UEFA Euro 2012 in October 2011, the nine group winners qualified automatically, along with the highest ranked second placed team. The remaining eight-second placed teams contested two-legged play-offs, and the four winners qualified for the finals. Twelve of the sixteen finalists participated at the previous tournament in 2008. England and Denmark made their return to the Euro, having last participated in 2004, while Republic of Ireland returned after a twenty-four-year absence to make their second appearance at a European Championship. One of the co-hosts, Ukraine, made their debut as an independent nation (before 1992 Ukraine participated as part of the Soviet Union). With
UEFA Euro 2012 statistics 2012 qualifying was required to serve the balance of any suspension unserved by the end of qualifying either in the Euro 2012 finals (for any player on a team that qualified, whether he was selected to the final squad or not) or in World Cup qualifying (for players on teams that did not qualify). Any player receiving a single yellow card during two of the three group stage matches and the quarter-final match was suspended for the following match. A single yellow card did not carry over to the semi-finals. This meant that no player could have been suspended for