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Fifty
of UEFA's 51 member associations were
included in the draw for EURO 2004,
with hosts Portugal qualifying automatically.
Fifteen teams will qualify to join
Portugal in the finals.
Ten
groups
UEFA has decided that the qualifying
competition shall be staged in ten
groups of five teams, with the qualifying
matches to be played on the ten allocated
international matchdays between September
2002 and October 2003.
Five
play-offs
The ten group winners will qualify
automatically for the final tournament.
The ten runners-up will take part
in five play-off matches on a home-and-away
basis in November 2003, with the five
winners progressing to the finals.
Final
tournament
In the final tournament, which will
take place between 12 June and 4 July
2004, the 16 teams will be divided
into four groups of four. The top
two teams in each group will advance
to the quarter-finals, with a knockout
system in force from that stage.
UEFA
EURO 2004 - Tournament History
FIFA approved the formation of continental
football associations at its Extraordinary
Congress in Paris in 1953 and UEFA
was duly formed on 15 June 1954. By
the following year the European Champion
Clubs' Cup was brought into being
and by 1956 the groundwork got under
way for a competition for the continent's
national teams. Two years later, the
first-ever qualifying matches for
the European Nations' Cup began to
take place, with 16 teams taking part.
The format for the first competition
remained in place for some time. Early
rounds were played over two legs,
home-and-away, on a knockout basis
until the semi-finals, which were
then played in a host country. Given
the effort that Henri Delaunay of
the French Football Federation had
put into UEFA and European football
generally, and this tournament in
particular, it was appropriate that
in the summer of 1960 the first European
Championship Finals - named the European
Nations' Cup - were held in France.
The trophy itself is still named after
him.
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