On July 2 2000 France beat Italy 2-1 in extra time golden goal to win Euro 2000 in Rotterdam’s De Kuip stadium (home of Feyenoord). Euro 2000 was co-hosted by The Netherlands and Belgium.
France started with 4-2-3-1 like formation featuring many stars – and five future coaches in Deschamps, Zidane, Henry, Blanc and Vieira – and many with the added experience from the World Cup winning side of two years earlier in France. Italy countered with a 3-5-2 that featured many of the defensive stars of the era in Paolo Maldini, Alessandro Nesta and Fabio Cannavaro.
Italy had taken the lead early in the second with a Marco Delvecchio goal (from a Francesco Totti cross) and was kicks away from winning the tournament. Sylvain Wiltord beat Francesco Toldo from a somewhat tight angle in added time to send the game into what was a golden goal 30 minutes. It took 13 minutes for the game to end. Robert Pires had come in just before the 90 and provided a low cross that David Trezeguet, himself a late sub, emphatically diverted into the upper near side of the Italy goal.
The French team added their names to the history books and became a first simultaneous World Cup and European champion. The Roger Lemerre led team would go on to the 2002 World Cup where they would self destruct and return from Asia embarrassed. Dino Zoff would step down as Azzurri coach and be replaced by Giovanni Trapattoni and Italy would go on to not fare much better in South Korea/Japan.
Match highlights below.