Spain (Graham Hunter, @UEFAcomGrahamH)
While Spain were winning the last two major tournaments, one notable policy was the relaxed nature of the training camp. Set against a backdrop of training with utmost intensity and winning crucial matches both Luis Aragonés and then Vicente del Bosque were quite liberal in their approach to players' free time. Families and girlfriends were allowed the occasional day with Spain's footballers in Neustift, Austria and Aragonés also allowed his lads a night out at a local disco.
Confronted by a Swedish journalist with a picture of Sergio Ramos at the aforementioned nightclub at the press conference before the two nations' Group D game Aragonés even joked: "Your photographer hasn't done very well there ˗ I was up dancing and you didn't get a picture of me!" In Potchefstroom, South Africa, Andrés Iniesta would often wander down to the local shopping mall to look for CDs and DVDs and Del Bosque allowed his troops two pre-programmed nights out on the town, in Cape Town and Durban, after defeating Portugal and Germany in the first knockout game and the semi-final.
However, in Gniewino, in fact for as long as the defending champions' tournament lasts this year, Del Bosque has decided that Twitter is banned. Team unity and avoiding unnecessary controversy is presumably the reason. Whatever the case Fernando Llorente summed it up this weekend with the Tweet: "Here's a picture of Sevilla, with which I say farewell for the tournament because we're not allowed Twitter in the training camp". Stay tuned to UEFA.com tweets instead!
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Rank | Team | W/D/L | Pts |
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Cities & Stadiums
The Top 3 Teams of Previous Tournaments
Year | Winners | Runner-up | Third place |
---|---|---|---|
2008 | Spain | Germany | Russia / Turkey |
2004 | Greece | Portugal | Netherlands / Czech Republic |
2000 | France | Italy | Netherlands / Portugal |
1996 | Germany | Czech Republic | France / England |
1992 | Denmark | Germany | Netherlands / Sweden |
1988 | Netherlands | Soviet Union | Italy / West Germany |
1984 | France | Spain | Denmark / Portugal |
1980 | West Germany | Belgium | Czechoslovakia |
1976 | Czechoslovakia | West Germany | Netherlands |
1972 | West Germany | Soviet Union | Belgium |
1968 | Italy | Yugoslavia | England |
1964 | Spain | Soviet Union | Hungary |
1960 | Soviet Union | Yugoslavia | Czechoslovakia |