"The European Champions" depicts the national teams that have won the European Championship in football since 1980: the teams’ road to victory, their stars, style and crucial matches. The book provides a wealth of football history and thoughts on the contemporary development of the game, but at the same time each triumphant team is discussed in relation to the country’s national identity. Perhaps the European Championship constitutes the largest therapeutic arena for the pan-European healing of the traumas from the Second World War.