Euro 2016: Here's all you need to know about the marquee football event

• Number of teams participating in Euro 2016.
• This is the highest number of participants at any Euro.
• Euro began as a four-team event (1960-1976). Then from 1980 to 1992, it turned into an eight-team tournament, whereafter, it became a 16-team event.

• Number of groups in Euro 2016.
• Group A consists of France, Romania, Albania and Switzerland.
• Group B has England, Russia,Wales and Slovakia.
• Group C features Germany, Ukraine, Poland and Northern Ireland
• Group D consists of Spain, Czech Republic, Turkey and Croatia.
• Group E has Belgium, Italy, Sweden and the Republic of Ireland.
• Group F features Portugal, Iceland, Austria and Hungary.
• There are 10 venues across which the matches will take place.
• This is the third time France is hosting the championship.

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• Number of times Spain (1964, 2008, 2012) and Germany (1972, 1980, 1996) have won the title, the highest among all nations.
• Other countries who have won the cup till now are: France (1984, 2000), USSR (1960), Czechoslovakia (1976), Denmark (1992), Italy (1968), Netherlands (1988) and Greece (2004).
• Greece, Denmark and Netherlands did not qualify this time.

• The top five in-form players ahead of this Euro are Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal), Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Sweden), Dimitri Payet (France), Antoine Griezmann (France) and James Milner (England).
• This calculation is based on the player barometer of uefa.com. "The methodology is "players' form in the build-up to and during the tournament. Official player statistics is run through a specially-designed algorithm to create rankings based on performances".

• England maintained a perfect record during the qualifying phase.
• They played 10 matches and won all of them.
• England also scored a total of 31 goals during the qualifiers, a number surpassed only by Poland, who scored 33 goals.

• The maximum number of appearances by any footballer in Euro cups.
• This record is jointly held by Lilian Thuram of France and Edwin Van Der Sar of the Netherlands.
• Iker Casillas (Spain), Philipp Lahm (Germany), Luis Figo (Portugal), Nuno Gomes (Portugal), Karel Poborsky (Czech Republic), Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal) and Zinedine Zidane (France) all have 14 appearances.

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• The maximum number of goals scored by any individual in Euro cups.
• Michel Platini of France holds the record.
• He is followed by Alan Shearer (England), who has scored seven goals.
• Thierry Henry (France), Ibrahimovic, Patrick Kluivert (Netherlands), Nuno Gomes, Cristiano Ronaldo (both Portugal) and Ruud Van Nistelrooy (Netherlands) all have scored six goals.

Edited by Shreyas Sharma

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