;
Fair play conduct of the teams; Drawing of lots.