Euro 2020 Record Breaker Specials: Most Goals, Fastest Goal, Red Cards

The record number of goals is currently held by Frenchman Michel Platini with nine goals at Euro 1984, as he inspired home nation France on their way to winning the competition, finding the back of the net against Denmark once, as well as two hattricks against Belgium and Yugoslavia in the group stages, before scoring an extra-time winner against Portugal in the semi-finals, as well as bagging the opening goal of the final in a 2-0 victory over Spain.

Nowadays, there are more rounds in the European Championships, as back then there were only two groups, of which the top two would advance to the semi-finals, whereas at present there are six groups, which all split into a round of 16 and quarter-finals via four of the best third-placed teams advancing from the group stages.

It will be a tough ask for the likes of Antoine Griezmann to go four goals better than he did at Euro 2016, as he won the Golden Boot with six goals as France finished runners-up, especially due to the fact that France will face the likes of Germany and Portugal, in their group, with Hungary being the obvious team to score goals against in that group.

Despite, this the likes of Kylian Mbappe comes into this tournament on the back of 42 goals in 47 matches and is arguably a better play than that which inspired France to win the 2018 World Cup, whilst Cristiano Ronaldo is also a big game player and even managed a hat—trick in the last Euros against Hungary as part of his 104 international goals for Portugal.

Harry Kane may also fancy his chances having won the Golden Boot at the 2018 World Cup, scoring six times, the most at that tournament since Ronaldo scored eight for Brazil in 2002. England will take on the likes of Croatia, the Czech Republic and Scotland. Bayern Munich striker Robert Lewandowski is in scintillating form, having managed a Bundesliga record with 41 goals in 29 appearances, but, scoring 10 goals is highly unlikely considering the fact he plays for Poland who are unlikely to go far enough in the tournament to see this happen.

Perhaps the floor will be open to other candidates who play for some of the favourites to beat Platini’s record, as Italy’s Ciro Immobile will face the like of Switzerland, Turkey and Wales in his group, whilst Holland forward Memphis Depay will pip his wits against Austria, North Macedonia and Ukraine.

Former CSKA Moscow striker Dmitri Kirichenko holds the record of scoring the fastest ever Euros goal, doing so at Euro 2004 against eventual champions Greece just 67 seconds into their final group stage game, as Russia ran out as 2-1 winners, meaning that if Spain had managed an equaliser against Portugal, then the Greeks would’ve exited the competition at the hands of the Spaniards by a point.

Euro 2016 saw two players come relatively close to matching this record, as Poland’s Lewandowski scored after just one minute and forty seconds against Portugal in the quarter-finals before losing 5-3 penalties after drawing the game 1-1. Ireland’s Robbie Brady managed the third-fastest goal in Euro history scoring after two minutes against France in a 2-1 defeat at the round of 16.

At present, the scoreline of Yugoslavia beating France 5-4 in semi-finals back in 1960 is the highest-scoring game in Euro finals history. Ironically Yugoslavia were involved in two of the three second-highest scoring matches in 6-1 and 4-3 defeats to Holland and Spain at Euro 2000. The other game that saw seven goals came at Euro 2016 as France thumped Iceland 5-2 in the quarter-finals thanks to an Olivier Giroud brace, as well as strikes from Paul Pogba, Dimitri Payet and Antoine Griezmann.

The most likely pre-drawn matches for these sort of scorelines on paper could be any of France, Germany or Portugal against Hungary in Group F, Holland against North Macedonia in Group C or Belgium against Finland in Group B.

Euro 2000 saw the most red cards shown at a Euros as 10 separate players were sent off, which included notable names such as Sinisa Mihajlovic, Matija Kezman and Slavisa Jokanovic of Yugoslavia, as well as others such as Nuno Gomes, Gianluca Zambrotta and Gheorghe Hagi.

This tally beat the previous record of seven red cards at Euro 96, whilst Euro 2004 managed six, with them all coming in the group stage. As stated above, the Euros does play a round of 16 so there is an extra round for more red cards to be shown. The last Euros produced the second-lowest of all-time in the competition’s history, as Lorik Cana of Albania, Aleksandar Dragovic of Austria and Shane Duffy or the Republic of Ireland were all sent off.