Hotspur Towers - Spurs and the Euros, 7

Our series looking back at Tottenham links to previous European Championships reaches the 2000 and 2004 tournaments. Spain and Austria both bid to hold the championships in 2000 but UEFA instead awarded the competition over two countries for the first time, Belgium and Holland. 49 teams were divided into nine groups the winners and the best runners up would qualify with the other group runners up entering a Play-Off round.
To indicate how the Tottenham links have changed over the years we had no players in the Welsh or Northern Ireland sides. We did however have Allan Nielsen (Denmark)  and Ramon Vega (Switzerland) face each other in the same group as Wales.

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Allan would score for Denmark in the home game with the Swiss in his six games. Vega made just one appearance as they finished third and the Danes reached the playoffs.
 
We had three players in Group 2, all playing for Norway. Espen Baardsen was in goal for the opening game, a 1-3 defeat at home to Latvia. That was his only game in the competition. Steffan Iversen missed that game but came into the side in the third match. He would score in both games V Albania. He also scored the only goal at home to Georgia and again at home to Slovenia, appearing in eight of their ten games. Whilst Oyvind Leonhardsen scored the only goal at home to Greece in his two appearances.

Steven Carr came into the Republic of Ireland side for the last four games in their group and they earned a place in the play offs. Colin Calderwood made two appearances for the Scots as they also made the playoffs behind the Czech Republic.

Top - Simon Davies
Left - Allan Neilsen in 1999 V West Ham.

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Glenn Hoddle was England manager, the third Spur to lead the country into the competition. England scrapped through as a runner up beating Poland on goal difference for second place. England’s last game was a 0-0 draw away to the Poles. They still had one game left but lost away to the group winners Sweden. England has started with one point from two games as they lost in Sweden with Campbell and Anderton in the side. The same two then drew at home to Bulgaria and then came a 3-0 win in Luxembourg. By the time the next match was played Hoddle had left the England post.

That next game saw an international debut for Tim Sherwood alongside Sol Campbell as England won 3-0 at home to Poland. Sweden drew 0-0 at Wembley, with the same two players. Then a draw in Bulgaria, with future Spur Jonathan Woodgate making his international debut alongside Campbell. There was no Spurs player involved in the last two games.
 
Of the nine runners up, England came 8th in the order of merit and were drawn with third best Scotland. The first leg in Glasgow saw England take a 2-0 lead. The second leg saw the Scots win 1-0 with Campbell back in the side for both games. The Scottish goalie was future Spur Neil Sullivan. Denmark beat Israel without Nielsen. Turkey went past the Republic of Ireland on away goals, Steve Carr played in both games.

The finals saw England select just Sol Campbell. There is some interest for Tottenham fans in that the Germans had future Spur Christian Ziege and the Rumanians ex-Spur Popescu. Group C saw just Steffan Iversen make the Norwegian squad.

While in group D  Goran Bunjevecvic was in the Yugoslavia side, Allen Nielsen was with Denmark and Edgar Davids in the Dutch team.
Nielsen played in the first two games, both defeats as they finished bottom of their group. These were his last caps as a Tottenham player, having scored five times in thirty games.

Right - Ramon Vega

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Steffan Iversen scored the only goal as Norway beat Spain and in the two other games as they finished third. Campbell played in the loss to Portugal, the win over Germany and the defeat to Rumania as England also failed to proceed to the knockout stages. The final was won by France beating Italy 2-1.
 
Meanwhile back in N17.Spurs were tenth in the Premiership.

And so on to 2004. Fifty teams now entered the competition and there were ten qualifying groups for the finals which would be held in Portugal. There was again limited interest for the Spurs fan.

Norway’s Steffan Iversen played in five of their qualifying games as a Spurs player scoring the only goal in the match away to Rumania as they finished runners up in their group.
 
Sergei Rebrov made two substitute appearances for the Ukraine as a Tottenham player before going on loan to Fenerbahce where he played three more games, without scoring and his team failed to proceed.

Left - Popescu signs for Tottenham with Ossie Ardiles.

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There was interest in the Welsh team with Simon Davies (top) scoring the second goal in their win in Finland to open their group. Playing in seven of their games he scored the first in a 2-1 win at home to Italy and in the 1-1 draw at home to Finland.
 
The Republic of Ireland saw Steven Carr play in six games. Gary Doherty appeared in seven, many of these were from the bench, scoring three times. These were the first goal in their opener as they lost to Russia. The winner away to Georgia and the first in the return game when Ireland's other goal came from Robbie Keane. Robbie played in six of those games and scored one other goal as the Irish failed to move forward. England now under Sven-Goran Eriksson went through the qualifying group without calling on a Spurs player as they topped their group. 

The playoffs saw Simon Davies play in one of the games as Wales went out to Russia.
 
The Finals saw Tottenham interest in the England squad which had Paul Robinson and Ledley King in its ranks as well as ex Spurs Sol Campbell and Ian Walker. In the host nation‘s squad, Portugal, we had Helder Postiga.
 
Right - Stefan Iversen

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There is some interest for Spurs fans in that other countries included a number of players with past or future Spurs connections. The French included William Gallas and Louis Saha, Bulgaira  with Dimitar Berbatov, Sweden’s Erik Edman, Germany had Christian Ziege, Holland named Edgar Davids and Rafael Van der Vaart.

England started by losing to France with King in the side. He was then left out of the win over Switzerland and came on as a sub as they beat Croatia to finish second in the group. Portugal topped their group without using Postgia.
 
These two sides met in the quarter finals. The only Spurs man on display was Postiga who leveled the scores at 1-1 with seven minutes to play. Both sides scored in extra time and the game went to penalties. Postiga scored in the sixth round of kicks as they won 6-5. Portugal then beat Holland but lost in the final to Greece, Postiga did not play in either of those games.
 
Meanwhile back in N17 Tottenham had fallen to 14th in the table.
 
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Keith Harrison.
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