Best Euro Group Teams Ever

1980 was an interesting year in sports. The US beat the Soviet Union in the most famous hockey game ever. The Wenzels were dominating the world of competitive skiing, and Björn Borg won both the French Open and Wimbledon. But the most significant sports event of that year from our limited perspective was the 1980 European Championship, the first to include a group stage. Since then, 96 teams have entered the group stage of the Euros, half of which went home straight after.

Here’s a look at the best performances in the history of the group stage.

There are seven sides in Euro history that have come out of the group stage with a full nine points from three wins. Two are from Holland, including this year’s Group C winners, and there are one each from Spain, Portugal, Italy, Croatia and the Czech Republic. If you put all of the group performances into one big league table (which is obviously unfair because some played much harder teams than others), this year’s Dutch team comes out on top with an unrivaled 9 points and +8 goal differential. If we were to consider the strength of each team’s opponents, there would be no question:

Holland 2008 is the best Euro group stage team ever

A bit of a warning for the Oranje hopeful, though. A quick look at the other top sides in the table shows just what a good group stage performance means. Portugal 2000 lost in the semis to France. The Dutch that year lost the other semi to Italy, after their own perfect start. The Czechs in 2004? Same thing again, a loss in the semifinal to Greece.

To make a long story short, every all but one (see comments) perfect group stage performance in the history of the Euros has led to the same two results: a win in the quarters (good news) and a loss in the semifinal round (not so good). This is the first year that three teams go into the quarters all with a perfect three wins, so logic tells us that something has to change. After all, three teams can’t all lose in the semis. But we have to wait and see whether Holland, Spain or Croatia can break the cycle and be the first (in the 16-team era … I’m so completely cheating) to win every match of a European Championship.