More teams, more games, more knockout excitement

The European championships undergo yet another format change for the 2016 edition in France, with eight additional teams bringing the number of participating nations to 24.

This means that the amount of matches rises from 31 to 51 and that last-16 games are added to the knockout rounds at the June 10-July 10 competition for the Henri Delaunay trophy.

With Gibraltar entered for the first time, qualifying battles saw a record 53 teams competing for the 23 available berths alongside directly entered hosts France as all 54 member federations were involved.

There are more finalists now than the 17 teams entered overall for the inaugural edition 1960 in France, when the absentees included the British teams, Germany and Italy.

The number however quickly rose as the 1964 event saw 29 of the then 33 Uefa members entered.

The tournaments between 1960 and 1976 featured no group format as the host nation only staged the semi-finals, third-place game and final. The host nation was chosen from the four finalists, meaning that no team was directly entered.

Italy 1968 saw five games instead of four because the final between Italy and Yugoslavia required a replay after a 1-1 draw in those days when there were no shoot-outs. Penalty shoot-outs were introduced in 1976 and required in Czechoslovakia’s win over West Germany in the final.

The 1980 finals in Italy saw the first group stage with eight participating teams, but no semi-finals, and the last match for third place which was scrapped from then on. Italy were also the first hosts who did not have to go through qualifying.

Semi-finals returned at France 1984 and three editions overall were played with 15 games.

Uefa then doubled the number of finalists to 16 from England 1996 onwards as the tournament expanded to 31 games and saw the introduction of quarter-finals.

The 1996 and 2000 tournaments also featured the golden goal rule in extra time, and Germany and France won the titles in this way. The silver goal rule was used in 2004 but since then the traditional 30 minutes of extra time are played again.

France 2016 marks the latest increase, with now six groups instead of four. This allows the four best third-placed teams to advance into the knockout rounds along with the group winners and runners-up while only eight teams are eliminated after the 36 group games.