  the 1988 uefa european football championship final tournament was held in west germany between 10 and 25 june 1988. it was the eighth european football championship, which is held every four years and supported by uefa. the tournament crowned the netherlands as european champions for the first, and so far only time. euro 88 was a rare incidence of a major football tournament ending without a single sending-off or goalless draw, nor any knockout matches going to extra time or penalties. ==overview== ===group stage=== the first group pitted two pre-tournament favourites west germany and italy together, along with spain and denmark. the italians had not played in the competition finals since the 1980 edition, which they hosted and west germany won. spain and denmark contested the second semi-final of the 1984 edition. spain prevailed on penalty-kicks, but lost the final to hosts, france who failed to qualify in 1988. the germans and italians contested the opening game. this game was tightly contested. roberto mancini capitalised on a defensive error on the left-hand side of the german goal and the striker squeezed in a shot from a tight angle. just three minutes later, walter zenga stepped out side of his penalty area while holding the ball and delivering a goal kick. andreas brehme scored the resulting free-kick which crept under the wall. both teams settled for a 1â1 draw. spain defeated denmark again, this time 3â2. mÃ­chel opened the scoring after five minutes and michael laudrup equalised twenty minutes later. spain dominated the next hour and emilio butragueÃ±o and rafael gordillo but the spanish 3â1 to the good. a late surge saw flemming povlsen reduce the score line, but was not enough for the danes, who now needed to win both their remaining games to be certain of a place in the semi-finals. in the remaining games the west germans swept aside the danes and spanish. jurgen klinsmann and olaf thon scored to dispatch the former 2â0 while two goals from [[rudi 
1987a88_in_European_football International_association_football_competitions_hosted_by_Germany UEFA_Euro_1988 UEFA_European_Championship_tournaments