Euro 2024 round of 16: what happens if there’s a tie?

The Euro 2024 round of 16 takes place between Saturday 29 June and Tuesday 2 July, with all of the most fancied nations (England, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal) making it through the group stage and into the first knockout round. Also featuring are more surprising names such as Slovakia, Slovenia and Georgia.

Euro 2024 round of 16 draw

Germany playing Denmark and France taking on Belgium are arguably the ties of the round on paper, although plenty of eyes will be on England, many people’s favourites to win the tournament, to see if they can finally click into gear against Slovakia.

Group stage tie-breakers

Both the Belgians and The There Lions were involved in incredibly tight groups, with Kevin De Bruyne and Co finishing in a four-way tie on four points in Group E with Romania, Slovakia and Ukraine, which had to be settled using more than one tie-breaker.

In Group C, five of the six matches played ended in a tie, with England going through in first place thanks to their 1-0 victory over Serbia.

Denmark and Slovenia progressed in second and third spot respectively, but had identical records in all criteria and could only be separated as a result of coach Novakovic Milivoje’s yellow card in the Slovenians’ match against the Danes giving them a worse disciplinary record.

What tie-breakers are used in the knockout rounds in Euro 2024?

Tie-breakers are very likely to be required once again in the knockout rounds, although they will be considerably less complex than in the group stage.

All ties from the round of 16 onwards in Euro 2024 are one-off games and will be settled over 90 minutes, if possible. If the two teams are level at the end of regulation time, however, then 30 minutes of extra time (two periods of 15 minutes) will be played in an effort to find a winner.

If the countries involved still can’t be separated, then the match will be decided by a penalty shootout involving five players from each side, which will go to sudden death if the score remains level after both teams have taken all of their five spot-kicks.

Euro 2024 knockout round dates

Once the round of 16 is over, the quarter-finals will start with two ties on Friday 5 July, followed by another two on Saturday 6 July.

The semi-finals will take place across two days, with the first to be held in Munich on Tuesday 9 July and the second in Dortmund on Wednesday 10 July.

The Euro 2024 final will be played on Sunday 14 July at Olympiastadion in Berlin, which previously hosted the 2006 World Cup final between Italy and France, and the 2015 Champions League final between Barcelona and Juventus.