With the Guardian’s unstoppable rise to global dominance** we at Guardian US thought we’d run a series of articles for fans wishing to improve their knowledge of the sports history and storylines, hopefully in a way that doesn’t patronise you to within an inch of your life. A warning: If you’re the kind of person that finds The Blizzard too populist this may not be the series for you.
** Actual dominance may not be global. Or dominant
Qualification play-offs for the European Championship are a relatively new curiosity, born of the vast increase in Uefa membership after the fall of the Iron Curtain. (And a desire to give floundering countries from large advertising territories a second chance should they make a mess of qualification, but let’s not muddy the waters.) It’s a 1990s phenomenon, in short, so this week’s romp through the ages should be shorter and even sweeter than usual!
So having said all that, let’s start our story by going way off piste, all the way back to the qualifiers for the very first competition, which in 1960 was called the European Nations Cup. The qualifying process was a straight knockout tournament, and the first match of (forgive the modern nomenclature) the round of 16 was played in September 1958 at the Central Lenin Stadium in Moscow between the USSR and Hungary. The Soviets won that game 3-1, Spartak Moscow striker Anatoli Ilyin scoring the first-ever European Championship goal.
What does this have to do with play-offs? Well, not very much, except that 17 countries had entered these qualifiers. Which meant there had to be a preliminary play-off to whittle things down to a mathematically acceptable 16. By definition, this play-off – between the Republic of Ireland and Czechoslovakia – should have been staged before any other ball had been kicked. But it was held over until April 1959. The Irish won the first leg 2-0. Liam Tuohy scored the opener, and as a result of perhaps understandable assumptions, is often erroneously credited as the man who started the Euro goalscoring party. But Ilyin beat him to it by seven months.
Swings and roundabouts, though. Ireland are also, for the same reason, often incorrectly fingered as the first-ever country to get knocked out of the Euros, having subsequently been spanked 4-0 by the Czechs in the return leg in Bratislava. But in fact, Greece were the first to go, battered 8-2 on aggregate by France, five months before Ireland’s involvement.
On to 1964, and one of the big upsets in European Championship qualification history, as tiny Luxembourg knocked out an emerging Holland, then gave Denmark a real fright in what were effectively the quarter finals. (Up to and including 1976, the actual final tournament only featured four teams, from the semis on.) Louis Pilot of Belgian champions Standard Liege, considered by many to be Luxembourg’s greatest-ever player, gave the minnows a first-minute lead in the first leg in Luxembourg City. The match finished 3-3, Danish striker Ole Madsen helping himself to a hat-trick. Madsen grabbed two more in the return in Copenhagen, which looked to have put the Danes through, but Ady Schmidt’s goal with six minutes to go made it 2-2. Away goals didn’t matter back then, so a play-off was necessary. Held in neutral Amsterdam, one goal was enough, and of course Madsen scored it. Luxembourg’s dream was kaput.
Fast forward to 1996, and the first planned play-off for the first expanded finals. Euro 96 would be the first finals tournament to boast 16 teams – Euros 80 through 92 all featured eight – so Uefa designed a qualification system of eight groups from which 15 teams would qualify to join the holders at the main event. All eight winners went through, with the six best second-placed teams following. The two worst runners-up – the Netherlands and play-off veterans Republic of Ireland – would face each other at Anfield for the crucial last place.
The Dutch won easily. Patrick Kluivert, who had just won the Champions League for Ajax as an 18-year-old, scored twice. He also headed against the bar, while Dennis Bergkamp hit a post. The Irish fans – who earlier in the campaign had witnessed their hapless heroes draw 0-0 with Liechtenstein – knew the jig was up for iconic manager Jack Charlton, and spent the second half singing poignant paeans of thanks to the big man. The game had been played in the middle of December, and after the match Charlton, cracking wise in the bittersweet fashion, said he was planning to have “a good Christmas, and hang around until the new year. Then I will see what the feelings of everyone concerned are. Then I will see what I will do. Merry Christmas. Can I storm out now?”
All good fun, although there were no more jokes a week later. Charlton had his hand forced by the FAI, who scheduled a press conference, presumably to announce his resignation, before anything had been formally agreed. “The FAI were aware, as everybody else ought to be, of my intention to take a holiday in Spain to think things over before making a decision,” Charlton blasted. He did resign, but only after a 90-minute meeting with five FAI officials during which each suit was asked: “Do you want me to go?” Each replied: “Yes.” A shabby end to a glorious era.
Ireland were involved again in the Euro 2000 qualification play-offs, which now consisted of four matches contested by eight of the nine group runners-up. (The best of the second-rankers, Portugal, swanned straight through and kept going, all the way to the semis.) Ireland were knocked out on away goals by Turkey, and the second leg in Bursa climaxed in a degenerate donnybrook, with 37-year-old striker Tony Cascarino responding to a Turkish kick with a marvellous right hook, only to then be crumped in the face by a fan. His manager Mick McCarthy delivered some deadpan diplomacy with a pithy understatement: “Overall we have been treated well, but I don’t expect my players to be attacked.”
The meeting of England and Scotland grabbed most of the headlines round this way. Paul Scholes scored twice at Hampden in the first leg for Kevin Keegan’s side. Having done the hard work, England should have waltzed through the return at Wembley, but Don Hutchison headed home Neil McCann’s cross in the first-half, and there would have been extra time had David Seaman not spectacularly saved Christian Dailly’s late diving header. One in a long list of Scottish heartbreakers. The list stretches quite a long way, in both chronological directions.
Elsewhere, Denmark battered Israel 8-0 on aggregate, but the stand-out moment came courtesy of Slovenia and Milenko Acimovic – later of Spurs – against Ukraine.
As winners go, this one isn’t half bad. Goals from the halfway line are usually common-or-garden belts down the middle of the pitch. This one was a curler that drifted into the bottom-left corner, just beyond the keeper’s extended fingers. Superb. David Beckham, eat your heart out.
Things looked good for Scotland and Wales after the first legs of the Euro 2004 play-offs. The Welsh had come away from Russia with a goalless draw, while James McFadden had given Scotland a precious 1-0 victory over the Netherlands at Hampden. Ah, but. Vadim Evseev scored the only goal for the Russians in the return at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium, while Scotland found themselves three down at half-time in Amsterdam, and eventually lost 6-0, Ruud van Nistelrooy claiming a hat-trick. Wales lodged a complaint with Uefa after it was discovered Egor Titov had failed a drug test after the first leg, but as he had been an unused substitute in that match, it fell on deaf ears. A long wait went on.
No play-offs for 2008, the teams that year all neat in a row. So on to 2012, and what a damp squib that was: the four seeded teams, Croatia, Portugal, Czech Republic and Republic of Ireland, all swanning through to the finals without any trouble. Hey, if they can’t come up with any stories to tell, our hands are tied.
