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EURO 2024

Euro 2024: What you can expect in Germany during Europe’s biggest football frenzy

Big cities in Germany are bracing themselves for Euro 2024, which will bring millions of football fans to the country for a month-long football bonanza. Here's what you need to know about how the championship will impact accommodation, transportation and border controls this summer.

Published: 3 May 2024 12:15 CEST
Updated: 6 May 2024 08:08 CEST

EURO 2024 ticket holders will receive 36-hour travel tickets, so public trams and trains will likely be packed on game days. Photo: Eduard Bopp | Sportfotografie

The 2024 UEFA European Football Championship, often simply called Euro 2024, will be hosted in Germany.

A total of 24 teams will compete in the month-long tournament, which is scheduled from June 14th to July 14th. In total 51 games will be played on 22 match days.

In the opening match Germany will take on Scotland at the Munich Football Arena. One month later, the two best performing teams will battle for the winning title at Berlin’s Olympiastadion – which has staged every German Cup final since 1985.

Germany, by the way, has a strong history at the championship: this will be its 14th appearance at the tournament (more than any other nation), and it has won three of them (tied with Spain for the record).

Football fan or not, Euro 2024 will be a huge event, and virtually everyone in Germany at the time is bound to notice.

Some 16,000 volunteers will be working to support the tournament, and 2.7 million fans are expected to be in attendance in total.

With a hefty chunk of those 2.7 million fans visiting Germany from abroad, the intense influx of visitors during the championship can be expected to cause some disruptions. In fact, officials have already warned about transportation issues and terror threats around the games.

Here’s what you should know:

Where are the EURO 2024 games happening?

Matches will be held in 10 different cities: Berlin, Cologne, Munich, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Dortmund, Leipzig, Gelsenkirchen, Stuttgart, and Düsseldorf.

If you live in one of these cities, you’ll surely see crowds of football fans on their way to and from matches, and possibly marauding the city streets at night.

You may even find some commuter fans staying in cities or towns adjacent to those listed above, because hotel capacities in some cities are expected to approach their limits.

For their part, hotels near Euro 2024 match sites seem eager to cash in on the fanfare. In fact, a group of journalists from The Local had a reservation cancelled after their hotel realised that they could get away with charging higher than normal rates amidst the tournament.

If you’re coming to Germany for the championship, be sure to make your reservations early. (Last month would’ve been best, but today is better than tomorrow.)

If you’ll be travelling within Germany at the time, you may want to consider avoiding the cities where matches are being held. Alternatively arrange to stay with friends when possible, or look into accommodation that’s away from the city centres or game arenas.

View of the Allianz Arena ahead of EURO 2024. The opening match will take place in Munich on June 14, 2024. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Sven Hoppe

How will transportation be affected?

Big crowds in city centres come with lots of crowded buses and trains, and EURO 2024 will be no exception.

What’s more is Euro 2024 ticket holders will receive a 36-hour travel pass provided by the German transport company in the city where their match is held. So it’s safe to assume that trams, U-Bahns and S-Bahns will be packed to the brim with fans wearing team colours before and after matches.

Long-distance rail travel may also be a bit more crowded than usual during this month as German residents move between cities for matches.

Evelyn Palla, Deutsche Bahn’s Regio CEO, recently told the German Press Agency (DPA) that she doesn’t think Germany’s regional (RE) train system will be impacted by the Euros. But that may prove to be a bit of a naïve take.

Border controls have been raised

Citing potential terror threats, federal officials announced that there will be heightened border controls leading up to and during the EURO 2024.

“We will carry out temporary border controls at all German borders during the tournament in order to be able to prevent possible violent offenders from entering,” Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser (SPD), had told German media outlets as early as March.

The police union, however, has said that local security authorities are well equipped to protect the public during the championship.

But enhanced border controls are good to be aware of, especially for foreign nationals who may travel near Germany’s border regions this summer.

Non-EU citizens always need to carry residence permits and passports at border crossings. But border controls can also happen inside the country, such as at train or bus stations where international lines pass through.

Given the announcement of enhanced border controls, it would be wise to make sure and have your ID documents with you during any travel near border regions this summer, especially during the football championship.

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Now widely known as the Summer Fairytale (Sommermärchen), the tournament is remembered as the moment a unified Germany shook off the shadows of its dark past and showed the world a new, modern face.

On the field, the German team coached by Jurgen Klinsmann overcame dire pre-tournament predictions to make it to the semi-finals.

Despite losing in extra time to eventual champions Italy and eventually finishing third, Germany’s performance kick-started a decade of dominance that peaked with the 2014 World Cup triumph in Brazil.

Off the field, the tournament changed not only the way the world saw Germany, but the manner in which Germany saw itself.

Philipp Lahm, a key player in 2006 who captained Germany to World Cup glory eight years later, told AFP: “In 2006 we were able to experience the whole nation standing behind the team and giving us energy.

“The celebrations are good. That people come here to Germany and celebrate a big festival together.”

‘Where are all the Germans?’

German sports sociologist and philosopher Gunter Gebauer told AFP the tournament had a sudden and long-lasting impact.

“Before the tournament, the mood in Germany was very, very poor. The economy was not going well. The weather was bad and the football was atrocious.

“And then the World Cup started and during Germany’s first game against Costa Rica, Philipp Lahm scored and the sun burst through — it was almost like something from the Bible.”

Living in a middle-class Berlin suburb, Gebauer saw a neighbour unfurl a German flag from his balcony, previously considered a “taboo” due to the nation’s post-World War II reservations with nationalism.

“From there, we saw German flags and singing the anthem at Germany games — something which just didn’t exist before.”

The dissolving of internal reservations meant World Cup visitors saw a different side to the straight, rule-enforcing Germans familiar from national stereotypes.

“Foreigners who came to Germany were delighted with the German public.

“The English people asked ‘where are all the bloody Germans? We’ve only come across friendly people who are partying everywhere’.”

Wolfgang Männig, a rower who won gold for Germany at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, is now a professor of sports economics at Hamburg University.

‘Feel-good effect’

In an interview with AFP, Männig said while the economic benefits of large events were often negligible, “the feel-good effect was the essence of the 2006 World Cup.”

Before the World Cup, “Germans were not exactly considered world leaders when it comes to being welcoming,” but after 2006 “Germany has improved significantly in international perceptions.”

Albärt, the mascot of the UEFA Euro 2024 European Football Championships, poses with the tournament’s trophy and a ball at the Allianz Arena stadium, one of the host stadiums that will be called Munich Football Arena during the UEFA Euro 2024 European Football Championships. Photo: ALEXANDRA BEIER / AFP

“I believe that foreigners see us completely differently, no longer as unenthusiastic, somewhat peculiar people, but as open and happy, which made us more comfortable with how we see ourselves.”

Jan Haut, a sports sociologist at Goethe University, told AFP “the German people became a bit less stiff. They were more comfortable and confident celebrating victories of the national team”.

“What was rather new was that Germans themselves became more aware that in other countries the picture of Germany isn’t as bad as the Germans had thought,” he added.

‘Only football can do this’

While 18 years have passed and both Germany and the world have changed, many parallels remain.

Germany again is wracked by economic uncertainty, infrastructure concerns and fears of poor on-field performances.

Haut said the world’s attention would again shine a light on Germany, for bad and for good.

“In the worst case, there might be some surprises — maybe that people become aware that things don’t work so well in Germany currently, like public transport.”

After the humiliation of two successive World Cup exits in the group stage, Germany have shown signs of life under coach Julian Nagelsmann.

They won just three of 11 games in 2023 but rebounded with strong wins over France and Netherlands in March.

Whatever the team’s results in the tournament, Maennig said Germany could bank on the unifying impact of the national sport.

“As a rower I say this with a bit of sorrow in my voice, but only football can bring people together like this. The cafes and restaurants show the games on monitors and you can sit and watch in a friendly atmosphere.

“It’s really quite enchanting.”