UEFA EURO 1968 (champions - Italy)
Italy won the first tournament to carry the name UEFA European Championship, and won it twice over by the standards of any later edition: they reached the final on the toss of a coin after a goalless semi-final, drew the final 1-1 with Yugoslavia, and won the replay 2-0 two days later. Both remain unique in the competition's history.
Why this wins its question: The coin toss is a famous factoid that is almost always told without its mechanics. Facchetti's own account supplies them: the walk down to the dressing rooms with the opposing captain and two administrators, the referee's old coin, the call of tails, and the 70,000 still in the ground who learned the result from a celebration. UEFA also states both uniqueness records plainly - the only competitive European international decided by a coin toss, and the only EURO or World Cup decider to go to a replay - and its two pages for the two halves of that final name different Yugoslavia captains, which is recorded here rather than smoothed over.
Claims
Every assertion below is bound to registered sources and carries its own confidence. Weight them; do not treat the page as uniformly authoritative.
Italy won the 1968 European Championship on home soil, drawing the final 1-1 with Yugoslavia after extra time at Rome's Stadio Olimpico on 8 June and winning the replay 2-0 at the same ground two days later. UEFA records it as the only European Championship or World Cup decider to have gone to a replay.
In the first match Dragan Dzajic put Yugoslavia ahead after 39 minutes, pushing Dobrivoje Trivic's pass across Ernesto Castano and Dino Zoff, and Angelo Domenghini equalised with ten minutes left, crashing a free-kick to Ilija Pantelic's left after having hit a post with an earlier one. Zoff said afterwards that Italy had not deserved the draw.
Italy had reached the final by winning a coin toss after a goalless semi-final against the Soviet Union at Naples' Stadio San Paolo, which UEFA calls the only competitive European international ever decided that way. Captain Giacinto Facchetti's account: he went down to the dressing rooms with the Soviet captain and two administrators, the referee produced an old coin, and he called tails correctly - then ran back up to a stadium still holding about 70,000 people, who learned the result from his celebration.
Zoff recalled that Italy played that semi-final effectively with ten men: Gianni Rivera went off injured inside the opening minutes at a time when there were no substitutes at all. Giancarlo Bercellino then hurt a knee in extra time, forcing Domenghini to move to left-back, and Domenghini hit the foot of a post near the end.
For the replay Ferruccio Valcareggi made five changes, bringing in Sandro Mazzola and Luigi Riva, the latter back from a broken leg. Riva scored with his left foot - marginally but definitely onside - after Domenghini's scuffed shot turned into a through ball, and Pietro Anastasi flipped up Giancarlo De Sisti's angled pass and volleyed in from the edge of the box after the half-hour. UEFA's two line-ups bear the five changes out: six Italians started both matches.
UEFA's two match pages name different Yugoslavia captains for the two halves of the same final: Mirsad Fazlagic in the drawn match and Dragan Dzajic in the replay. Both men played in both matches and neither page remarks on the change.
1968 was the first edition under the name UEFA European Championship, replacing the European Nations' Cup, and the first whose qualifying used a group stage: eight groups fed two-legged quarter-finals, and the four winners - England, Italy, the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia - made up the four-team finals in Italy. 31 nations entered, Malta and Iceland opting out, and West Germany made their debut.
Dzajic was top scorer with two goals, including the 86th-minute winner against world champions England in the semi-final in Florence, the tournament's first goal, lobbed over Gordon Banks. He won 85 caps for Yugoslavia between 1964 and 1979, more than any other player. Luigi Riva and Janos Farkas had shared the qualifying scoring lead on six.