The first UEFA European Championship finals played in 1960, were quite a tame affair, with only 17 nations competing in the qualifying stages and just a four-team format in operation for the business end of the tournament, hosted in France.
The hosts of that tournament somehow contrived to miss out on the UEFA European Championship Final itself by losing a 4-2 lead with 15 minutes to play, allowing Yugoslavia the chance to battle back to an enthralling 5-4 victory before they were then taken down by a great Soviet Union side.
UEFA has always been quick to reinvent and re-think the format of the tournament, and seeing the interest from both national teams and football fans in general, they have expanded accordingly.
The finals went from four teams to eight in 1980 and up to 16 for the Euro 96 finals in England, and twenty years later, at Euro 2016, they moved up to 24 nations. They managed to do this without compromising on quality, not least because the level of international football across the continent has improved vastly over the decades, meaning that there are very rarely one-sided matches in the finals themselves, which is more than can be said for the FIFA World Cup, for instance.
Interest in attending the finals is always high, and the traditional route of buying tickets via UEFA’s ticket portal is rife with issues. Doing so sees fans join millions of others in a random lottery-style ballot, which will see the vast majority leave empty-handed, and even those who win tickets may well be disappointed given that they have applied blind, i.e. not being aware of which two nations they will even see in action.
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Switzerland vs Slovenia UEFA Euros Tournament Record
Switzerland did not enter the first UEFA European Championship finals in 1960 and then failed to qualify for each of the next eight events before finally cracking the code to get to Euro 96.
At those finals they played the opening fixture of the event and came away with a credible draw against England before then losing to both the Netherlands and Scotland to finish bottom of their group.
Group stage exits followed at Euro 2004 and 2008, a tournament the Rossocrociati co-hosted with Austria. Euro 2016 saw Switzerland progress to the Round of 16 for the first time, losing to Poland on penalties.
Euro 2020 has been, to date, by far the most successful tournament Switzerland have taken part in. A draw against Wales was followed by a defeat to eventual winners Italy, which meant the Swiss needed to beat Turkey to guarantee progress, and a brace by former Liverpool winger Xherdan Shaqiri helped secure a 3-1 win in Baku.
In the Round of 16 they took on a strong France side and were 3-1 down with 15 minutes to play but battled back to 3-3 before winning the penalty shoot-out to achieve their best win in the competition thus far.
In the Quarter-Finals, they were unfortunate to bow out to Spain via penalties with three of their four penalty takers all failing to convert.
Slovenia have only once previously made it to the UEFA European Championship finals, albeit they have only competed at the event as an independent nation since 1996.
At Euro 2000 they found themselves three goals up in their first-ever finals match, only to see the Former Republic of Yugoslavia battle back to draw 3-3, a result that must have shook their squad.
They then lost narrowly 2-1 to Spain and needed to beat Norway in their final game to have any chance of progressing and could only muster a goalless draw and, therefore, were eliminated at the first hurdle.
Switzerland vs Slovenia Head-to-Head
These two nations have only met twice previously in the UEFA European Championships, and that pair of matches came in the qualifying stage for Euro 2016.
Slovenia picked up a good 1-0 win over the Swiss in Maribor in October 2014 thanks to a goal from forward Milivoje Novakovic. The return fixture saw Switzerland complete an astounding comeback. Vladimir Petkovic’s side were two goals down with ten minutes to play before a brace from Josip Drmic and a goal from Valentin Stocker gave them a 3-2 win in Basel.
