England Euro Cup The European Championship is one of the major competitive international football tournaments, first played in 1960. The finals stage of the tournament takes place every four years, with a qualifying competition beforehand. The 15th staging of the finals took place in France in 2016.



The England national football team first attempted to qualify for the finals of the tournament in 1964, having declined to enter in 1960. They successfully qualified for the first time in 1968, and has since participated in the finals on nine occasions – including in 1996, when they were the host nation and thus did not need to qualify.



Its best performances at the finals were a third-place finish in Italy in 1968, when only four teams competed, and a semi-final on home soil in 1996, when it lost to Germany on penalties. The team has reached the quarter-finals on two other occasions, losing to host nation Portugal on penalties in 2004 and to Italy in Ukraine in 2012, also on penalties. On the other four occasions (1980, 1988, 1992 and 2000), it did not progress beyond the group stages.



