Some fun facts about Euro 2012 and I’ll start with the best one: Ireland is the only squad that doesn’t have any players from its own domestic league while England is the only squad that only has players from its own domestic league-system.
- Robbie Keane (LA Galaxy, MLS) and Christian Wilhelmsson (Al-Hilal, Saudi Pro League) are the only two players that play outside of Europe.
- The oldest player in the tournament is Kostas Chalkias (38 years old).
- The youngest is Jetro Willems (18 years old).
- There are 3 coaches that are not from the country they are coaching: Fernando Santos [Portuguese] coaching Greece; Dick Advocaat [Dutch] coaching Russia and Giovanni Trapattoni [Italian] coaching Ireland
- Miroslav Klose has the most goals (63) in the competition while Iker Casillas has the most caps (129).
- The lowest FIFA ranked team is Poland (65th). The highest is Spain (1).
- This is the first time Ukraine will compete in a European Championship.
- Slavek and Slavko are the official mascots of the Euro 2012.
- The German, the Italian, the Dutch and the English teams visited the Auschwitz concentration camp before the start of the tournament.
- Croatian coach Slaven Bilic will step down as coach of the Croatian team and become the coach of Lokomotiv Moscow after the Euros.
- Morten Olsen has been coach of Denmark since 2000.
- The oldest coach is Giovanni Trapattoni (73). The youngest is Paulo Bento (42).
- Markus Rosenberg [Sweden] and Paul Green [Ireland] are the only two players that are free agents.
- Manchester City have the most players heading to Poland/Ukraine (18).
- UEFA leases the stadiums and actually pays rent for them.
- EURO 2012 will be the last with 16 teams in the final part. Beginning from the EURO 2016, in France, there will be 24 finalists.
- If Spain win, they will become the first team to win two consecutive Euros and a World Cup in between.
- For the first time in the history the European Football Tournament will be held in the Eastern Europe.
- In total there have been 59 players ruled out of the tournament with an injury. The most in European Championship history.
- The estimated value of the Cup made from pure silver is worth €20.000. Its height – 60 cm, weight – 8 kg.
- The biggest of the host-stadiums in Ukraine is the National Sports Complex “Olympic” in Kyiv. It has a capacity of about 60,000 spectators.
- The smallest arena is in Lviv and it can seat 35,000 spectators.
- Among Poland’s stadiums, the biggest is the National Stadium in Warsaw that has a capacity of about 50,000 spectators. The smallest arena is situated in Wroclaw and has a capacity of 40,000 spectators.
- Every team in the tournament will receive 8 million euros. – 1 million euros will be given for a win in the group stage. – 500,000 euros for a draw in the group stage. – 2 million euros for a win in the quarter-finals. – 3 million for a semi-final victory euros.
- In the final, the winning team will be awarded 7.5 million euros and the runner-up will receive 4.5 million euros.
- UEFA will also give 1 million euros to the team finishing third in the group.
Facts are credited to http://www.footandball.net/
