🎥 What makes 21 June the greatest date in tournament history 📆 | OneFootball

Happy summer solstice! Famously, 21 June is the longest day of the year.

It may also be the date in the calendar that provides us with the year’s football highlight more often than any other.

There is no summer World Cup in 2022 but the modern history of international football has made this a special day on so many occasions.

1994: Maradona’s last Argentina goal

Diego Maradona’s final Argentina goal was a superb one, yet it is the celebration that was immortalised.

Those eyes.

2000: A comeback for the ages

Spain were 3-2 down to Yugoslavia and heading for a group stage exit at Euro 2000. But two injury time goals, in the 94th and 95th minutes, saw them complete perhaps the most incredible turnaround in Euros history.

2002: Did he mean it?

That’s the question everyone was asking 20 years ago today. A few years later, having seen more of Ronaldinho, it was hard not to think that he knew exactly what he was doing.

2004: Welcome to the show

An 18-year-old Wayne Rooney had already become the youngest goalscorer in Euros history (though he lost the record on this day, less than a week later) in 2004 but that wasn’t enough of an announcement for him and he blew Croatia away days later.

2008 – Arshavin’s artistry

Andrey Arshavin’s Euro 2008 was one of the great individual tournaments and he was never better than the day he inspired Russia to an incredible extra-time win over the Netherlands.

2010 – Portugal score seven

Since 2010, there hasn’t been a World Cup win as big as Portugal’s 7-0 victory over North Korea. There have only been six bigger World Cup wins in history and only one of those has come since 1982.

2014 – Messi magic

Argentina’s run to the final in the summer of 2014 was inspired by Lionel Messi and his late winner against Iran was perhaps his best ever strike on the world’s biggest stage.

2018: Finalists come to the fore

Kylian Mbappé netted his first ever World Cup goal in a 1-0 win for eventual winners France against Peru before Croatia stunned Argentina with a 3-0 win en route to the final.

2021 (at Euro 2020): Great Danes

Having been through the horror of Christian Eriksen’s collapse in their first group game, Denmark were inspired as they beat Russia 4-1, scoring at least two goal of the tournament contenders, to seal a place in the knockout rounds.