1984
Interesting year, although not only for the right reasons. Three major international championships – the European Championship finals, the Olympic games, and the African Championship. 
The European finals got all attention, making the other two big championships in the dark – the Olympics were tainted by Eastern European boycott and the 14th African Championship followed the traditional fate of African football – nobody paid attention. On one side, things were critical in the football world – menacing and increasing hooliganism, the bribing scandal in Belgium, the decreasing interest in Olympic football – many countries for one or another reason chose to not participate at all, the plague of bankruptcies in South America. On the bright side shined the European finals – they were generally seen in very optimistic light.
The finals went through rocky road and there were changes in the formula. The new 8-team was objected strongly: the 1980 experience was not positive – too many boring games. UEFA stuck to the larger format, though, and at the end of 1983 critics were ready to shrug their shoulders, ‘See, we told you so’. The finalists were not exactly the traditional major European powers, most of them struggling for years and Denmark in particular was not even second-rate European power, thus recalling the specter of Greece in 1980. Who needs that again? But it was too late for changing the formula – instead, it was improved. Back in 1980 the group winners at the finals went directly to the championship final – now the first two of each group went to semi-finals first. Further, the shameful match between West Germany and Austria at the 1982 World Cup was taken into account – now the last group games were to be played at the same time, so to avid any fixing of results. Lastly, the number of team players was reduced from 22 to 20 – the reason was questionable: the reduction was hardly able to save any money to the national federations. In sporting terms, there was no real gain either – a good team hardly used more than 15 players, the rest staying permanently on the bench. The real reason was seemingly an attempt to reduce scandals – there were players not wanting to join national teams only to watch others play and vitriol was let loose in the press. Football did not need more scandals, it had enough already, so the big aim was to present happy clean image. An illusion, but setting the road followed to this very day – a big smiling cover under which lurked all kinds of crimes, scandals, back stabs, dealings of more than questionable nature, and so on.
But, to the surprise of many, the final tournament was great – highly entertaining football and emergence of bright strong teams from what was seen to be championship of underdogs. And that was very optimistic sign for breaking out of the stagnation rotting the game in the previous years. The 1984 Euro was better than the 1980 finals as a whole, thus silencing the critics. Dull football was seemingly at the losing end – West Germany represented it and its team did not reach the semi-finals. Compared to the 1980 finals, 1984 was sure winner – only West Germany and Yugoslavia were boring to watch. Four years earlier the list was longer – Greece, Holland, England, Spain, Czechoslovakia, Italy. Even severely handicapped Belgium – 6 national team regulars were suspended for their involvement in the bribing scandal – played well, despite the odds. What looked like predictable championship – France and West Germany were easily seen as finalists, with likelier nasty victory of the Germans – became fascinating and unexpected championship. It was easy to forget or forgive anything else this year – the 1984 European finals were great, football was coming back to the right track.