We are less than a year out from the start of Euro 2024, which will be hosted in Germany, and we can hardly wait. Behind only the World Cup, the European Championships are one of the greatest football tournaments on the calendar, and each edition has brought new stories and moments of brilliance.
However, with such a big competition and half a century of history to go along with it, there have also been plenty of outright bizarre moments in Euros past.
With that in mind, Football FanCast has created a list of the top ten most bonkers moments in European Championships history.
10 Euro 1968
Italy reach the final on a coin toss
Now, reaching the final of any tournament is an incredibly difficult thing to do. You generally have to go through a gruelling group stage before facing either a round of 16 or a quarter-final tie before making it into the final four. From there, it’s another challenging 90 to 120 minutes and maybe penalties before you finally make it to the game that could define your entire career; well, that’s usually how it goes anyway.
For the Italian team that won the 1968 European Championships, that was not how things went. Instead, the Italians made it into the final on sheer luck, as following 90 minutes of semi-final action that left the score level against the Soviet Union, a coin toss was used to decide a winner as opposed to extra-time or a penalty shootout.
The Italians called tails, which is how the coin fell, giving them passage through to the final.
Ironically, the final also ended in a draw, but instead of a coin toss for that game, a replay was organised in which Italy finally emerged victorious, beating Yugoslavia 2-0.
9 Euro 2020
Greenpeace paraglider disruption
We’ll admit, this is an odd one, even for this list.
The group game between Germany and France at Euro 2020 was delayed because a protester crash-landed his paraglider onto the pitch at kickoff; yes, that is an odd sentence, no denying that.
The protest was organised by Greenpeace, and according to them, the protester was set to fly over the stadium at kickoff and drop an inflatable ball into the ground with an anti-fossil fuel slogan all over it.
Unfortunately, technical issues with the paraglider meant that the protester had to crash-land on the pitch and, in doing so, crashed into several camera wires, causing debris to come in with him.
It made for quite the spectacle, although perhaps not for the right reasons. At least nobody ended up with any serious injuries, although the protester’s ego probably hasn’t recovered yet.
8 Euro 1976
Antonin Panenka’s penalty
There are few things more nerve-racking in football than a penalty. Well, a penalty to decide the winner of a European Final might just be that bit more stressful.
However, one man who clearly didn’t have time for stress was Antonin Panenka, as he won Czechoslovakia the 1976 European Championships with perhaps the most audacious penalty ever.
The two sides had just played out a thrilling final that ended 2-2 after extra time, so penalties were required to determine a winner.
Each side scored their first three penalties, but after Ladislav Jurkemik scored Czechoslovakia’s fourth, Ulrich Hoeneß faltered and missed. With the score 4-3 in favour of the men in red, upstepped Panenka with the chance to win it all for his country.
With this kind of pressure, you might expect someone to just keep it simple and leather the ball into the far corner, but Panenka was the coolest man in the stadium that night.
Instead, the midfield maestro stepped up and chipped the ball straight down the middle of the goal in the most outrageous penalty in the game’s history.
In the years since countless players have tried to recreate the magic of Panenka, and while some have got close – Andre Pirlo at Euro 2012, for example – none will ever quite match the man himself.
7 Euro 2016
Gianluigi Buffon fails the crossbar challenge
Now, this one is just a bit silly, really, but it never fails to make us – and plenty of others – laugh every time we see it.
Italy’s opening game of Euro 2016 was against an incredibly talented Belgium side that was fancied to make it deep into the tournament. So when the Italians emerged as 2-0 victors, the team celebrated wildly.
Buffon decided to run at the goal in front of the Italian fans and swing off the crossbar. Unfortunately, the veteran goalkeeper didn’t quite have the grip strength he thought he did, and instead of swinging, he just fell flat on his backside.
Luckily, the Juventus legend saw the funny side of it and got back up uninjured.
6 Euro 1996
That dentist chair celebration
Paul Gascoigne, or Gazza, is one of England’s most iconic football players ever, not just for his mercurial talents but also for his off-field antics. These two things came together at Euro 1996 to give us one of the greatest goal celebrations ever: ‘The Dentist Chair.’
The celebration was a response to the criticism the team received before the tournament after they were seen on a particularly boozy night out in Hong Kong that happened to feature a drinking game centred around, well, a dentist chair.
It was a clever way for the team to fire back at those who had been relentlessly criticising them just before the first home tournament in 30 years, and the fact that the celebration came after one of the best goals of the tournament and against Scotland just made it all the more iconic.
5 Euro 2016
Low caught red-handed
From a glorious moment of individual brilliance to a moment of personal embarrassment now.
Germany’s ex-manager Joachim Low is undeniably one of the greats in international management; after all, he got his country to a European final and won the World Cup in 2014 – after humiliating Brazil 7-1.
However, he can be a little odd sometimes.
A perfect example of this came in his team’s Euro 2016 encounter against Ukraine, as he was filmed mid-match with his hands firmly in his pants. Now, that alone would be rather embarrassing, but oh no, it gets worse, much worse.
Not content with just having his hands in his pants, the German manager then proceeded to have a bit of a scratch before he pulled his hand out and gave it a good sniff – we wish we were joking.
Upon being shown the images the next day, his apology was almost as funny as the incident, with him saying: “You’re full of adrenalin and full of concentration and the things that happen then can’t be consciously taken as real.
“From now on I’ll try to conduct myself differently.”
4 Euro 1984
The original French headbutt
What is it with French footballers and headbutting people?
We all know about Zinedine Zidane’s infamous headbutt against Marco Materazzi in the 2006 World Cup final, but the Real Madrid legend was not the first Frenchman to lose his head like that; that award goes to Manuel Amoros who was blazing the trail all the way back in 1984.
The then-captain of France saw red in the first game of the 1984 European Championships after he decided to take justice into his own hands following a poor tackle from Denmark’s Jesper Olson.
At first, he threw the ball at the Danish defender before deciding that wasn’t quite enough, at which point he headbutted him – right in front of the referee.
Luckily for Amoros, France won that game 1-0, and they would win the whole tournament without the help of their captain.
3 Euro 2000
Abel Xavier earns himself a nine-month ban
Portuguese full-back Abel Xavier is one of the most recognisable footballers from the 1990s/2000s, in part thanks to his bright bleach blond hair and in part for his fairly aggressive style of play.
This aggression sees him land a spot on this list as he became the centre of attention following Portugal’s semi-final defeat to France in Euro 2000.
With the scores level in the 117th minute and a penalty shootout looking almost guaranteed, Xavier made the insane decision to block a shot from Sylvain Wiltord with his hand, resulting in a penalty for the French, and with the golden goal rule in play, Zidane sent the French through to the final.
However, Xavier’s response to the referee made the whole situation even more bonkers. Instead of just protesting his innocence as a player normally would, he got right up in the official’s face and screamed at him so much that he received a nine-month ban from the game in all its forms.
Luckily for Xavier, that ban was reduced to six months, but the reputational damage was done.
2 Euro 2012
Mario Balotelli’s bizarre celebration against Germany
Up next is potentially the most famous goal celebration to ever come from the European Championships, comparable to only Gazza’s celebration in 96′.
We’re, of course, talking about Mario Balotelli’s celebration against Germany at Euro 2012.
What made this celebration so memorable was just how bizarre it was.
After scoring a genuinely remarkable goal, the Italian opted to rip his shirt off, flex his muscles, and then just stare blankly at his teammates for a good few seconds before he was finally embraced by the rest of the team.
The total lack of emotion and odd stance made it an instantly recognisable celebration and rather comical as well.
The whole sequence of events also made this quote from the striker all the funnier: “When I score, I don’t celebrate because I’m only doing my job. When a postman delivers letters, does he celebrate?”
They don’t make them like Balotelli anymore.
1 Euro 2012
Nicklas Bendtner’s underwear controversy
Here we are then, on to what we reckon is the most bonkers moment in Euros history: Niklas Bendtner’s £80,000 underwear mistake.
There have been plenty of controversial moments at the Euros, we’ve even covered some of them on this list, but we don’t think there has ever been another situation in which a player’s choice of underwear has ever caused such a media storm.
The Danish striker got himself into hot water in his country’s second game of Euro 2012 against Portugal; when he was celebrating his equalising goal, he pulled up his top and pulled down his shorts to reveal a pair of bright green boxers carrying a bold Paddy Power logo on the front and back.
Unsurprisingly, the former Arsenal man wasn’t just a big fan of the Irish betting company, and he had, in fact, been paid to display the logo should he score a goal in the tournament, despite his initial protestations to the contrary.
While the advert was largely seen as funny by the fans, UEFA was certainly not impressed and fined the forward £80,000 for his involvement.
Luckily for Bendtner, Paddy Power paid the fine for him, and the fact that we are still talking about it all these years later probably means it was well worth the punishment.