Euros in Legends XI: 17 seasons, with the winner and runner-up of each.
Season
Winner
Runner-up
2024
Espanha
Inglaterra
2020
Itália
Inglaterra
2016
Portugal
França
2012
Espanha
Itália
2008
Espanha
Alemanha
2004
Grécia
Portugal
2000
França
Itália
1996
Alemanha
Rep. Checa
1992
Dinamarca
Alemanha
1988
Holanda
União Soviética
1984
França
Espanha
1980
Alemanha Ocidental
Bélgica
1976
Checoslováquia
Alemanha Ocidental
1972
Alemanha Ocidental
União Soviética
1968
Itália
Jugoslávia
1964
Espanha
União Soviética
1960
União Soviética
Jugoslávia
The icon eleven
In the game, the Euro brings together 24 national teams in six groups of four — the `groups24` format — with the knockout stage starting right at the round of 16 (round of 16, quarter-finals, semi-finals, final), always single-leg and always on neutral ground, as befits a tournament played entirely in a single host country. Winning everything from the group stage to the title is seven games without losing — this competition's 7-0 seal, shorter than the Champions League's 13-0 because the group stage is a single round and no knockout tie is played over two legs. The game's database has seventeen editions seeded, from 1960 to 2024.
There is a curiosity that only the "the rating is per competition, not per career" rule makes possible: Mr. Euro is not the same Cristiano Ronaldo the Champions League crowns. They are two distinct cards, curated separately — one measures what he did for the Portuguese national team, the other what he did for his club —, and it happens to be the same player dominating both histories. That is the game's rule showing itself in plain sight, not a coincidence of data.
The competition's all-time great
Cristiano Ronaldo — 2016
Cristiano Ronaldo is the Euro's all-time record holder: 14 goals (the runner-up in the competition's history has 9), 30 games and 2,641 minutes on the pitch, with goals in five different editions — no one else in the competition's history has scored in more than three. The card is from the 2016 edition, Portugal's only European title, and that win is what closes the argument: more than the competition's all-time top scorer and most-capped player, he is also the man who won it. The rival this choice had to beat has a name, and he is in this very eleven: Michel Platini, who scored 9 goals in 5 games in 1984 and is, at 96 points, the highest-rated card in the whole competition — two above this 100, who shares his 94 with the 1976 Cruyff and the 2000 Zidane. And per game the sum flips, and not by a little: 0.467 goals against 1.80, close to four times as many. What decides it for Cristiano Ronaldo is therefore not the goal total, which grows with the size of the tournament — in the first five editions the final stage had four teams and the path to the title was two games, today it is seven —, but the breadth: scoring at five different Euros, when no one else has scored at more than three, measures command of an entire history rather than the peak of a single edition. That is this game's rule in plain sight: the 100 card belongs to whoever rules the competition over time, never to whoever had the best month of his life inside it.
GK
Iker Casillas — 2012
Iker Casillas is a two-time European champion, in 2008 and in 2012, and Spain's captain. The card is from the 2012 edition — the one whose final he kept a clean sheet in, closing out the most dominant cycle in the Spanish national team's recent history without letting anyone score past him in the competition's biggest match.
RB
Sergio Ramos — 2008
Sergio Ramos won two Euros — 2008 and 2012 — and is the only person in the whole competition to do it at this position: of the 18 champions seeded as starting right-back, the other 17 have just the one title. The card is from the 2008 edition, where the data seeds him as the starter at this position (the 2012 one is seeded at centre-back, with right-back as an alternative). This slot belonged to Berti Vogts, whose only campaign in the competition — the 1976 final, as runner-up — carries no title in the data; the 1972 champion squad is seeded with a different right-back (Höttges). It is not known whether Vogts was on that squad without playing the final; even if he had been, he would still be behind a two-time champion.
CB
Franz Beckenbauer — 1972
Franz Beckenbauer was West Germany's champion and captain in 1972, and reached the final again in 1976, this time as runner-up. He is the first of the Euro icon eleven's two centre-backs — the game gives this position two slots because every formation needs at least two centre-backs, and an all-icon eleven would be impossible with just one.
CB
Matthias Sammer — 1996
Matthias Sammer was European champion with Germany in 1996 — one of 34 champion centre-backs in the competition, all with just the one title. He got the nod over two rivals tied with him on rating, 88: Rijkaard, champion in 1988, and Baresi, whose 90 is the highest centre-back rating in the whole competition but carries no Euro title at all — the rule ranks trophies above rating, and this is no exception. Picking Rijkaard would have given the 1988 Netherlands squad two cards, alongside Van Basten; Sammer repeats no edition already in the eleven and is Germany 1996's first card. The slot opened up when Sergio Ramos moved up to right-back, on the card where the data seeds him as the starter at that position: 2008.
LB
Giacinto Facchetti — 1968
Giacinto Facchetti was Italy's champion and captain in 1968, the left-back who opened the way to the role the position would go on to have in modern football — the first of the competition's two Italian titles.
CDM
Sergio Busquets — 2012
Sergio Busquets was European champion with Spain in 2012, the holding midfielder who made tiki-taka work — the player who anchors the midfield behind Xavi and the rest of Spain's golden generation.
CM
Xavi — 2008
Xavi was voted Euro 2008's best player and is a two-time European champion — the card is from the edition where the individual award crowned the start of the Spanish cycle that would go on to dominate European football for the following decade.
CAM
Michel Platini — 1984
Michel Platini scored 9 goals in 5 games at Euro 1984 — a single-edition record that remains unbeaten more than four decades later — and was France's champion and captain, on home soil. He is the eleven's most complete case: the individual record and the title, in the same campaign.
RW
David Silva — 2012
David Silva was European champion in 2012, opened the scoring in the final's 4-0 rout, and made that edition's team of the tournament.
LW
Thierry Henry — 2000
Thierry Henry was European champion with France in 2000, scoring in the competition and making that edition's team of the tournament.
ST
Marco van Basten — 1988
Marco van Basten scored 5 goals at Euro 1988, including the final's volley that remains among the competition's most remembered goals, and lifted the Netherlands' only European title.