The 5 powers have all gone out prior to the semifinals for the first time in the history of the tournament after Greece stunned defending champion France 1-0 in quarterfinal action. This came after Portugal defeated England 6-5 on penalty kicks after they faught to a 2-2 draw in the first quarterfinal match. Ironically, it was team captain David Beckham's miss that was costly for England. Spain didn't make it out of the first round and scored just 2 goals in their three games, a 1-0 win over Russia, a 1-1 draw with Greece and the deciding 1-0 loss to Portugal.

Italy also found scoring difficult, as they historically do, and had to settle for draws with Sweden (1-1) and Denmark (0-0). That set up their final game with hopeless Bulgaria and a 2-1 win was 1 goal short of forcing a tie with Denmark for the second spot in the quarters.

Germany was fresh off a finals appearance in World Cup 2002, but managed just a pair of goals and failed to advance from quite frankly the weakest group. They opened with a respectable 1-1 draw against Netherlands, but followed it up with a miserable 0-0 tie against Latvia. Finally they were faced with a Czech Republic team that was resting their stars after being guaranteed the group title yet they still fell 2-1.

Speaking of the Czechs, they will face off with Denark in the quarters with the winner meeting up with Greece. On the other side, Portugal is awaiting the winner of Sweden against Netherlands.