Euros to expand to 24 teams in 2016

[cavan_fan]

Well Platini has pretty much confirmed this will happen. I'm torn on this one as we will be in a position where we should qualify for each tournament but the tournaments will be weaker. On balance I'm probably in favour but I know that is just because we will be one of the big winners.

[Saint_Charlie]

On balance I'm probably in favour but I know that is just because we will be one of the big winners.

You reckon?...

[Serb]

When addressing the point that increasing to 24 teams might adversely affect the quality of the football, Platini's said:

"I am not worried about the quality by increasing the number of teams. Countries like England, Denmark, Scotland, Ireland, Belgium, Serbia, Ukraine and Bulgaria all have the ability to participate in a European Championship."

Taking into account how bad Switzerland and Austria were at this year's tournament, I'm not convinced the quality will remain high by allowing 3rd tier teams to qualify.

[Cabs88]

in an unbiased view, i think its a bad idea. It will only lower the standard of a good competition, thats arguably of better quality than the world cup, this years tournament was a great one, and much better than the world cup of 2 years ago.

In terms of Ireland, its a great idea as it means we stand a much better chance of qualifying, but i still have my doubts..

How would 24 teams work? Similar to Heineken Cup in rugby, 6 groups, top 2 qualify for quarters and two best runners up?!

[cavan_fan]

You reckon?...

Yes, since 1996 the Euro's have had 16 teams and we have never qualified. Let's look at what would have happened if there had been 24 teams.

1996 - Definitely would have qualifed. We were actually the 17th team for this one, as we lost out to Holland for the last place.

2000 - Definitely would have qualified. As one of 4 teams to lose out in a play off we were ranked 17-20 and probably wouldnt have even needed a play off.

2004 - Might have qualified. We finished 3 in one of 10 groups. As such we didn't even get into the play off's. The structure would have differed but we were in effect ranked somewhere between 22-31. Unlikely we would have got through but not impossible

2008 - Definitely would have qualified (unbelievably) - We finished 3rd in one of 7 groups therefore were ranked 17-23rd.

So we would have made 3 out of the last 4 championships and maybe even all four. My god, under this system Stan would have been managing in the European Championships.

So from a qualifying point of view this is a huge advantage for us.

[Hibernian]

in an unbiased view, i think its a bad idea. It will only lower the standard of a good competition, thats arguably of better quality than the world cup, this years tournament was a great one, and much better than the world cup of 2 years ago.

In terms of Ireland, its a great idea as it means we stand a much better chance of qualifying, but i still have my doubts..

How would 24 teams work? Similar to Heineken Cup in rugby, 6 groups, top 2 qualify for quarters and two best runners up?!

Thats what I was thinking about. How will teams have too get out of there group. 6 winners and 2 best second place would leave things very hard for the 3rd tier teams to get out and if that were case I would rather it stay at 16 teams. I would be in favour more of 20 teams rather then 24.

24 for me is too many teams. Not sure if it would benfit teams like Ireland tbh. 20 might just be ok and we might still see the quality of games that we have seen in Euro 2008.

Also will this mean thats the top 3 teams qualify from there group from now on? I suppose we will have too wait and see.

Also with 24 teams you wont see the likes of Poland and Ukraine and for that matter joint bid from Ireland and Scotland getting the games as with so many teams more suitable stadiums will be needed so the big countries like spain itlay and england will get to be hosts.

[HolylandsMan]

How would 24 teams work? Similar to Heineken Cup in rugby, 6 groups, top 2 qualify for quarters and two best runners up?!

When the World Cup had 24 teams, they had 6 pools of 4. For the first while the top 2 teams in each group qualified for one of four 3 team groups, with the winner of each of these second phase groups making the semi finals. (This was the case with NI in 1982, when the claim is made that they made the quarter finals, it isn't strictly true as they were in the last 12 although their match against France was effectively a quarter final as had they won they would have made the semis.)

By the 90s, 16 teams were qualifying from the 6 groups (top 2 and 4 best 3rd placed sides) and it went to straight knock out after the groups. This may well be what they'd go for though it would mean extending the tournament in length to almost as long as the world cup.

[lopez]

Thats what I was thinking about. How will teams have too get out of there group...You can't all be too young to remember world cups between 1982 and 1998 when there were 24 teams?

Personally a bad idea myself, leaving aside the fact that Ireland would qualify more often (which I'm obviously in favour of). I'd prefer a euro every two years like in South America, with the world cup qualifiers qualifying for the next euro.

[seanfhear]

why change what has been a very good format for this championship.Of course the quality will go down if weaker teams qualify.Chasing the euro i suppose

[HolylandsMan]

You can't all be too young to remember world cups between 1982 and 1998 when there were 24 teams?

lopez was 1998 not the first competition with 32 teams?

[lopez]

lopez was 1998 not the first competition with 32 teams?It was. I suppose I was trying to say that it went to 32 teams in 1998.:o

[pineapple stu]

I'd prefer a euro every two years like in South America, with the world cup qualifiers qualifying for the next euro.
Nah. Overkill, I think. Plus you'd get punished twice for losing a match. Every four years is grand. 24 teams is too many.

[cavan_fan]

Nah. Overkill, I think. Plus you'd get punished twice for losing a match. Every four years is grand. 24 teams is too many.

I'll remind you all about this in November 2015, when a Tardelli-managed, McShane-captained Ireland have just finished 3rd in a group behind France and Romania to qualify for the Italia '16. Actually I wont because I'll have forgotten but you know what I mean

[pineapple stu]

I agree that it's beneficial to us. But it's still too many teams.

[Greenforever]

I agree too many teams and too messy, you've two options from the groups

A - as Italia 90?
Group winners, runners up and 4 best 3rd place teams to the round of 16, i.e 36 matches to knock out 8 teams, not ideal.

B - as Heineken Cup
Group winners and 2 best 2nd placed teams to qualify for quarters, this would however do away with a lot of the meaningless last group games as in the current tourmanent. This is much tougher to come out of and no 2nd chances for most teams if you lose a game.

[Razors left peg]

while this is on the Irish International thread Im going to be completely biased and say I dont care about what standard that it brings the tournament to, I just care that it will make it easier for us to qualify.

I dont actually think that it will have any adverse affect on the tournament at all because I dont think at the moment there is a huge gulf in class between the countries that have qualified and those that were very close to it. it is not like Luxemborg or San Marino are going to make it and games will be lost by 10 nil

[gilberto_eire]

while this is on the Irish International thread Im going to be completely biased and say I dont care about what standard that it brings the tournament to, I just care that it will make it easier for us to qualify.

I dont actually think that it will have any adverse affect on the tournament at all because I dont think at the moment there is a huge gulf in class between the countries that have qualified and those that were very close to it. it is not like Luxemborg or San Marino are going to make it and games will be lost by 10 nil

Totally agree, who cares what standard the other teams games are, personally i could'nt give a dam what standard the games are, tbh if Ireland/GUFC are'nt involved in a game i'd only watch it if i have nothing to do, so personally could'nt care about ''the standard''.

From the perspective of a country who've only ever qualified once, why would we care so much about the standard?, what relevance does it have to us?, after all it should only matter been a neutral!

The only teams who will benefit from this are all countries of a decent standard, ourselves, Norway,Denmark etc.....

If anything it would improve the tournament overall as you'll have another 5/6 countries with a fighting chance of getting somewhere!

[mypost]

Delighted with the expansion, pity it isn't happening now. Anyone who cares what kind of games will be, should look at how good Austria, Poland, France, and Russia were in the semi-final second half in this tournament.

Every tournament has poor teams and matches, but the majority are competitive. It also increases our chances of qualifying for not just the tournament stage, but with a great chance of qualifying for the knockout stage, as a 3rd place group team if necessary.

[Gather round]

Totally opposed (even though NI would presumably have qualified for these finals). As others have mentioned, variously,

a) you simply wouldn't be able to stage the tournament anywhere beyond the big five in Western Europe (Germany, Italy, France, England, Spain)

b) assuming six groups, four best third place finishers qualifying and a round of 16, there'd be 20 extra matches (and the tournament would likely last an extra 10 days, as per WC 1994)

c) the quality would inevitably be diluted with half the teams in the finals

d) the bigger countries wouldn't necessarily want to continue with qualifying groups of six and three qualifying. They're under pressure from their bigger clubs to cut international football, not expand it. You might find qualifying cut to say, eleven groups only four or five teams. So only six matches per qualifying- could be a significant loss of income

e) since the Euros expanded top 16 finalists, 24 different teams (I'll check) have qualified anyway. You don't need to increase the size of the finals to have a wide spread of teams over three or four tournaments.

[cavan_fan]

I agree too many teams and too messy, you've two options from the groups

A - as Italia 90?
Group winners, runners up and 4 best 3rd place teams to the round of 16, i.e 36 matches to knock out 8 teams, not ideal.

B - as Heineken Cup
Group winners and 2 best 2nd placed teams to qualify for quarters, this would however do away with a lot of the meaningless last group games as in the current tourmanent. This is much tougher to come out of and no 2nd chances for most teams if you lose a game.

Not sure which I'd favour. Using the first round to go from 24 to 16 teams always seemed a bit pointless to me and I think you'll get more meaningless matches. On the other hand going from 24 to 8 is ruthless. The difference with the rugby is that that is a home and away group (with bonus points) which means that there is some way back from a single defeat. I'd like the World Cup circa '82 model of 6 groups of 4, top 2 into 4 groups of 3 and then winners of each into the semis. It's a bit less knock out football but groups of 3 are exciting.

[cavan_fan]

Totally opposed (even though NI would presumably have qualified for these finals). As others have mentioned, variously,

a) you simply wouldn't be able to stage the tournament anywhere beyond the big five in Western Europe (Germany, Italy, France, England, Spain)

b) assuming six groups, four best third place finishers qualifying and a round of 16, there'd be 20 extra matches (and the tournament would likely last an extra 10 days, as per WC 1994)

c) the quality would inevitably be diluted with half the teams in the finals

d) the bigger countries wouldn't necessarily want to continue with qualifying groups of six and three qualifying. They're under pressure from their bigger clubs to cut international football, not expand it. You might find qualifying cut to say, eleven groups only four or five teams. So only six matches per qualifying- could be a significant loss of income

e) since the Euros expanded top 16 finalists, 24 different teams (I'll check) have qualified anyway. You don't need to increase the size of the finals to have a wide spread of teams over three or four tournaments.

These are all valid points but firstly we will qualify about 75% of the time and NI about 25% of the time.

I don't think the impact will be on the tournament. Turkey have added more to the tournament than Romania, who is to say that Serbia wouldnt have done the same. After the big 8, the next 16-20 teams in Europe are similar.

There will be an impact on qualifying though. Top teams will be through halfway through the group and you'll get them using the matches as glorified friendlies. The fixtures meeting will be interesting. Everyone will want to get Spaine, Italy etc at the end of the group not the beginning.

[Gather round]

After the big 8, the next 16-20 teams in Europe are similar

I assume your big eight (judged on July 2006, before the tournament kicked off) would have included Germany, Italy, France, England, Spain, Netherlands and Portugal. Who's eighth?

Only two of those teams reached the semi finals. One of them didn't even qualify.

The test of whether the ninth best team in Europe is equivalent to the 24th? Here's a points table from the qualifiers:

1 Greece 12 10 1 1 31
2 Italy 12 9 2 1 29
2 Czechia12 9 2 1 29
2 Croatia 12 9 2 1 29
5 Romania 12 9 2 1 29
6 Spain 12 9 1 2 28
7 Germany 12 8 3 1 27
8 France 12 8 2 2 26
8 Sweden 12 8 2 2 26
8 Netherlands 12 8 2 2 26
11 Bulgaria 12 7 4 1 25
12 Scotland 12 8 0 4 24
12 Turkey 12 7 3 2 24
12 Russia 12 7 3 2 24
15 England 12 7 2 3 23
15 Israel 12 7 2 3 23
15 Norway 12 7 2 3 23
18 Poland 12 6 4 2 22
19 Portugal 12 5 6 1 21
19 Finland 12 5 6 1 21
21 N Ireland 12 6 2 4 20
21 Denmark 12 6 2 4 20
23 Serbia 12 4 6 2 18
24 Ukraine 12 5 2 5 17
24 R Ireland 12 4 5 3 17



There will be an impact on qualifying though. Top teams will be through halfway through the group and you'll get them using the matches as glorified friendlies

If there are only six qualifying games (as opposed to 10, or in the current tournament 12) it's unlikely anyone will have qualified after three even if they have nine points already. Your group in the current series, with Germany and Czechia dominating from the beginning, is a much better example of lots of dead games.

[pineapple stu]

d) the bigger countries wouldn't necessarily want to continue with qualifying groups of six and three qualifying. They're under pressure from their bigger clubs to cut international football, not expand it. You might find qualifying cut to say, eleven groups only four or five teams. So only six matches per qualifying- could be a significant loss of income
An alternative option is that the "bigger" countries qualify automatically and don't have to go through with qualifying at all. This would suit the likes of the FA particularly well, though it's not something I'd like to see happen.

[Gather round]

An alternative option is that the "bigger" countries qualify automatically and don't have to go through with qualifying at all. This would suit the likes of the FA particularly well, though it's not something I'd like to see happen

I think there might be the same loss of income worry- particularly for England, who depend so much on filling Wembley Stadium after the crazy costs of rebuilding it. I suppose they could play in an effective friendly league with the other European teams exempted, plus Brazil and Argentina etc., but the fans might not prefer that- less atmosphere and more likelihood of losing.

[pineapple stu]

but the fans might not prefer that
Unfortunately, since when did that matter?

[Gather round]

Heh. Fair point, although I was thinking of commercial pressure (not turning up to half paced friendlies), rather than a reasoned debate with the English FA goons.

[pineapple stu]

True. Though the English FA would quite possibly come under pressure from the big four Premiership clubs if it mentioned even once. Less international games would mean their players wouldn't be as tired, so they could go and play Game 39 or tour Asia instead. :rolleyes:

[geysir]

I thought it was working fine so far, 16 for the Euros and 32 for the WC.
I suspect the motivation for changes.

It virtually guarantees that there will be no big team losing out like England,
incidentally the only team seeded in the first 2 pots to be eliminated.

If they still have 7 qual groups and 20 places in the Finals

7 groups top 2 teams = 14
best 3rd place team = 1
3rd place play off = 3
2 hosts = 2

total 20 teams into the finals

4 groups of 5 teams
top 2 go on to the q finals.

No big disruption there.

[pineapple stu]

Groups of five means you'll have one team finished before the others, which UEFA and FIFA have been opposed to since 1978 (Germany v Austria)

[Gather round]

Also, 20 finalists would mean 16 extra games (four in each group). That would need three or four extra venues, greatly adding to costs unless the tournament's in Germany, England or maybe Spain.

[stojkovic]

Totally against it. Cant believe UEFA are allowing this to happen.

Quality will suffer and the logistics of getting down to 8 from 24.

Keep it at 16 teams and we will see great tournaments like 2000 and 2008 (and 96 and 04 werent too bad either). If it works why break it.

If best 3rd placed teams qualify from 4 team groups you will have teams playing for three draws to get them through.

[Bungle]

from an irish perspective, it is great news. We should qualify for practically all European Championhips and that can't be a bad thing.

In relation to the standard slipping I don't agree. There are a number of good quality teams missing such as Serbia, Bulgaria and Ukraine. England with Capello would be good enough to win it (don't think they would but they have the players to do very well and with Capello leading them they'll be a very good team i'm sure). Ireland always play well in tournaments and even with stan might have done okay. denmark are always a good competiitive team also. Belgium have been crap for a while but have some talented youngesters coming through and will be a good force again no doubt.

I also feel that a team like northern ireland at the presetn time would do well if it was expanded.

[stojkovic]

You always have 4 or 5 'quality' teams missing. England, Serbia, Denmark etc will qualify next time and the likes of Austria, Switzerland and Greece won't. Thats the way it works. Thats why we have qualifiers. If all the best teams SHOULD be there, well then scrap the qualifiers and just invite the 24 best teams. Maybe FIFA should have barred us from 2002 and invited the Dutch instead because they are better than us and deserve to be there. Total ******. If you're good enough you will qualify, if you're not, tough sh1t. If you're in a tough group, tough sh1t. Thats life.

16 of the best teams please, end of story.

If Ireland deserve to be there great, if we drop five points to Cyprus then we DONT deserve to be there. Im glad we didnt qualify because under Stan we would have been humiliated against every team except Austira, Greece and Swiss.

[Greenforever]

You always have 4 or 5 'quality' teams missing. England, Serbia, Denmark etc will qualify next time and the likes of Austria, Switzerland and Greece won't. Thats the way it works. Thats why we have qualifiers. If all the best teams SHOULD be there, well then scrap the qualifiers and just invite the 24 best teams. Maybe FIFA should have barred us from 2002 and invited the Dutch instead because they are better than us and deserve to be there. Total ******. If you're good enough you will qualify, if you're not, tough sh1t. If you're in a tough group, tough sh1t. Thats life.

16 of the best teams please, end of story.

If Ireland deserve to be there great, if we drop five points to Cyprus then we DONT deserve to be there. Im glad we didnt qualify because under Stan we would have been humiliated against every team except Austira, Greece and Swiss.


What makes you so sure we wouldn't have been humiliated by the Swiss again:confused:

[Colbert Report]

I'm all for making it easier for us to qualify but I don't like this idea at all. Why not just let everyone in and do away with qualifying altogether? The only thing that makes international qualifiers so important is that every match is a must-get result. You lose once to Cyprus 5-2 and your campaign is over. Ireland did not deserve to make it to the Euros this summer after our performance the past two years.

[cavan_fan]

If you're good enough you will qualify, if you're not, tough sh1t. If you're in a tough group, tough sh1t. Thats life.

16 of the best teams please, end of story.



Ther sued to be eight teams at the competition and the same comments could have been made about an expansion to 16. There is no definite right answer.

The stat someone mentioned above that since expansion to 16 teams in '96 24 different teams have qualified is interesting. I wonder what the figure would be if 24 qualified. I think after 5 tournaments it would be below 30.

The list previously of European teams in the FIFA rankings is

3 1 Italy 1424 0 28
4 2 Spain 1303 0 -20
5 3 Germany 1274 0 10
6 4 Czech Republic 1246 0 2
7 5 France 1143 0 -62
8 6 Greece 1133 0 -63
9 7 England 1123 2 25
10 8 Netherlands 1111 0 -12
11 9 Portugal 1094 -2 -37
12 10 Romania 1069 0 -13
15 11 Croatia 1017 -2 -27
17 12 Scotland 978 -2 -29
18 13 Bulgaria 949 0 1
20 14 Turkey 877 5 21
22 15 Israel 872 -2 -33
24 16 Russia 846 1 -10
27 17 Norway 814 2 -22
28 18 Poland 805 -1 -43
30 19 Sweden 799 -7 -63
31 20 Ukraine 791 1 17
32 21 Northern Ireland 752 2 48
33 22 Denmark 750 0 -11
36 23 Finland 697 -2 -7
39 24 Serbia 694 -8 -119
42 25 Republic of Ireland 674 -1 33
44 26 Switzerland 644 4 27
49 27 Belgium 600 -3 -27
51 28 Moldova 583 -13 -87
52 29 Hungary 580 5 34
53 30 Wales 578 -1 -19
56 31 FYR Macedonia 544 0 -7
57 32 Belarus 540 3 7
62 33 Lithuania 523 -13 -93
64 34 Cyprus 503 -6 -39
66 35 Slovakia 494 0 -5

I think once you get beyond 27 the teams are pretty weak. But I think there is little to choose between most teams from Romania to Belgium.

[carloz]

I think people are getting a little carried away by saying that the standard will drop. Personally i believe 20 teams is enough but even with 24 the standard wont drop too much. Just take a look at the teams that just missed out on the tournament, Serbia just missed out, and got 2 draws against Portugal in qualifying. Scotland took 6 points from France. Norway blew qualification by losing at home to Turkey in the penultimate match. We have England who are obviously a massive team, Israel were also in that group and they are very competitive. Bulgaria only finished 1 point behnd the Dutch in qualifying. All these teams were very close to qualifying and certainly would not have damaged the quality of the tournament had they qualifed. On top of that we have ourselves, Ukraine, Denmark, Belgium Bosnia and Northen Ireland, none of whom would damage the standard in the tournament. There are about 25-29 teams in Europe who are well capable taking points off one another. In the qualifying campaign the very first team to qualify were Greece, who blew most of the teams in their qualifying campaign away, were arguably the poorest team in the tournament. Arguably the most impressive side of Euro 2008, Russia, needed a massive favour from the Croats in Wembley to ensure qulification. Basically i dont see much effect on the standard whatsoever in the competition. However i don see how the group stages can work correctly. I believe it is a terrible idea that some 3rd place teams can qualify, and as someone pointed out, were mostly just group winners to qualify then there would be many pointless matches. This is one majr element that has to be ironed out.

[pineapple stu]

Ther sued to be eight teams at the competition and the same comments could have been made about an expansion to 16. There is no definite right answer.
Disagree with that. There's clearly enough quality teams in Europe to have 16 in it, so expanding it then was right, especially with the USSR and Yugoslavia splitting up, creating more decent teams.

[pineapple stu]

Just take a look at the teams that just missed out on the tournament
It's not about the teams that just missed out, it's about the teams that ould sneak in. Like Stan's Ireland.

[mypost]

Totally against it. Cant believe UEFA are allowing this to happen.

Quality will suffer and the logistics of getting down to 8 from 24.

No problem with logistics. Revert to the format for the 24-team WC. 6 groups of 4, winners, runners-up, and 4 best 3rd-place teams through to knockout rounds. 2nd round onwards is knockout. Simple really.

First of all, you have people demanding the 6th seeds in qualifying should go into a pre-group. Now they want only the top 16 in the finals. :rolleyes:

This is not the CL. This is the European Championships. No byes, no elitism, and everyone is invited, the way it should be. 16 teams of 53 sounds elitist imo, 24 is right. The quality won't suffer. Most teams will be very competitive.

[SkStu]

This is not the CL. This is the European Championships. No byes, no elitism, and everyone is invited, the way it should be. 16 teams of 53 sounds elitist imo, 24 is right. The quality won't suffer. Most teams will be very competitive.

i had my doubts but this post makes a good case for the increase...

[gilberto_eire]

Totally against it. Cant believe UEFA are allowing this to happen.

Quality will suffer and the logistics of getting down to 8 from 24.

Keep it at 16 teams and we will see great tournaments like 2000 and 2008 (and 96 and 04 werent too bad either). If it works why break it.

If best 3rd placed teams qualify from 4 team groups you will have teams playing for three draws to get them through.

What's the point in having good tournaments if your country is'nt involved?, Should'nt a fans main concern be the participation off your home country over the standard of games which have no relevance to us?. I've always followed the assumption that watching football is about watching your favourite team, and when Ireland is'nt involved we are nothing more then spectators with no emotional involvement.

I'd rather have an emotional involvement in these tournament then see some ''good games'' involving countries i could'nt care too hoots about.

Beggers belief the amount on this thread who are opposing a system that will see THEIR country involved on the basis of ''lower standards'' of games and uneven numbers:rolleyes:

[youngirish]

I'm not sure it would lower the quality significantly. There were only a small handful of teams at this years finals that showed any consistent level of quality throughout. Even Germany who got to the finals were a very average, strong, workmanlike team.

Besides them Italy and France two of the other big European countries were nothing short of dire. Greece, Poland, Austria, Romania and Switzerland were very poor. Sweden, the Czechs and Russia (bar one game) were average at best.

The Turks were resilient, busy and very fit but quality is not a word I'd use to describe them in any of their performaces.

Only the Dutch, Croatians, Portuguese and Spanish displayed anything that could really be described as quality. Most of the rest did not look to be significantly better than any of the teams that would be likely to qualify if the competition was increased to 24 teams even if such an idea is just another way to increase the annual coffers at UEFA headquarters every leap year.

I'm not really bothered either way. It would be nice to see the ROI team there I suppose but I'm not a big fan of the Euros anyway. I'd much rather we qualified for the World Cup.

[RogerMilla]

hugely in favour of it , I want Ireland to be there as often as possible. Delighted , to be honest.

[Morbo]

I don't think it will have a major effect on the quality and even the worst of those 24 teams will still be a lot better than the worst teams in the world cup, I'm def in favour of increasing Irelands chances and also having a few more games to watch, Euro2008 went by too fast

I think a good compromise would be to have 20 teams, have 4 groups of 5 where the 4 1st placed teams go through to the knockouts, the remaining 16 would then play in 4 groups of 4 where again the 4 1st placed teams go though to the knockouts, then 3 groups of 4 with the same rules, then 3 groups of 3 followed by 2 groups of 3 where those who finish 2nd and 3rd are eliminated, this would increase the group stages to 97 games and making the Tourny long enough to fill up the whole summer

[EalingGreen]

You always have 4 or 5 'quality' teams missing. England, Serbia, Denmark etc will qualify next time and the likes of Austria, Switzerland and Greece won't. Thats the way it works. Thats why we have qualifiers. If all the best teams SHOULD be there, well then scrap the qualifiers and just invite the 24 best teams. Maybe FIFA should have barred us from 2002 and invited the Dutch instead because they are better than us and deserve to be there. Total ******. If you're good enough you will qualify, if you're not, tough sh1t. If you're in a tough group, tough sh1t. Thats life.

16 of the best teams please, end of story.

In a nutshell!


If Ireland deserve to be there great, if we drop five points to Cyprus then we DONT deserve to be there. Im glad we didnt qualify because under Stan we would have been humiliated against every team except Austira, Greece and Swiss.
Re. NI, although we were in contention to qualify almost to the last game, and ought to have been respectable (no more) had we actually got there, in the end we didn't deserve to qualify, either - too many dropped points against the weaker teams.

Euro2008 was a great tournament, so if it ain't broke, why fix it?

[Titan]

24 teams in the finals

8 groups of 3

group winners qualify for quarters

Total number of matches 31 the same as this years event.

Stu, I dont think its as easy to fix a 3 team group with 1 qualifying so UEFA wont have to worry about a Germany V Austria scenario. That was 82 by the way!

[eirebhoy]

24 teams in the finals

8 groups of 3

group winners qualify for quarters

Total number of matches 31 the same as this years event.

Stu, I dont think its as easy to fix a 3 team group with 1 qualifying so UEFA wont have to worry about a Germany V Austria scenario. That was 82 by the way!
16 teams qualify for the knockout stage.

[EalingGreen]

24 teams in the finals

8 groups of 3

group winners qualify for quarters

Total number of matches 31 the same as this years event.


So 16 teams go all that way for just two games, so that any losing the first one by two goals or more might as well not bother turning out for their second game?

And how do you sort out the Groups which see three draws?

Can't see that format appealing to many...

[geysir]

It would be called the Quickies.

I can only think that any opposition to expansion will come from the clubs. Will they have to be bought off? Do they have any say?

We had 8 team finals from about 34 countries
then 16 teams from 48 countries in 1996
now we just have 53 countries.
The tournament is getting more and more like the Eurovision in its style.

You could say that the tournament in it's present form for football is brilliant but for fans it's one big Euro suction pump and thats the bit they want to expand at the expense of the former.