The 24 teams Euros is a terrible system

Kasper

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First of all, a continent that has slightly above 50 nations does not need 24 teams in the final tournament. We're getting plenty of terrible international breaks for a 1,5 years qualification phase where almost 50% of the teams end up playing anyway.

Secondly, it leads to negative draw oriented football. I know a lot of people blame the teams or the lack of quality players. But the first couple of games this Euros were fantastic, plenty of goals and good excitement. The problem is, after round 1 all the winners are incentivized to take a draw in their second game because it means going through to the KO stage already. Meanwhile all the nations that lost their first game rather take a draw to keep all options open for their last game instead of risk losing again. Now in round three we basically get a prisoners dilemma situation where multiple teams only need a draw to secure first, second or third (with a guarantee to qualify). Terrible negative brand of football is the result and I can't blame most teams because clearly it's in their best interest.

Thirdly, although a small point. The latter groups have an advantage because they have more information what will be enough to qualify as a third placed team (see today). I know it's minor in the great scheme but still an annoying side effect.
 
I wouldn't necessarily mind going back to 16 teams and 4 groups but it would also mean that more nations would probably rarely qualify.
 
Said elsewhere, but if they could have just kept it as 8 teams progressing to the knockouts.

6 group winners + 2 best runners up.
 
Been saying that for years. Any tournament with a group stage where you can finish at the 75th percentile rank and still progress is inherently flawed; Awarding mediocrity.


And while we are at it, the new world cup format sucks too.
Platini's? idea was excellent imo. Increase the number of teams to 40, have 8 groups with 5 each. Only top 2 progress.
Thus, you expanded the participation, and the smallest nation gets to play 4 matches on international stage instead of 3. It would prolong the world cup for just few days, hardly a problem.
 
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I like it. More games and it is nice that some countries and very good players born in not so great footballing countries can participate.

And without third place also qualifying we would have been knocked out already :lol:
 
The third place shit is an absolute travesty. It’s caused so many teams to play cautiously. Who the hell thought it was a good idea?

If you’re third your should be out.
 
Alex99 said:
Said elsewhere, but if they could have just kept it as 8 teams progressing to the knockouts.

6 group winners + 2 best runners up.
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It's great that more countries can participate as this is how they will improve playing top teams. I agree with the above that means you can skip the knockout round and straight to quarter finals. 2 third placed teams isn't as bad as it is currently.
 
They could have introduced a rule where the two teams that scored the most goals get a bye into the last 8 and skip the last 16 round.

Would hopefully mean we get more goals and attacking football.

Southgate would be forced to release the tactical straightjacket he has England tied to.
 
Solius said:
The third place shit is an absolute travesty. It’s caused so many teams to play cautiously. Who the hell thought it was a good idea?

If you’re third your should be out.
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I would disagree in the first two rounds you had pretty much every team thinking one win will get you through so everyone was at it. Pretty much every game bar England games and France Netherlands was quite watchable. This last round of games has been worse.
 
I'm okay with more countries being in but they should have increased the Groups but restricted qualification to the top two spots. This Euros has been characterized by a distinct lack of suspense given that 3/4th of a Group pretty much qualifies.
 
Disagree. It's not about England. It's about the smaller countries that get to enjoy a festival of football.

Group stage are always dull. You have 4 teams in a group and 2 or 3 go through. If 2, then 1 team will probably go out before the final round of games. If 3 the the whole thing seems a little pointless.

The truth is, the Euros starts from the Last 16.
 
Kasper said:
First of all, a continent that has slightly above 50 nations does not need 24 teams in the final tournament. We're getting plenty of terrible international breaks for a 1,5 years qualification phase where almost 50% of the teams end up playing anyway.

Secondly, it leads to negative draw oriented football. I know a lot of people blame the teams or the lack of quality players. But the first couple of games this Euros were fantastic, plenty of goals and good excitement. The problem is, after round 1 all the winners are incentivized to take a draw in their second game because it means going through to the KO stage already. Meanwhile all the nations that lost their first game rather take a draw to keep all options open for their last game instead of risk losing again. Now in round three we basically get a prisoners dilemma situation where multiple teams only need a draw to secure first, second or third (with a guarantee to qualify). Terrible negative brand of football is the result and I can't blame most teams because clearly it's in their best interest.

Thirdly, although a small point. The latter groups have an advantage because they have more information what will be enough to qualify as a third placed team (see today). I know it's minor in the great scheme but still an annoying side effect.
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I do think this could have been an issue, but realistically, Croatia didn’t win their last game and Hungary scored in the last minute.

Neither could have got more points or goals by trying harder. Both needed to win before the games started.
 
macheda14 said:
I would disagree in the first two rounds you had pretty much every team thinking one win will get you through so everyone was at it. Pretty much every game bar England games and France Netherlands was quite watchable. This last round of games has been worse.
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Yeah it started off fine but it’s become duller as it’s gone on. Which you never want to happen.
 
The Euros haven't been terrible, the top teams have been terrible which has opened up the possibility for small teams to actually qualify. Only Spain and Portugal have been really good. Germany and Austria have been good. Switzerland as expected. England, France, Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium, Italy, Croatia have all been poor.
 
To be fair it might not mean a feast of football in the third group games, but it does stop most of them from being dead rubbers.
 
Rewarding third placers is counter productive and quite frankly patronizing. If smaller nations want to qualify they can earn it like Austria and take the dark horse mantle.
 
It's all a ploy to make more money, it always is. Every competition run by FIFA and UEFA is becoming more and more bloated, reducing the integrity as well.

This 3rd place qualification is pure nonsense.
 
I don't mind it because the smaller nations can be part of a big tournament. But that aside, it is only about money and it will always be.

16 should be concept.
 
24 teams is fine. You can't see anyone blasting anyone from the 24* (Scotland was an exception). European football is so tight now and out of the top 24 anyone can beat anyone in 1 game.
 
I get the reasoning for both 16 and 32 teams, but 24 seems like a desperate attempt to find middle ground between them. Might as well go for 32 teams with only the top two advancing from their groups...or go back to the old format with 16 teams.

Snow said:
The Euros haven't been terrible, the top teams have been terrible which has opened up the possibility for small teams to actually qualify. Only Spain and Portugal have been really good. Germany and Austria have been good. Switzerland as expected. England, France, Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium, Italy, Croatia have all been poor.
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I don't think Portugal have been really good at all. They weren't good vs the Czech Republic. Germany have put in better performances than them IMO. Austria as well, without a doubt. Croatia weren't poor either, just got very unlucky. They won all 3 of their games on xG.
 
Was obvious during the 2016 Euros. Hard to see a better format though when it’s 24 teams.
 
redshaw said:
Which teams wouldn't have made the 16 but made the 24?
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Ukraine, Georgia, Poland definitely.

The rest are unknown but some of; Slovakia, Switzerland, Slovenia, Serbia, Austria, Czechia, Croatia, Italy, Netherlands, Scotland
 
redshaw said:
Which teams wouldn't have made the 16 but made the 24?
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Impossible to say, the qualification process would have been completely different. They're linking Nations League performance into Euro qualification currently too, reserving playoff spots for teams in the lower groups of the Nations League. Georgia only got 8 points from 8 games in their Euro qualifiers, finishing 4th in their group but got in that way by overcoming Luxembourg and Greece. Estonia who only got 1 point in the qualifiers even got to play in the playoffs because of that.

If you did away with all that, went for the 10 qualifying group winners plus Germany as hosts and 5 teams through the playoffs you might have had something like:

Germany, Spain, France, England, Turkey, Albania, Belgium, Hungary, Denmark, Romania, Portugal

Playoffs (draw based on qualification performance): Austria v Switzerland, Netherlands v Serbia, Scotland v Italy, Croatia v Czech Republic, Slovenia v Slovakia

Definitely missing out: Ukraine, Poland, Georgia
 
How many teams participate in the qualifying stages? Is it 50? Couldn’t we just let them all take part in the Euros, scrap the entire qualifying phase and just have a huge tournament of 50 teams? Multiple matches per day and everyone gets a crack at it. It’s probably not viable - nor is it very well thought out - but it would remove the qualifiers entirely. 50 isn’t a great number obviously, but would be cool to see a similar idea explored properly, and not just by me in a 30 second post.
 
No Love said:
How many teams participate in the qualifying stages? Is it 50? Couldn’t we just let them all take part in the Euros, scrap the entire qualifying phase and just have a huge tournament of 50 teams? Multiple matches per day and everyone gets a crack at it. It’s probably not viable - nor is it very well thought out - but it would remove the qualifiers entirely. 50 isn’t a great number obviously, but would be cool to see a similar idea explored properly, and not just by me in a 30 second post.
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Depends on the number of hosts, but it's 53, or 54 when Russia are allowed back in when there's one host.
 
No Love said:
How many teams participate in the qualifying stages? Is it 50? Couldn’t we just let them all take part in the Euros, scrap the entire qualifying phase and just have a huge tournament of 50 teams? Multiple matches per day and everyone gets a crack at it. It’s probably not viable - nor is it very well thought out - but it would remove the qualifiers entirely. 50 isn’t a great number obviously, but would be cool to see a similar idea explored properly, and not just by me in a 30 second post.
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Germany can barely hold up its public transport for 24 teams and it’s got some of the best infrastructure in Europe so double the number of teams is bound to be very difficult.

The groups would have to be like the qualifiers and it would take a lot of games. I used to like the Euros because it was short and sweet before your interest waned. I look at the last 16 now after so many matches and you see Spain v Slovakia or Romania v Slovenia and it’s a bit like ‘all those games for the reward to be these games?’
 
More teams, more matches, and longer tournament. Which football fan doesn't want that. I remember when there were only 8 teams in the competition. Top two qualify straight to semi final. Trust me, you don't want that.

The only thing is getting the format right. The World Cup will have 48 teams. There will be a lot of boring matches in that tournament. I think they should have 16 groups of 3 teams and then the top 1 qualifies into the last 16. Then you will see all the teams going for it from the first whistle and every game will have some sort of jeopardy. A bit like the 1982 World Cup second round.
 
I agree about the expansion to 24 and 3rd place teams, but if we are going to have a 24 team tournament then the qualification should have been drastically streamlined. For teams to have to play 8+ games, plus the Nations League which is also part of the qualification process now, simply to get from 50-odd teams to 24 is just a waste of everyone’s time. Unless you’re Ronaldo and you enjoy any opportunity for stat-padding against the likes of Luxembourg and Lichtenstein.
 
I wouldn’t say more teams is necessarily the problem, but if you finish third in a group of four teams, you should not be qualifying for anything. That’s the biggest issue here in my opinion
 
Josh 76 said:
More teams, more matches, and longer tournament. Which football fan doesn't want that. I remember when there were only 8 teams in the competition. Top two qualify straight to semi final. Trust me, you don't want that.

The only thing is getting the format right. The World Cup will have 48 teams. There will be a lot of boring matches in that tournament. I think they should have 16 groups of 3 teams and then the top 1 qualifies into the last 16. Then you will see all the teams going for it from the first whistle and every game will have some sort of jeopardy. A bit like the 1982 World Cup second round.
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More doesn't equal better, quality over quantity, would rather watch a great 90 minute film over a diluted 3 hours where an hour could have been cut, same applies to football tournaments for me. Also then there's a trade-off on that where qualification is more interesting and intense if the tournament is smaller.
 
Might as well have made it 32 teams and then only the top 2 go through for the round of 16 - seeing as they're forcing a round of 16 and not straight to a quarter final (which it should be in the first place with a 16 team competition). Or make it 20 teams with 4 groups of 5 teams and top 2 still goes through if you wanted to expand it.
 
The last few teams to qualify haven't made much impact since it went to 24:

2024 playoff teams - Ukraine and Poland out in the group stage, Georgia are playing right now
2020 playoff teams - North Macedonia, Slovakia, Scotland, Hungary - all out in the group stage
2016 playoff teams - Ireland and Hungary made the last 16, Sweden and Ukraine out in the group stage
2016 one 3rd place team from qualifying won a place in the finals = Turkey, out in the group stage

That's possibly an argument to say it should have been 20 teams in 4 groups of 5 if wanting to expand it but you'd have had so many dead rubbers.
 
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KeanoMagicHat said:
More doesn't equal better, quality over quantity, would rather watch a great 90 minute film over a diluted 3 hours where an hour could have been cut, same applies to football tournaments for me. Also then there's a trade-off on that where qualification is more interesting and intense if the tournament is smaller.
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If you have less teams, then you will have to skip the last 16 and go straight into the quarter finals. Having an extra round of knockouts is more interesting than not having it.
 
Agree with you, 16 is better for the Euros.

The quality is diluted too much and there are distortions incentivising draws.

The new bloated CL format probably have some big negatives as well.
 
Ish said:
Might as well have made it 32 teams and then only the top 2 go through for the round of 16 - seeing as they're forcing a round of 16 and not straight to a quarter final (which it should be in the first place with a 16 team competition). Or make it 20 teams with 4 groups of 5 teams and top 2 still goes through if you wanted to expand it.
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Problem with 5 teams groups is the number of matchdays required.
 
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