Who Has Won The Euros The Most Times In History?

Sally Polly June 05, 2021 | 10:21

UEFA European Football Championship has had a long history of winners, but who has won the most game? Keep reading the article to find out.

Photo: UEFA

Get ready football fans because the wait is coming to an end and Euro 2020 is about to kick off (in summer 2021) with a month’s worth of sporting goodness!

While we are busy putting every match we want to watch from the Euro 2020 fixtures into our diaries, we have been casting our minds back to tournaments from the past and it raised an interesting question: who has won the Euros the most times?

Below, we tak a look at the winners from all the years gone by and discover we have a tie for first place!

Who has won the Euros the most times in history?

Photo: Goal.com

There is not actually just the one winner here, with two countries actually nabbing the most Euro victories with three wins apiece: Germany and Spain. There is only one other team who’s won the competition more than once and that’s France, who have soared to victory twice.

Some more fun facts then! The first-ever winner of the competition, which was held back in 1960, was the Soviet Union who beat out Yugoslavia in the first grand final. Because they only take place every four years, we have had 15 tournaments so far ,with this year’s being number 16.

Two of Spain’s wins came back-to-back with them clinching victory in 2008 and 2012. Portugal were the latest winners when they won in 2016.

Other winners are Italy, West Germany, Czechoslovakia, Netherlands, Denmark and Greece.

As for England, our grand total of wins is zero and our best performance was Euro 96 where we made it to the semi-finals and lost on penalties to Germany – the whole tournament was broadcast again on ITV last summer to make up for the Euro 2020 gap that appeared in the schedule when it was postponed due to the pandemic.

Photo: Getty Images

Which club has had the most EURO winners?

While Germany and Spain are the most successful nations in UEFA European Championship history, their dominance extends beyond their three titles apiece. The two countries also hold sway at the top of another table, with their heavyweight clubs having boasted a long list of EURO winners at the time of their trophy success.

Pride of place belongs to Bayern München, who added a 19th champion when Renato Sanches helped Portugal achieve glory at UEFA EURO 2016 shortly after joining. That result also lifted Real Madrid into second spot above Barcelona – thanks to now departed duo Cristiano Ronaldo and Pepe. UEFA.com runs through the numbers.

EURO winners by club (all finals squad members, including unused players)

19: Bayern München

16: Real Madrid

15: Barcelona

9: Bordeaux, Borussia Dortmund, Borussia Mönchengladbach, Valencia

8: Monaco

7: AC Milan, Internazionale Milano, Slovan Bratislava

6: Juventus, Köln, Panathinaikos, Real Zaragoza

5: AEK Athens, Ajax, Chelsea, Liverpool, PSV, Werder Bremen

4: Athletic Club, Arsenal, Atlético Madrid, Brøndby, Hamburg, Lyngby,

Olympiacos, Sporting CP, Stuttgart

3: Dinamo Moskva, Dinamo Tbilisi, Dukla Praha, Fiorentina, Inter Bratislava, Paris Saint-Germain, Sevilla, Slavia Praha, Spartak Moskva, Villarreal

2: Auxerre, Benfica, Beşiktaş, Bologna, Cagliari, Duisburg, Dynamo Kyiv, Eintracht Frankfurt, Feyenoord, Kaiserslautern, Košice, Lokomotiv Moskva, Mallorca, Manchester United, Napoli, Real Betis, Roma, Schalke, Torino, Toulouse

1: Aarhus, Anderlecht, B 1903, Bohemians Praha, Bolton Wanderers, Braga, CSKA Moskva, Den Bosch, Dinamo Zagreb, Fortuna Düsseldorf, Fortuna Sittard, Freiburg, Getafe, Hansa Rostock, Karlsruher, Leicester City, Lille, Lokomotiva Košice, Lyon, Málaga, Manchester City, Marseille, Mechelen, Mulhouse, Nantes, Odense, Parma, Porto, Roda, Silkeborg, Spartak Trnava, Sochaux, Southampton, Teplice, Torpedo Moskva, SKA Rostov, Trabzonspor, Udinese, Varese, Vejle, Wolfsburg

Bayern's reign at the top of the standings can be largely explained by two tournaments. Eight of the club's players – including Oliver Kahn, Jürgen Klinsmann, Thomas Helmer and Mario Basler – were part of Germany's triumphant EURO '96 squad, while six more featured in the West Germany delegation that won in 1972.

The highest club in the rankings from outside of Germany or Spain is, perhaps surprisingly, Bordeaux. The French side contributed five of France's squad in 1984 – not least Alain Giresse and Jean Tigana – plus another four in 2000. As for Slovan Bratislava, they owe their lofty spot entirely to Czechoslovakia's 1976 triumph.

The most-represented clubs whose home nation has never lifted the trophy are Chelsea and Liverpool with five each. Didier Deschamps, Marcel Desailly and Frank Lebœuf were Blues players when they won with France in 2000, while Fernando Torres and Juan Mata clinched UEFA EURO 2012 with Spain. Meanwhile, four of Spain's 2008 squad were Liverpool men, with Pepe Reina then doubling up in 2012.

Curiously, Manchester United have had just two EURO winners, both of them goalkeepers: Peter Schmeichel with Denmark in 1992, and Fabien Barthez with France in 2000.

Porto put their name on the board thanks to Danilo at UEFA EURO 2016, which meant that every UEFA Champions League-winning team is now represented. However, among the pre-UEFA Champions League era victors, Celtic, Nottingham Forest, Aston Villa, Steaua Bucureşti and Crvena zvezda have never had a EURO winner.

History

The biggest European tournament for football clubs began in 1955. In the first edition 16 teams would partake and in the final at Parc des Princes in Paris, Real Madrid beat Stade de Reims by 4 goals to 3.

The very next year the tournament would be expanded to include 22 teams. In the following years the numbers of participating teams continued to grow until it reached 32 teams, which was ideal for playing five rounds (Round of 32, Round of 16, Quarter-finals, Semi-finals and Final). Some years included 33 teams, which resulted in a Preliminary round between two teams.