This 20 euro collector's coin made of sterling silver is all about football. On the occasion of the 2020 European Football Championship, which was postponed to 2021 due to the pandemic, the artist Thomas Serres designed a very special coin motif.
A coin and a soccer ball share a geometric similarity: their shape is round. Thomas Serres also took this into account when designing the coin and designed it entirely as a ball. The title of the tournament “European Football Championship 2020” and the individual, originally planned venues were noted in a circle on the motif. The writing in the margin says: A TOURNAMENT FOR EUROPE ∙ A TOURNAMENT FOR FANS. The names of the host cities engraved on the coin are: Baku, Dublin, Copenhagen, Rome, Amsterdam, Bucharest, London, Glasgow, Bilbao, Munich, St. Petersburg and Budapest.
Due to the pandemic, changes had to be made again and again in the planning of the games. The venue Bilbao, which was originally decided and therefore also noted on the coin, was deleted. Instead, the matches planned there were moved to the Estadio La Cartuja in Seville. Additionally, all matches that were due to take place in Dublin are now expected to be played in St Petersburg and London.
Just as the name of the tournament continues to be called EM 2020, the year in which the EM was originally supposed to take place was also stamped on the football coin: 2020. Before the outbreak of the corona pandemic, no one would have expected that the major sporting event would take place ultimately has to be postponed for a whole year. This coin is therefore not only a special collector's item, but also a souvenir of this time of emergency.
The upcoming tournament has an important, historical peculiarity: for the first time in the now 60-year history of the European Football Championship (1960-2020), the competition will be held on the entire European continent as well as in an Asian city.
The list of winners of the UEFA European Football Championship, as the European Championship is officially called, is currently led by Spain and Germany with three European Championship victories each. France follows closely behind with two cup wins. The most successful goalscorers in the history of the tournament are Michel Platini (France) and Christiano Ronaldo (Portugal) with 9 European Championship goals each.
