West Ham United will be represented by four players at the 2024 UEFA European Championship finals.
England forward Jarrod Bowen, Czech Republic pair Tomáš Souček and Vladimír Coufal and France goalkeeper Alphonse Areola have all packed their boots and headed for Germany, which will host the tournament across ten cities from Friday 14 June until Sunday 14 July.
For Souček and Coufal, it will mark their second Euros as West Ham players, while Bowen and Areola will both be appearing at the continental competition for the first time in their respective careers.
As our four favourites prepare for the tournament, you can find out more about how the 14 Hammers who have featured at previous European Championship finals got on…
1968 – World Cup winners reunite
Bobby Moore, Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters were together again when England reached the final stage of the 1968 European Championship, two years after teaming up to inspire the Three Lions to FIFA World Cup glory on home turf.
Back then, there was no such thing as a European Championship hosted by one country, with just four nations travelling to Italy for the semi-finals and final.
Having come through a group stage and beaten Spain 3-1 on aggregate in the quarter-finals, with Peters on target in the second leg in Madrid, England joined Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union and hosts Italy in the final stage.
Alf Ramsey’s men faced Yugoslavia in the semi-finals in Florence. With Moore captaining the side and Peters in midfield, but Hurst sitting on the substitutes’ bench, a goal from Red Star Belgrade star Dragan Džajić four minutes from full-time proved decisive and knocked England out.
The Three Lions took on the Soviets in the third-place play-off in Rome, where Hurst scored England’s second goal in a 2-0 win that captain Moore and Peters both started to secure bronze.
1980 – Greenwood and Brooking suffer early exit
The European Championship finals were expanded to eight nations in 1980 and, under the management of former West Ham United boss Ron Greenwood, England came through a qualifying group that included Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland, Bulgaria and Denmark without losing a game.
The tournament was again held in Italy, where England were drawn in Group 2 alongside the host nation, Belgium and Spain. Greenwood named a very strong squad featuring players who had won the European Cup with Liverpool and Nottingham Forest in each of the previous four seasons, led by captain Kevin Keegan. He also selected his former Hammers midfielder Trevor Brooking, fresh from his FA Cup final winning goal against Arsenal, and handed the 31-year-old Hammer the No10 shirt.
Brooking was in the team as England kicked-off with a 1-1 draw with Belgium in Turin, where Ray Wilkins scored a sensational goal, but he was left out for the second game, which ended in a 1-0 defeat by Italy.
The West Ham star was recalled for the final group match against Spain in Napoli and opened the scoring with a low shot in a 2-1 win, but it was not enough to prevent the Three Lions finishing third in their group and being knocked out.
1996 – Bilić’s Croatia make their mark
While most West Ham United supporters were following the fortunes of Terry Venables’ England, who came within a whisker of reaching the final, only to be denied by Germany in a penalty shootout, two Hammers were involved at UEFA Euro 1996 for their own nations.
Centre-back Marc Rieper was an important member of a Denmark team led by goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel and the outstanding Laudrup brothers, Michael and Brian. But the defending champions, who had shocked the continent by winning in Sweden in 1992 as late replacements for war-torn Yugoslavia, could not repeat their heroics, going out at the group stage.
Denmark were based in Sheffield, where a 1-1 draw with Portugal was followed by a 3-0 defeat by Croatia in a game highlighted by future West Ham striker Davor Šuker’s wonderful chip over Schmeichel, and a meaningless 3-0 win over Turkey.
The Denmark versus Croatia match featured both Rieper and his Hammers teammate and defensive partner Slaven Bilić, who would play a starring role as Croatia, who were competing in their first major tournament after declaring independence in 1991, reached the quarter-finals before being edged out by Germany.
2008 – Ljungberg’s last hurrah
Freddie Ljungberg was still a West Ham United player when he captained Sweden at UEFA Euro 2008, which was held jointly by Austria and Switzerland.
The experienced midfielder had enjoyed a productive 2007/08 campaign at the Boleyn Ground and had just turned 31 when he and his fellow countrymen opened their Group D challenge with a 2-0 win over defending champions Greece in Salzburg.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic scored in that victory and then equalised against Spain in Innsbruck, only for an added-time goal from David Villa to send the Swedes to a 2-1 defeat. And when Roman Pavlyuchenko and Andriy Arshavin scored for Russia in each half in a winner-takes-all clash in the winter sports-mad city, Sweden slid out of the tournament.
Ljungberg announced his retirement from international football soon afterwards, then terminated his contract with the Hammers ahead of the 2008/09 season.
2016 – Payet at his peak
After Robert Green had sat on the substitutes’ bench throughout England’s run to the quarter-finals at UEFA Euro 2012 in Poland/Ukraine, four West Ham United players were involved at UEFA Euro 2016 in France, and three have reason to look back on the tournament favourably.
Fresh from a truly stunning debut season in Claret and Blue, Dimitri Payet was named in the Team of the Tournament after a series of sensational performances and goals, including late strikes in Group A wins over Romania and Albania and another goal in the quarter-final victory over Iceland.
Payet and France had also edged past the Republic of Ireland in the round of 16, where they found West Ham goalkeeper Darren Randolph in superb form. The stopper had earlier helped the Irish to qualify for the knockout stages as one of the best third-place teams by shutting out Italy in a memorable 1-0 win in Lille.
And the third Hammer to enjoy a productive tournament was James Collins, who was part of the Wales squad which defeated Slovakia, Russia, Northern Ireland and Belgium to set up a semi-final meeting with Portugal in Lyon.
Replacing the suspended Ben Davies, Collins had the unenviable task of marking Cristiano Ronaldo and performed admirably for the 66 minutes he was on the pitch before being sacrificed as Chris Coleman’s side tried in vain to turn around a 2-0 deficit.
The fourth Hammer at Euro 2016 was Angelo Ogbonna, but his only appearance in Italy’s run to the quarter-finals was a start in the aforementioned 1-0 group-stage defeat by the Republic of Ireland.
2020 – Yarmolenko stars in delayed tournament
A record five West Ham United players were called-up by their respective nations for the COVID-delayed UEFA Euro 2020 tournament, which was hosted across Europe in June/July 2021.
Captain Andriy Yarmolenko starred for Ukraine during his country’s run to the quarter-finals, scoring in group-stage matches against the Netherlands and North Macedonia, then providing an assist for Oleksandr Zinchenko’s opener in the round of 16 win over Sweden in Glasgow.
Ukraine’s run was ended in the last-eight by Declan Rice and England. The midfielder started all seven ties as the Three Lions defeated Croatia, a Czech Republic side that included Tomáš Souček and Vladimír Coufal at Wembley, Germany, Ukraine and Denmark to reach the final, where they were beaten on penalties by Italy.
Souček was an ever-present for the Czechs' five matches, taking the captain’s armband for a round of 16 victory over the Netherlands in Budapest, Hungary, and quarter-final defeat by Denmark in Baku, Azerbaijan.
The fifth Hammer at the tournament was Łukasz Fabiański. The goalkeeper played four times as Poland reached the quarter-finals in 2016, when he was a Swansea City player, but was an unused substitute for his country’s group-stage exit in 2020.
