Finding tickets for any major international can be hard enough, but when the game involves two genuine international giants and is part of the UEFA European Championships, the quest becomes nearly titanic in nature.
If you thought it was hard to get tickets for a top Premier League match, you should consider this a walk in the park when compared to trying to follow the UEFA ticket portal route to getting tickets for the UEFA European Championships! The whole system is flawed, to say the least, and is effectively a lottery that sees a huge majority of football fans disappointed.
The first tranche of tickets is released months before the tournament draw is made, which leads to a rather bizarre situation where fans are applying for tickets for games without even knowing which two teams will be taking part, something FIFA also does when they do a similar ticket release for the World Cup.
The next release comes after the draw, but by then, a huge majority of tickets are already assigned, and the number of people applying has vastly increased, creating something of a perfect storm that not many supporters emerge from unsoaked.
SeatPick, on the other hand, not only offers you a more realistic shot at getting the tickets you are after, but we can guarantee that for any major fixture, from qualifiers to the latter stages of the UEFA European Championships, you’ll find a comprehensive range of the best-priced tickets here and that goes for this tempting France vs Portugal clash, which has plenty of history.
France vs Portugal UEFA Euros Tournament Record
France hosted the very first UEFA European Championship finals, and that was back in the day when a nation had to qualify on merit to compete in them. Les Bleus somehow blew their chance on home soil, as they were leading Yugoslavia 4-2 with 15 minutes left to play in their Semi-Final (there were only four teams in the finals in the early editions of the competition), but fell to a 5-4 defeat in Paris.
They failed to make it to any of the next five tournament finals and only returned to party when they again hosted in 1984 when they were given free passage to the competition, and Michel Hidalgo’s side took full advantage of this and put in a remarkable series of displays.
Led by mercurial skipper Michel Platini, France breezed through their group, with the Juventus man bagging two hat-tricks, and then edged past Portugal in the Semi-Final before easing past Spain in the final.
Platini scored his ninth goal of the tournament in the final, and Bruno Bellone also netted in a comfortable 2-0 success.
They failed to get to the Euro 88 finals, winning just one of their eight qualifying games, and in 1992, in Sweden, they didn’t get out of their group stage.
By 1996, things were improving as top talents were beginning to emerge. They were knocked out of the Semi-Finals in England by the Czech Republic before much of that squad, then won the FIFA World Cup in 1998 and returned to claim a second UEFA European Championship in Belgium and the Netherlands in 2000.
Stars like Thierry Henry, Didier Deschamps, and Zinedine Zidane were in their pomp as they came from behind to beat Portugal in the Semi-Finals before doing the same to Italy in the final, with substitutes Sylvain Wiltford and David Trezeguet both scoring in Amsterdam.
Euro 2016 saw a new batch of talents take France to the final, but they lost on this occasion to Portugal at the Stade de France, with the winner coming from a surprise source. Cristiano Ronaldo had already been taken off injured, and it was forward Eder who scored an incredible long-range winner in extra-time to claim the crown.
Portugal have one of the most consistent records of nations in the competition when it comes to converting qualification to a strong run in the finals.
As of 2023, Portugal have competed in eight finals tournaments and have never not gotten out of their initial group, and have regularly reached the very latter stages.
In both 1984 and 2000, it was France who spoiled their party, more on those occasions later, but their most major failure came on home soil in 2004. Portugal did wonderfully well to defeat England and the Netherlands to book their place in the final against unfancied Greece.
The Greeks had beaten Portugal in the opening game of the tournament, but not many considered them capable of doing so a second time, not in the final in front of an adoring crowd in Lisbon. However, that’s precisely what they did, Angelos Charisteas scoring the only goal of the game to secure perhaps the biggest shock win in the history of the competition.
They finally won their first title at Euro 2016 when they beat France, yet another occasion when these two giants tackled each other on the biggest stage.
France vs Portugal Head-to-Head
France and Portugal have met in UEFA European Championship finals action on four occasions; the first of these came in Marseille in the Semi-Finals of the 1984 edition of the competition.
France came into the game as the big favourites but two goals from Jordao had the game delicately balanced at 2-2 as the game threatened to go to penalties, but before it could do so, Michel Platini netted the winner in the 119th minute.
At Euro 2000, the same set of circumstances played out, this time in Brussels. Nuno Gomes put the Portuguese ahead after 19 minutes before Arsenal star Thierry Henry equalized early in the second half.
The game went to extra time and was once again meandering towards penalties when Zinedine Zidane scored a winner after 117 minutes, from the spot, and France once again went on to win the UEFA European Championship, just as they had done in 1984.
Their third meeting came in the 2016 UEFA European Championship Final, and this time, Portugal got revenge for those earlier exits.
A goal from Eder, deep into extra time, shattered the French in Paris, and Fernando Santos’s side held on to take the title.
The fourth occasion the two sides met in the finals was a less crucial affair but still counted for a great deal. The two nations were both drawn into Group F at Euro 2020, and a brace from Karim Benzema had put the French 2-1 ahead in Budapest, leaving Portugal needing to mount a response in order to qualify from the group, which also included Germany.
It was Cristiano Ronaldo who got the important goal, netting his second penalty of the game, as the match finished two apiece.
