The 24 teams Euros is a terrible system

[Stadjer]

That all you could muster?

Is that how you thank someone for giving you advise that could prevent you from having an awful experience?

it is not sexy to be ungrateful

 

[vivaronaldo]

lost its quality imo going to 24.... 16 was a great number but given their will be over 100 world cup games in 2 years , i can see it going 32 teams before too long with participation awards being handed out in ernest

 

[Alex99]

People saying that 16 teams format was better are the international football equivalent of people who want the Super League in club football.

It's a result of elitist mindset where only the top 8 teams matter and anyone else is irrelevant.

In reality 16 teams format SUCKED for all countries except the few giants of NT football like Germany, France, Italy etc.

It basically made qualifying for Euros as hard as qualifying for WC and meant that the vast majority of European nations only saw their country play on an international tournament once every blue moon or not even that. It resulted in entire generations of fans never being able to go on an international tournament for their country.

Literally every other continent has their continental cup accessible to teams of lesser quality, but big Euro countries want to keep their elitism going and prevent most of their continent to even compete. There are still many countries in Europe that haven't participated on an international tournament for DECADES, and you want to limit their possibilities further?

Going back to 16 teams would basically mean denying the many European fans the joy of ever seeing their national team play on the international tournament.

The only solution is to expand to 32 teams.

The point of elite competitions is to have a showcase of elite level competitors going head to head.

We may as well scrap the qualifiers and have a 50+ team tournament if the aim is to allow fans of smaller nations the chance to see their team at one.

Let's have a 200 team World Cup while we're at it. I'm sure the people of Vanuatu and St Kitts would love to see their nation represented on the world stage.

 

[Florida Man]

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.

First I’ve heard of this but I like that idea

 

[That_Bloke]

Is that how you thank someone for giving you advise that could prevent you from having an awful experience?

it is not sexy to be ungrateful

I can think of a good place where you can shove your advice.

Have a nice one.

 

[That_Bloke]

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.

I think that it would've been a great idea.

 

[LA BOMBA]

16 teams was great for the Euros.

Great for who? For like 6 big countries that are almost guaranteed to qualify for any big tournament.

For most European countries it just meant that they're unlikely to see their country play on an international tournament other than maybe once every 20 years.

You had entire generations of fans in Europe who were never able to travel to an international tournament to see their country playing there.

But yeah, let's make football even more elitist. Why not have an 8 team Euro where we only see the real QUALITY teams? Or better yet, just organize a super league for top 8 NTs and prevent anyone else from joining.

 

[That_Bloke]

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.

The current WC with 32 teams was ideal but the main objection still is that the european teams are somewhat over represented and the other continents understandably wanted more of their own teams to participate.

Platini's suggestion to push it to 40 team would've been a good compromise. Still having the two best teams of group qualify while increasing the teams without losing (too much) quality.

 

[AdamColeBebe]

Go back to the top two teams from each group qualifying. Us qualifying due to results in other groups was just absolutely bizarre, and then the whole complicated third place qualifying criteria. It's absolutely stupid.

 

[padr81]

16 teams 4 groups, winners go through, no 2nd place. If you're not first you're last.

 

[LA BOMBA]

The point of elite competitions is to have a showcase of elite level competitors going head to head.

How would a larger Euro prevent that?

If the elite are really elite, they should progress against the lesser teams and eventually meet each other.

Literally in every single sport elite faces lesser competition on the way to the top. Grand Slam tournaments don't feature just 16 players either.

What you're suggesting is that the elite teams should ONLY face other elite teams, which is basically an international football version of argument for enclosed Super League.

Also by your logic we should only allow clubs from top 5 leagues to participate in the CL.

 

[FootballHQ]

Go to 32 teams, ditch qualifying and just play nations league so 12 teams still get a chance to make it from the lower groups.

Less games and then still same tournament of groups, last 16 but just the top 2 go through.

 

[That_Bloke]

16 teams 4 groups, winners go through, no 2nd place. If you're not first you're last.

The current system is already bad enough, let's not worsen it even more.

 

[LA BOMBA]

Go to 32 teams, ditch qualifying and just play nations league so 12 teams still get a chance to make it from the lower groups.

Less games and then still same tournament of groups, last 16 but just the top 2 go through.

Exactly.

The qualifying is already unpopular, why not just ditch it and qualify the top ranked teams, with maybe a play off between the rest deciding the last 8 spots.

 

[Alex99]

How would a larger Euro prevent that?

If the elite are really elite, they should progress against the lesser teams and eventually meet each other.

Literally in every single sport elite faces lesser competition on the way to the top. Grand Slam tournaments don't feature just 16 players either.

What you're suggesting is that the elite teams should ONLY face other elite teams, which is basically an international football version of argument for enclosed Super League.

Also by your logic we should only allow clubs from top 5 leagues to participate in the CL.

Because it makes the earlier rounds essentially glorified qualifiers.

Your Super League comparison is completely false because I'm not advocating for it to be a closed competition. All of these teams would still have to qualify.

And yes, the Champions League would be a higher quality competition if it had fewer teams because the poorer teams were filtered out in qualifiers.

There's a balance to be had between "competition" and "entertainment" and I think we've diluted the former without really adding much (if anything) to the latter by expanding the Euros to 24 teams, and it's primarily because of the third placed teams progressing (I expect the next World Cup to have similar issues).

In order of preference:

A return to the 16 team format.

Expand to 32 teams.

Change the 24 team format so the knockout stage begins at the quarter final, with just the group winners and two best second placed finishers.

Change the 24 team format so the group winners are ranked 1-6, the runners-up 7-12, and the third placed finishers 13-16, then have the knockouts be 1 vs 16, 2 vs 15, etc.

 

[LA BOMBA]

Another thing is that we should just make Germany host every Euro tournament from now on.

Best geographic location and best stadiums. The atmosphere is so much better than in any other Euro country.

I always found it ridiculous that we have to alternate the host country of the Euro every tournament. Just have the most qualified country host it, and this is clearly Germany.

 

[SER19]

You came in claiming that one of the virtues of this format is "no dead rubbers" and have now shifted the goalposts to "other formats have them too". I know they do, but at least they don't encourage negative football in the same way.

Other formats don't heavily reward playing for draws like this format does. Other formats don't qualify teams for the next round because of results in an entire different group like this format does.

come on thats a different level of pedantry, clearly every tournament ever has some degree of final day matches of less significance. I suggest you go look at the final gameweek scenarios of 2012, the last 16 team tournament. Nothing was 'better' and nothing has been made worse. You had italy playing a knocked out ireland, who clearly wanted to be at home, and same with portugal vs netherlands.

2008 was more of the same, with every group winner getting 9 points, whereas only 1 did this time, out of 6!

In 2012 you averaged 1.25 draws per group, at this one its 2.1 draws per group. Hardly game changing.

This tournament averaged 13.5 goals per group, 2012 was 15. Again a negligible change that doesnt back up any increase in negative play. As with all tournaments there were circumstances where a draw suited some teams.

There's a massive overreaction to the format, which has been around for 3 tournaments now and as far as I can see, if the teams are competitive then its not a problem. Huge amounts of complaints are about things that literally happened at every single prior euros.

 

[KeanoMagicHat]

Go to 32 teams, ditch qualifying and just play nations league so 12 teams still get a chance to make it from the lower groups.

Less games and then still same tournament of groups, last 16 but just the top 2 go through.

Qualifying has already been semi-ditched when you consider Georgia were 4th in their qualifying group but it didn’t matter.

 

[lex talionis]

Apart from the fact that any summer international competition robs players of time they need to recover from club competitions, and the fact that they present a new risk of serious injury to our players, the actual format for the Euros is fine.

You need group play instead of a straight knockout format and you really don't want to go beyond 24 teams for what I hope are obvious reasons. If you go down to 16 you have to make it a straight knockout, which would be a fukkjob on the players and the fans for the first 8 teams that get knocked out.

 

[LA BOMBA]

Because it makes the earlier rounds essentially glorified qualifiers.

So you advocate a straight knockout system then? Because any type of format that uses QUALIFYING groups is "glorified qualifiers".

It also isn't relevant to the argument about expanding the Euros, since you could easily make a 32 team knockout tournament then. Which is not what I am suggesting but following your logic this would avoid having glorified qualifiers.

Your Super League comparison is completely false because I'm not advocating for it to be a closed competition. All of these teams would still have to qualify.

The arguments that you use are the same arguments that could be used to justify the Super League. A Super League is the logical conclusion to your arguments. If your idea is that elite should only face elite, then Super League is the only way to ensure it.

 

[FootballHQ]

England didn't qualify for the last one in 2008... Probably why they expanded, need the biggest commercial teams in...

The group stage is largely pointless in this format.

Just padding the games out.

There aren't 16 top teams in Europe, So done smaller teams get a chance but you end up with a much tighter, higher quality tournament.

Depends on the qualifying groups really. Given the way seeding works they'll always be one or two relatively weak groups so you'd still get a couple of smaller teams in the 16 format like Slovenia in 2000 and Lativa in 2004. Albania won their group so they'd have qualified if it had been back to 16 teams. What always created less shocks was Uefa deciding to seed the play offs in early 2000s which was a poor move.

I personally think 24/32 isn't much different in qualifying. Sweden and Norway would hardly have been worse than what we've seen from a few teams and likes of Greece and Iceland would be competitive in the groups aswell.

To get to 32 though you need to ditch qualifying format as it's utterly pointless but broadcasting deals have already been signed for future Euros I assume.

Of course the next one is the UK effort so no idea if they all get automatic berths or perhaps it will just be England and Scotland and the others have to qualify but five teams automatically making it will also make a mockery of qualifiers.

 

[LA BOMBA]

People saying that the "quality" of Euros would dilute if you'd go from 24 to 32 teams are ridiculous.

First of all, what quality?

From what we've seen so far, the supposed best teams are the most boring ones, with England and France having horrible performances while the most exciting teams are the ones that probably wouldn't even qualify on 16 team Euro tournament.

The fact is that even a club like SUNDERLAND would destroy both England and France back-to-back.

There is no quality in international football as club football is inherently superior.

The whole point of international football is to have entertainment and loads of fans from all over the continent coming to see their national team play in some specific country, where they meet other fans.

For this reason, the tournament should be expanded to have more people join the fun. This is what international football should be about, connecting people.

If you want quality football watch Pep Guardiola City dominate games and make a Super League for all I care. But leave the international football for the people.

 

[Alex99]

Depends on the qualifying groups really. Given the way seeding works they'll always be one or two relatively weak groups so you'd still get a couple of smaller teams in the 16 format like Slovenia in 2000 and Lativa in 2004. Albania won their group so they'd have qualified if it had been back to 16 teams. What always created less shocks was Uefa deciding to seed the play offs in early 2000s which was a poor move.

I personally think 24/32 isn't much different in qualifying. Sweden and Norway would hardly have been worse than what we've seen from a few teams and likes of Greece and Iceland would be competitive in the groups aswell.

To get to 32 though you need to ditch qualifying format as it's utterly pointless but broadcasting deals have already been signed for future Euros I assume.

Of course the next one is the UK effort so no idea if they all get automatic berths or perhaps it will just be England and Scotland and the others have to qualify but five teams automatically making it will also make a mockery of qualifiers.

They've not agreed yet, but the current plan is to run qualifying for all nations, including the hosts, but adjust the play-off spots available in the event of some of them not qualifying.

As UEFA only allow two host spots, three or more failing to qualify would see them ranked on qualification performance. Based on the qualifiers for this Euros, that would have seen Northern Ireland missing out, as their two wins against San Marino would have been discounted.

 

[FootballHQ]

People saying that the "quality" of Euros would dilute if you'd go from 24 to 32 teams are ridiculous.

First of all, what quality?

From what we've seen so far, the supposed best teams are the most boring ones, with England and France having horrible performances while the most exciting teams are the ones that probably wouldn't even qualify on 16 team Euro tournament.

The fact is that even a club like SUNDERLAND would destroy both England and France back-to-back.

There is no quality in international football as club football is inherently superior.

The whole point of international football is to have entertainment and loads of fans from all over the continent coming to see their national team play in some specific country, where they meet other fans.

For this reason, the tournament should be expanded to have more people join the fun. This is what international football should be about, connecting people.

If you want quality football watch Pep Guardiola City dominate games and make a Super League for all I care. But leave the international football for the people.

Yeah there's some merit in that statement. Some of the top teams just go through the motions in the group stages as there's little jeopardy in not qualifying and they don't always improve from that complacency.

Whereas for a Georgia this could be a one off event and they might not qualify for another twenty years so are embracing it like a one off.

In 2016 the big stories were Wales and Iceland who also adopted that mentality. Can't remember if either would've qualified if it was just 16 teams so it's that balance but I think if you expand from 16 to 24 you might aswell go up to 32 and so then go back to just top 2 in all groups making it.

The annoying thing is they've been some groups that could've been real cliff hangers like France-Holland-Austria but in the end Holland still made it. I guess Italy and Croatia was the closest to what we used to get up to 2012 with a last minute goal changing it for Croatia although Italy would've still gone through regardless.

 

[LA BOMBA]

64 team Euro could work if we could invite clubs to the tournament as well.

Not the best clubs but random clubs over Europe that have no international players.

For example clubs like Duisburg or Albacete or Venezia, low tier first division teams or second league teams. Imagine a Luton vs Spain game, would be awesome. It would answer the question where international football is compared to club game.

Maybe have a certain criteria which clubs could play on the Euro, like for example clubs that come from cities that used to be important independent city states in European history like Genoa or Augsburg.

I would honestly be all for this, the club-national team matches are always exciting and I don't see why we shouldn't give some wild cirds to clubs over Europe. If you pick clubs with no international players you don't disrupt any national team by doing this.

 

[FootballHQ]

They've not agreed yet, but the current plan is to run qualifying for all nations, including the hosts, but adjust the play-off spots available in the event of some of them not qualifying.

As UEFA only allow two host spots, three or more failing to qualify would see them ranked on qualification performance. Based on the qualifiers for this Euros, that would have seen Northern Ireland missing out, as their two wins against San Marino would have been discounted.

I doubt the Northern Irish stadium will be built on time so they might have to drop out regardless unless Windsor Park gets dispensation to host games but very small capacity.

 

[Alex99]

64 team Euro could work if we could invite clubs to the tournament as well.

Not the best clubs but random clubs over Europe that have no international players.

For example clubs like Duisburg or Albacete or Venezia. Imagine a Luton vs Spain game, would be awesome.

I would honestly be all for this, the club-national team matches are always exciting and I don't see why we shouldn't give some wild cirds to clubs over Europe. If you pick clubs with no international players you don't disrupt any national team by doing this.

Okay you're definitely trolling now.

 

[Winrar]

64 team Euro could work if we could invite clubs to the tournament as well.

Not the best clubs but random clubs over Europe that have no international players.

For example clubs like Duisburg or Albacete or Venezia. Imagine a Luton vs Spain game, would be awesome.

I would honestly be all for this, the club-national team matches are always exciting and I don't see why we shouldn't give some wild cirds to clubs over Europe. If you pick clubs with no international players you don't disrupt any national team by doing this.

What happenes when a player representing a nation faces a club that he plays for? Does he clone himself to represent both teams?

 

[Revan]

It has made the group stage literally unwatchable for me. Not much suspense, you can basically draw three matches and still qualify. Or qualify with a single win and two losses. Bullshit.

Not sure what the solution would have been though. I like the group winners and two best runner up teams qualify and thus skip the 1/8th round. That makes sense and actually makes the group stage important, but that means fewer matches, thus less money and I do not think the UEFA would have ever gone with it. Doing four groups of six teams with only the top two teams qualifying means more matches (thus UEFA might like it), and the group stage being important, but on the other hand having five matches in group stage would be just too much.

I think the best might be to further increase the tournament to 32 teams, but remove entirely the group stage. Every match matters from the beginning, no mistakes allowed. But that brings the issue that half of the teams go there and play a single game, which kinda sucks.

I do not think that the previous system of only 16 teams needed fixing though. Now there are more teams and some smaller countries qualify (e.g., Albania went from qualifying once in 50 years to twice in 8 years), but the quality has massively suffered.

 

[Alex99]

I doubt the Northern Irish stadium will be built on time so they might have to drop out regardless unless Windsor Park gets dispensation to host games but very small capacity.

Casement Park was the bid stadium and that seems big enough.

 

[Steve Bruce]

They should have just brought an extra 8 teams and had 2 more groups. None of this 3rd place rubbish.

Not only that I might see NI in the euros more often, so I've a selfish angle here to

 

[LA BOMBA]

What happenes when a player representing a nation faces a club that he plays for? Does he clone himself to represent both teams?

That's why you invite clubs that have no international players only.

Basically clubs that are relegation battlers or second division clubs in top 5 leagues, or some mid-tier clubs from mid-tier leagues.

There should be a certain criteria, for example clubs that come from cities which have a long past as independent city states should be picked first. It would be a nice way to show recognition to those cities that helped shaped Europe.

Okay you're definitely trolling now.

This is not trolling, I would really love to see it.

It has been done in the past (as recently as 1999 Barcelona played Brazil).

I would like to see a single football fan that wouldn't be thrilled to see such games again.

The only thing that prevents it is some pointless arbitrary rule that could be done away with. If we as fans demand it loud enough, we will get it. Would be very marketable too.

 

[Steve Bruce]

Casement Park was the bid stadium and that seems big enough.

The problem is that stadium was supposed to cost around 80/90m and now its over 300m. The budget in the devolved government does not have that type of money especially when the schools, NHS, roads etc are severely under funded and the standards are getting much worse.

So it's a real political/financial issue.

 

[Winrar]

That's why you invite clubs that have no international players only.

Basically clubs that are relegation battlers or second division clubs in top 5 leagues, or some mid-tier clubs from mid-tier leagues.

There should be a certain criteria, for example clubs that come from cities which have a long past as independent city states should be picked first. It would be a nice way to show recognition to those cities that helped shaped Europe.

I will say it’s an interesting idea on paper, but I fear it’s a little too niche and the novelty could wear off after a few times.

Juventus vs Notts County is a good example if you were looking for one, too.

 

[LA BOMBA]

I will say it’s an interesting idea on paper, but I fear it’s a little too niche and the novelty could wear off after a few times.

Juventus vs Notts County is a good example if you were looking for one, too.

I would love to see a one-off 64 team Euro with all the UEFA member teams and some clubs added to fill the number.

UEFA has 55 members so that means you'd need to invite 9 European clubs to fill the tournament.

Maybe the criteria should be the best ranked clubs that don't have any international players already playing on the Euro in their ranks. Don't really know which clubs would fall under that. But it would be fun.

 

[Judas]

The number of teams hasn't bothered me too much. The 3rd place thing has been awfully messy, complicated and not easy to follow.

 

[utdalltheway]

The number of shite games over the last few days has bothered me. Whatever's driving that needs to change.
Also, the reffing and when to bring in VAR needs to change but that's another topic.

 

[tentan]

Most games have been dreadful. It needs to go back to the 16 team format, but i reckon in a few years time they'll expand it even more

 

[LA BOMBA]

I can't believe people can still advocate for 16 team Euro after seeing the celebrations in Georgia tonight.

You want to rob fans like this of experiencing the joy of international football just to see the same big teams cruising to the quarter finals and all the smaller Euro teams fighting for scraps.

16 team Euros were usually boring during the group stage. It was not uncommon that you would just end up with 2 big teams in the group and both would qualify easily. There was just as much defensive tactics if not more because a loss was more costly. Or things like Italy going out because Denmark-Sweden deliberately played 2-2 so they both progressed.

 

[Bright_Eyes]

Scrap qualifiers completely. Every national football team in Europe gets a spot every tournament. That's currently 54 teams. No groups. Knockouts from the start. Every match has high stakes. Top 10 seeded teams get a bye for the first round. The other 44 teams play a game leaving 22 teams. There are now 32 teams in the second round. The magic number. Continue with knockouts until the final. Maintain current world order to keep even number of teams. Make secret pact to kick out one of the geographically non-European teams if that fails (Israel/Armenia). If maintaining world order proves difficult and the maths gets too hard either start inviting teams like the Isle of Man or kicking out teams like Gibraltar. The magic number must triumph.