Also in this year: 1980
European Champion Clubs' Cup winners: Nottingham Forest FC (1-0 v Hamburger SV)
European Footballer of the Year: Karl-Heinz Rummenigge (FC Bayern München)
Eurovision Song Contest winners: Johnny Logan (Republic of Ireland) singing What's Another Year?
European Golden Boot winner: Erwin Vandenbergh (Lierse SK)
Nobel Peace Prize winner: Adolfo Pérez Esquivel (human rights advocate, Argentina)
Men's Olympic 100m champion: Allan Wells (United Kingdom) running 10.25 seconds
Formula 1 world champion: Alan Jones (Australia) driving a Williams
Oscar for Best Picture: Ordinary People
Key events
21 March – United States president Jimmy Carter announces his country will boycott the forthcoming Olympics in Moscow
21 November - Millions of viewers tune into the US soap opera Dallas to learn who shot leading character JR Ewing. The plot becomes a national obsession
8 December – John Lennon shot and killed
History
Top scorers
| 3 | Klaus Allofs - West Germany |
| 2 | Cornelius Kist - Netherlands |
| 2 | Horst Hrubesch - West Germany |
| 2 | Zdenek Nehoda - Czechoslovakia |
Team of the Tournament
- Dino Zoff »
- Claudio Gentile »
- Gaetano Scirea »
- Karlheinz Förster »
- Hans-Peter Briegel »
- Marco Tardelli »
- Jan Ceulemans »
- Bernd Schuster »
- Hansi Müller »
- Karl-Heinz Rummenigge »
- Horst Hrubesch »
Mascot
The success of the 1976 UEFA European Championship fed the clamour for more places at the final tournament and UEFA responded by doubling the number of participants as the competition returned to Italy for a second time. With eight teams now involved instead of four, including the hosts automatically, the hopefuls were divided into two groups from which the winners were to advance directly to the final.
The Germans began by gaining revenge on Czechoslovakia, who had beaten them in the 1976 final, and made sure of a berth in the final with an equally satisfying 3-2 success against rivals the Netherlands. In the final, West Germany took an early lead through Horst Hrubesch only for René Vandereycken to equalise from the penalty spot before Hrubesch headed a late winner to secure the trophy. More >>