The 1984's European Championship was held in France.

As usual, the whole competition was divided in two phases: the first one was a qualifying phase involving 32 teams and the second phase was a final tournament with the eight qualified teams.

The participants were divided into 7 groups with the winning teams qualified for the final phase.

There were many surprises during the qualifying stage. The most outstanding was the fast elimination of World Champion Italy, only fourth in their qualifying group. The second big surprise was the qualification of Denmark and the elimination of England although the 23 goals scored with only 3 taken.
Howewer, the qualifying phase will be remember for what happened in the group involving Spain and Netherlands, tied with the same number of points in their group. The qualification was ultimately decided by the goal difference's. In the last match of the group Spain needed a +11 win against Malta. After the first half, Spain was leading "only" 3 to 1, and the qualification of the Dutch team seemed almost safe. Howewer, in the second half, Spain incredibly scored 8 goals and qualified for the final tourney.
Something remarkable also happened in the group involving Wales and Yugoslavia. At the last minute of the last game between Yugoslavia and Bulgaria, the score was 2 to 2 and Wales was ready to celebrate an historical qualification. It was yugoslavian defender Radanovic who made history by scoring the third goal bringing his national team to the final event and eliminating the best Wales team ever.
Even West Germany had their own problems in a supposed easy group. In their last game against Albania, West Germans found the winning goal when only 10 minutes were left on the clock. Thank to their last win, West Germany tied at 11 points with the surprising Northern Ireland, and caught the qualification thanks to a better goal's difference.

Belgium, Romania, Yugoslavia, Denmark, Portugal, Spain, West Germany joined hosting France at the final event.