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Trivia: Euro 2000 Final
Posted: Sunday July 02, 2000 09:29 AM
ROTTERDAM (Reuters) -- Trivia facts about Sunday's Euro 2000 final between France and Italy: The highest score for one team in a European Championship final was in 1972 when West Germany beat the Soviet Union 3-0 in Brussels. Curiously, the winning team in all of the other nine finals since the tournament started in 1960 scored two goals. - - - - Four previous finals have gone into extra time -- 1960 Soviet Union v Yugoslavia; 1968 Italy v Yugoslavia, which was replayed; 1976 Czechoslovakia v West Germany, which went to the only penalty shootout in a final; 1996 Germany v Czech Republic, decided on a golden goal - - - - Germany's Uli Hoeness is the only player to miss a penalty in a final shootout. He blazed over the bar in the 1976 final, which Czechoslovakia won 5-3 on penalties. Germany came back from 2-0 down in normal time to draw 2-2 with a last-minute goal. - - - - Only three players, all Germans, have scored more than once in a final. Gerd Mueller scored two against the Soviet Union in the 1972 final, Horst Hrubesch scored both his side's goals to beat Belgium in 1980 and Oliver Bierhoff scored twice, including the golden goal, against the Czech Republic in 1996. - - - - France and Italy are both appearing in their second final, both having won the tournament at home previously. Italy beat Yugoslavia in 1968 in Rome and France beat Spain in 1984 in Paris. - - - - France is aiming to become the first World Cup holders to add the European title. The only nation to have held both titles simultaneously was West Germany, but they won the European Championship first in 1972 before adding the World Cup in 1974. - - - - The winner of the final will be only the second nation to capture the title more than once. Germany has won it three times -- as West Germany in 1972 and 1980 and as Germany in 1996. - - - - Germany has also appeared in most finals -- five. That is followed by the Soviet Union with three. Italy and France now join Yugoslavia, Spain and Czechoslovakia/Czech Republic on two. - - - - Italian coach Dino Zoff won the tournament as a player in 1968 and could become the first person to win it as both player and coach. - - - - Twelve of the 14 players who won the World Cup final against Brazil two years ago are in the French squad at Euro 2000. Only Stephane Guivarc'h and Alain Boghossian are missing. At least eight of them are expected to start the match -- Fabien Barthez, Lilian Thuram, Marcel Desailly, Bixente Lizarazu, Youri Djorkaeff, Didier Deschamps, Zinedine Zidane and Patrick Vieira. A ninth, Emmanuel Petit, will also play if he recovers from a heavy cold. Christophe Dugarry, Christian Karembeu and Franck Leboeuf are likely to be on the bench. - - - - Anders Frisk will become the first Swede to referee a European final. - - - - Italy has won 16 and lost only five of its 29 previous meetings with France. But France is unbeaten in the last five encounters and has not lost to Italy since the 1978 World Cup finals. - - - - France and Italy have never met in the European Championship, either in qualifiers or finals. They have played four World Cup matches, all in the finals. Italy won two and France one. The fourth, at the 1998 World Cup, was a 0-0 draw but France went through on penalties. - - - - Italy's highest score against France was a 9-4 win in Milan in 1920 and its biggest margin of victory was a 7-0 thrashing in Turin in 1925. - - - - France's highest score against Italy came in a 4-3 win in Turin in 1912 and their biggest margin was a more modest 2-0, achieved twice -- in Paris in 1982 and in the 1986 World Cup in Mexico. - - - - Italian goalkeeper Francesco Toldo and French defender Marcel Desailly are the only players from their teams to have been on the pitch for every minutes of their nations' five-match run to the final. - - - - Desailly and Patrick Vieira would have been suspended from the final for picking up their second yellow card of the tournament in the semifinal under UEFA's old rules. But UEFA changed the system for Euro 2000, wiping the slate clean for yellow cards from the group stage before the quarterfinals. - - - - The last penalty scored in a final was in 1996 when Patrik Berger opened the scoring for the Czech Republic from the spot. The last penalty missed was in 1988 when Dutch keeper Hans Van Breukelen saved from Soviet Union striker Igor Belanov. - - - - The team scoring first in the final has only twice failed to win. Milan Galic scored the first goal in a final for Yugoslavia in 1960 but the Soviet Union won the match 2-1. Berger's goal for the Czechs in 1996 was not enough to stop Germany winning 2-1. - - - - France was the last host nation to win the tournament in 1984. Since then the hosts, or co-hosts in this case, have been eliminated in the semifinals: West Germany lost to the Netherlands in 1988, Sweden lost to Germany in 1992, England lost to Germany in 1996 and the Dutch lost to Italy on Thursday. The other co-hosts Belgium was eliminated in the first round.
Copyright 2003 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
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