Before 2016

Now, we move onto players who have appeared in the finals whilst playing for a side in the bottom two divisions.

Before the tournament expanded in 2016, there are just two instances of a player from outside the top two divisions of English football being picked for a European Championship squad, sharing a single minute of action between them.

Euro 88 – David Kelly (Eire and Walsall)

The first player to appear in a European Championship squad whilst on the books of a Third Division team was Walsall’s David Kelly in Euro 88. That was the year England and Ireland were eliminated in the group stages, with Ireland beating England in the group stages. Kelly was, at the time, just 22 and plying his trade with Walsall in the Third Division. Technically, they were a Second Division side at the time of the tournament, as Kelly had just smashed a hat trick in the replay of the 1988 play-off final as Walsall beat Bristol City to win promotion.

By the time the following season kicked off, he’d earned a £600,000 move to top-flight side West Ham. Kelly didn’t appear at the finals, and his most famous goal for Ireland didn’t count as it came in the abandoned 1995 game against England.

Euro 96 – Boncho Genchev (Bulgaria and Luton)

Again, this could be contested, because Luton had just been relegated out of the Championship, so Genchev had played his football as a Second Division player. However, at the time of the finals, he remained with the Hatters ahead of their Third Division season, so he counts! He appeared at the 1994 World Cup, when Bulgaria shocked the world by reaching the semi-finals, but there was no fairytale in Euro 96. Bulgaria were eliminated in the Group stage, with Genchev appearing for a single minute in their 1-0 win against Romania.