The 1980 UEFA European Football Championship finals tournament was held in Italy.

[2][3] On 17 October 1977 UEFA announced that England, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Switzerland and West Germany had expressed interest in hosting this event.

The winners of the groups would qualify directly for the final (there were no semi-finals), while the runners-up contested the third place play-off.

The tournament format, which required a team to win their group in order to progress to the final, led to a succession of dull, defensive matches.

[5][6] The only bright spots were the emergence of a new generation of talented German stars such as Bernd Schuster, Hans-Peter Briegel, Horst Hrubesch, Hansi Müller and Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, and the inspirational performance of Belgium (around rising stars such as Jan Ceulemans, Eric Gerets, Jean-Marie Pfaff, and Erwin Vandenbergh) who reached the final, only losing to West Germany (2–1) by a Hrubesch goal two minutes before time.

If two or more teams finished level on points after completion of the group matches, the following tie-breakers were used to determine the final ranking: