More than 50 national teams compete in qualifying tournaments within continental confederations for a place in the finals.

The main competition for men's national teams is the UEFA European Football Championship, started in 1958, with the first finals in 1960, and known as the European Nations Cup until 1964.

), with the 1978 and 1979 national tournament semi-finals and finals appearing on syndicated television.

Barthez was an integral part of his national team's inaugural triumph which also made it the first time in 20 years that a host had won the World Cup ; the highlight being a 3 – 0 clean sheet against defending champions Brazil in the finals.

* Almudena Cid, rhythmic gymnast now retired, 8 times national champion, she took part at 4 olympic finals at Atlanta 1996, Sydney 2000, Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008, also she took part in 9 world championships and 12 European championships.

Adams continued to play for the national side, however and he finally appeared in a World Cup finals in 1998.

Having won local and state spelling bees, Lisa Simpson advances to the national finals.

In the year preceding the global finals, each delegate must win her national title or a specially designated Miss World national preliminary.

The national finals of the Open span three to four days and culminate with a stepladder format to determine national champions in men's singles, women's singles, men's teams, women's teams, and mixed teams.

Internacional repeated the Copa Sudamericana title ; finished in a much-improved 6th place in the national league ; retained their state title ; reached the finals of the Copa do Brasil ( the best finish the club has had since 1999 ); and won the Suruga Bank tournament.

Langley Park is one of the few state schools that plays hockey, and is one of the top three hockey schools in the country, having competed in the last four national finals.

On 31 March 1999, Jeremies scored his first and only international goal, helping to a 2 – 0 home win against Finland for the UEFA Euro 2000 qualifiers, which was later chosen as Goal of the Month in Germany ; however, he was dropped from the national team during the build up to the finals, after calling the Erich Ribbeck-led side " pityful ".

As well as being used by Milan and Inter, the Italian national team also plays occasional games there and it has also been used for the 1965, 1970, and 2001 UEFA Champions League finals.

In the team finals ( abbreviated TF ), gymnasts compete with their national squad on all four / six apparatus.

At the time when she first participated in Dora, the national finals for the Eurovision Song Contest, Claudia was only 12, but she was already an experienced band singer having performed all over Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia and Montenegro with the Teens-formerly known as Mići rokeri ( Little Rockers ).

Dudek played nine of the national team's ten 2002 FIFA World Cup qualifiers as it finished top of its group, and started in the finals in Japan and South Korea, in an eventual group stage exit.

Competing a few times in the Scottish Cup, the club eventually returned to the Junior ranks in 1894 with some success, reaching four national cup finals in eight years.

Kapil Dev arrived in the national spotlight with a trademark standout performance in the finals of the Duleep Trophy taking a first innings haul of 7 / 65 in 24 overs.

He participated in two Cypriot national finals for the Eurovision Song Contest, coming second in 1997 with I grammitis ntropi, and fourth in 1999 with Methysmeno feggari.

Lou proved her talents at the 2001 Eurovision national finals, taking third place.

Shortly before Christmas 2002, composer Ralph Siegel asked her if she would be interested in competing in the national finals again with a song he had written with lyricist Bernd Meinunger.

Her March 7 win in the 2003 national finals qualified her to represent Germany at the international level in Riga.

In 2003, the song " Millim Laahava " (" Words for Love ") won at the national finals organized by the Israeli Broadcasting Authority (" IBA ") television channel, Channel One, against three other songs for the privilege to represent Israel in the Eurovision Song Contest 2003, due to his prominence and popularity on the Israeli popular music scene.

During his two terms the Constitution was tested and found workable, strong national policies were inaugurated, and the traditions and powers of the Presidential office firmly fixed.

The contributors to this testament were all well-known: a former Democratic candidate for President, a New Deal poet, the magazine's chief editorial writer, two newspaper columnists, head of a national broadcasting company, a popular Protestant evangelist, etc..

In the same period, 431 presentations by members of the staff were made to local, national, and international medical groups.

As a first step toward this goal, arrangements were worked out for comparing the scales now in use through circulation of a group of standard platinum resistance thermometers for calibration by each national laboratory.

They were increasingly looked upon as a means of establishing the new rural communes as the focus of a new, constructive national effort.

Both parties and the Ministry of the Interior were busily at work after the elections trying to unearth the political affiliations of the successful candidates and, thereby, give the elections a confidential but known degree of national political significance.

Since a national interpretation cannot be avoided it is unfortunate that the elections were not held in a way to maximize party responsibility and the educational effect of mass political participation.

Annual authorizations of $15 million were added for area vocational education programs that meet national defense needs for highly skilled technicians.

Admiralty law, the law merchant, and the host of problems which arise in private litigation because of some contact with a foreign country were all severed from the older Law of Nations and made dependent on the several national laws.

If we thus spent our very first day in the midst of a large number of your people honoring a new hero and a great national achievement, our last day, to us at least, was equally impressive and very moving, even though the crowds were absent and there was almost complete silence.

Nor is it an accident that baseball, growing into the national game in the last 75 years, has become a microcosm of American life, that learned societies such as the American Folklore Society and the American Historical Association were founded in the 1880s, or that courses in American literature, American civilization, American anything have swept our school and college curricula.

It seems to be indispensable to the national self-esteem that the Negro be considered either as a kind of ward ( in which case we are told how many Negroes, comparatively, bought Cadillacs last year and how few, comparatively, were lynched ), or as a victim ( in which case we are promised that he will never vote in our assemblies or go to school with our kids ).

Dr. Melvin W. Barnes, superintendent, said he thought the schools were waiting for some leadership, perhaps on the national level, to make sure that whatever steps of planning they took would `` be more fruitful '', and that he had found that other school districts were not as far along in their planning as this district.

Both, of course, were remarkable feats and further embossed the fact that baseball rightfully is the national pastime.

Advisors for the `` national champion '' company were John K. Morgan, William H. Baker, Leonard Breuer and William F. Stephenson, all of Georgia-Pacific Corp..

This year-to-year decline for Dallas County closely follows the national trend -- estimated sales of domestic cars in the U.S. for first three months of 1961 were about 1,212,000 or 80 per cent of the total in the first quarter a year earlier.

During the years when Israel was passing from crisis to crisis -- the Sinai campaign, the infusion of multitudes of penniless immigrants -- it was felt that the purpose of national unity could be best served if the secular majority were to yield to the religious parties.

This features the marching songs of several nations, recorded as though the various national bands were marching by your reviewing stand.

You still said `` John-and-Linda '', but as if you were speaking of a national catastrophe such as the depression or Dillinger.

Since they were hunting for national defense contracts, Adam Herberet, a man of surprising resources, entered the combination as a silent partner because of his political connections.

The Cincinnati Gazette contended that the voters were " depressed by the interminable nature of this war, as so far conducted, and by the rapid exhaustion of the national resources without progress ".

" The Republicans gained majorities in both House and Senate for the first time since Democrats in the 1856 elections, they were to be seated in numbers which Lincoln might use to govern, a national parliamentary majority even before pro-slavery House and Senate seats vacated.

In 1994 three national environmental laws were in effect: the Law on Environmental Protection, the Basic Law on the Environment, and the Law on Mineral Resources.

Arminius's views were challenged by the Dutch Calvinists, especially Franciscus Gomarus, but Arminius died before a national synod could occur.