The UEFA 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.
[1] The sixteenth tournament was held across Europe in 2021 (postponed from 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic).
The England national football team first attempted to qualify for the finals of the tournament in 1964, having declined to enter in 1960.
[7][8] They had a third-place finish in Italy in 1968, when only four teams competed in the finals tournament, and reached one further semi-final in 1996, losing to Germany, also on home soil and on penalties.