UEFA European Championship qualifying
This page is a summary of the UEFA European Championship qualifying, the process that UEFA-affiliated national football teams go through in order to qualify for the UEFA European Championship. In this article, the years represent the final tournaments of the European Championship, and are not meant to correspond to the actual dates when the qualification matches were played. Format evolution. Resume. The 1960 and 1964 qualifications consisted of knock-out tournaments only. The four quarter-final-winning teams qualified for the final stages, and one of them was chosen to host the tournament. The 1968 , 1972, and 1976 qualifying tournaments included a group stage of eight groups. The eight group winners advanced to a quarter-final stage, which was still part of the qualifying. The four quarter-final winners progressed to the finals. Again, the host nation was chosen among the four finalists. From 1980 onwards, the hosting rights would be assigned in advance, and the host teams would be guaranteed automatic spots in the finals. Also, the format was expanded to feature 8 teams. The 1980, 1984, 1988, and 1992 qualifications included seven qualifying groups, and the seven group winners would progress to the  finals joining the host team, although in 1992 one of the group winners was eventually banned from participating and was replaced by the runner-up of its group. From 1996, a 16-team format was employed. The 1996 qualifying consisted of eight groups; the eight group winners and the six best runners-up qualified directly, while the two worst runners-up met in a play-off to determine the last team to earn a spot in the finals, joining the host country. In 2000, the winners of the nine qualifying groups qualified for the finals, and so did the best  runner-up. The remaining eight runners-up entered a play-off round, where they were paired off against each other; the winners of each pairing qualified too. For the first time, there were two host countries; they both received automatic berths in the finals. In 2004, along with the host team, the ten qualifying group winners qualified, as did the winners of each of the five play-off ties which were contested by the ten runners-up. In 2008, the top two teams from each of the seven qualifying groups joined the two host teams to bring the number of  finalists to 16. The 2012 qualification used a format similar to that of 2000: spots were given to nine group winners and the best runner-up, and the remaining eight runners-up entered play-offs to determine the remaining four finalists, with automatic berths being guaranteed to the two host countries. From 2016, the finals format was expanded again, now featuring 24 teams. The 2016 qualifying included nine groups; the winners, the runners-up, and the best third-placed team qualified directly, while the remaining eight third-placed teams formed four play-off pairings to determine the last four finalists . The host nation still qualified automatically. The 2016 qualification tournament was also the first one to be branded as UEFA European Qualifiers, a trademark later used both for Euro 2020 qualification and the 2018 and 2022 World Cup qualification tournaments in Europe. For the 2020 finals, hosted by multiple cities across Europe, there were no automatic qualifying berths. Twenty qualifying places went to the winners and runners-up of the ten groups of the 2020 qualifying, while the remaining four were determined via play-offs, which were formed based on the teams' performances in the newly created UEFA Nations League  and not in the qualifying itself. From each of the four divisions of the 2018–19 Nations League, the four best-placed teams not yet qualified for Euro 2020 (the group winners, unless already qualified) advanced to a play-off bracket for that division consisting of semi-finals and a final. The four final winners qualified for the Euro main tournament, which was actually postponed to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe but retained its original branding. The structure of the 2024 qualifying is yet to be announced. The host will receive a direct spot, and another 23 finalists  will be determined via qualifiers. Participating teams. All national teams that are members of UEFA are eligible to enter the qualification for the European Championship. A total of 56 distinct entities have made attempts to qualify for the European Championship. Of those, 55 are still active in the competition. Due to political changes, a few of the entities have appeared under multiple incarnations (see the footnotes to the below table), and the East Germany team is now defunct. Saarland, a former UEFA member, merged into West Germany in 1957 and therefore did not enter the qualifiers of any European Championships . Overview. Key Team records. The below table compares the overall records of all teams that have participated in qualification. Teams are ordered by points using the three points for a win system, then by goal difference, and then by goals scored. Note that this order does not represent any official rankings, and qualification tournaments are not direct competitions between all teams. The "Qualifying attempts" column only counts qualifying campaigns where the team played at least one match, while the "Appearances in the finals" also include automatic qualifiers. As per statistical convention in football, matches decided in extra time are counted  as wins and losses, while matches decided by penalty shoot-outs are counted as draws. The table is accurate as of UEFA Euro 2020. Notes on the table: