The way the English see it, football came home last week to the hallowed turf of London's Wembley Stadium. It arrived after the marching bands paraded across the manicured pitch, after extravagantly cute schoolchildren waved at the crowds, after the official song (We Are in This Together) was coolly crooned by Mick Hucknall of the rock band Simply Red, after parachutists trailing 16 national flags floated into the stadium, and after the de rigueur royal personage--in this case the Duke of Kent--intoned an official greeting.

But it really arrived when the whistle blew and the ball was kicked into play to start Euro 96, football's European Championship, which brought the Continent's 16 best national teams--and hundreds of thousands of fans--to England for three action-packed weeks. No matter that England tied with Switzerland 1-1 in an uninspiring opening match; there was no containing England's pride in having one of football's major tournaments back home in the country where the rules of the world's most popular game were first set out in 1863.

A total of 194 countries and territories have purchased broadcast rights to Euro 96, making the tournament the planet's third largest sporting event, after the Olympics and soccer's World Cup. Millions of fans, perhaps more than a billion, around the globe will tune in expecting to watch some of the world's finest play. And though they may also be expecting to see the world's foulest fans, the British hope they have a surprise in store. England, whose club teams were barred from competing in Europe for three years in the 1980s because of marauding football hooligans, has been at work to prove that sportsmanship and civility are back in England's game.

At the beginning of the 1980s, English football was a national disaster. Its skinhead fans were as welcome as the Visigoths during the 4th century. At home peace-loving sports buffs shunned the stadiums of venerable old clubs and took up watching snooker on the telly. Football was on the verge of being interred under the goalposts at Wembley. Instead, a remarkable revival took place. Stadiums were rebuilt to eliminate dangerous, seatless terraces, the nefarious breeding ground for football louts. Families came flocking back to facilities equipped with comfortable seats and selling edible food. Football clubs hired slick marketing executives, who generated piles of cash by hawking commercial sponsorships, satellite TV rights--and, of course, thousands of club shirts and souvenirs. The new money bought better--or at least more expensive--players, many of them recruited from abroad, and the quality of the game improved measurably. Now, in the mid-1990s, football is as popular and profitable as ever.

Not that all the boorishness has been purged from English football. Hard-core hooligans still exist. In February 1995, when Ireland scored a goal to go ahead of England in a friendly match in Dublin, a small band of English supporters chanting nationalistic slogans began tossing plastic seats at the usually affable Irish fans, and the game was canceled. Hoping to prevent these groups from disrupting Euro 96, British police last week arrested known hooligans. English authorities have also been working with police forces in the rest of Europe to identify both English and Continental troublemakers. Germany is sending five detectives--plus eight social workers--to help suppress rowdiness among the small group of ultranationalist German fans, who can be as nasty as their English counterparts.

If the louts are shut out, the action should be on the field, where it is supposed to be. Fans know that with the possible exceptions of Turkey and Scotland, any of the 16 teams could triumph. "In three weeks," says Swiss coach Artur Jorge, "anything can happen." In the last championship, in 1992, lowly Denmark, a team so laid back that it might have trained at Club Med, upended mighty Germany 2-0 in the final. But this year, although they have Peter Schmeichel, by most reckoning the world's best goalkeeper, the Danes may not muster the offensive firepower needed to be No. 1.

Besides, fairy tales seldom repeat, and other Cinderellas are eager for their chance at the ball. Croatia, for example, is a team loaded with obscure yet talented players. And if Croatia can produce world-class tennis players and major basketball stars, is there any reason it shouldn't come from nowhere and sweep the European championship? None at all, say the London betting shops, which place Croatia above the middle of the pack at 14 to 1.

Of course, England has fantasies of repeating its 1966 World Cup victory at Wembley. "That's what the public is demanding," says midfielder Gareth Southgate. The English team has had trouble living up to public demand; it did not even qualify for the World Cup in 1994. England as host automatically qualified for Euro 96, but its record in a series of uninteresting friendly matches in the past two years is hard to read. Certainly home field has its advantages, but with local enthusiasms skewing the betting, the London odds of 13 to 2 are probably not long enough.

The four top favorites are Holland, Italy, France and Germany. The fans in Holland have a hard time distinguishing their national team from Amsterdam's Ajax, one of the world's greatest and most successful club teams. Nine Ajax players will compete for Holland in England, including striker Patrick Kluivert, 19, the newest star.

If coach Arrigo Sacchi is to be believed, Italy is so blessed with talented players that he can afford to leave two of the country's best--Roberto Baggio and Beppe Signori--at home and still win. The coach thought both Baggio and Signori seemed tired and slow compared with younger players like flashy midfielder Alessandro del Piero, 21. Sacchi's 1994 World Cup team lost only in the final to Brazil, on a penalty shoot-out.

Another team notable for the strength of its absentees is France. The stern face of Eric Cantona, French star of Manchester United, stares out from Nike advertisements designed for Euro 96, but coach Aime Jacquet decided Cantona will not be seen on the field. Jacquet has put together a young, explosive, close-knit team that over the past 18 months has played 23 matches without a defeat. It capped the streak with a 1-0 win over Germany two weeks ago. "Why break up the winning chemistry that we've created?" asks Jacquet, who is leaving Cantona at home.

Germany comes into Euro 96 so laden with trophies that the team may have to pay for excess baggage on the flight to Manchester. Three-time World Cup winner and two-time European champion, Germany is the favorite again. That, by time-honored tradition, means coach Berti Vogts is trying to play down the team's prospects with the practiced line, "It's going to be very, very difficult to be successful in England." But he may not be entirely modest. After a long string of victories, Germany has faltered slightly in the past few weeks with the loss to France and a draw with Northern Ireland.

Those heroics or disasters will count for nothing once the teams parade onto the green English pitches. Says Franz Beckenbauer, the great German sweeper and now a TV commentator: "I've never seen a European championship with so many teams that have a chance. I wouldn't place any bets on who's going to win this one." Beckenbauer may pass, but the English are betting--and hoping--that football, home at last, will be the winner.

--With reporting by Bruce Crumley/Paris, James Geary/Amsterdam and Erik Kirschbaum/Berlin