When the euro's expand to 24?

[legendz]

When the euro's expand to 24, are UEFA likely to stick with 9 groups for qualifiying? For France '16 if they are keeping 9 groups, I'd imagine they might go with:
9 group winners qualifying automatically.
9 runners-up qualifying automatically.
1 best third placed team.
4 play-off winners from the remaining 8 third placed teams
1 Host - France.

24 countries.

[jbyrne]

24 teams is mad and will dilute what is currently a better tournament than the wc imo. 16 teams is perfect

[Wolfie]

When the euro's expand to 24, are UEFA likely to stick with 9 groups for qualifiying? For France '16 if they are keeping 9 groups, I'd imagine they might go with:
9 group winners qualifying automatically.
9 runners-up qualifying automatically.
1 best third placed team.
4 play-off winners from the remaining 8 third placed teams
1 Host - France.

24 countries.

Reminds me abit of Eurovision.

[nigel-harps1954]

Except not as many 'nil point pour Irlande' hopefully.

[legendz]

The question I suppose based on this qualification process is would any 8 of the 13 countries below enhance the Euro's in a tournament of 24?


Play-off countries to miss out:
Turkey
Estonia
Montenegro
Bosnia and Herzegovina


Third placed countries to miss out:
Belgium
Armenia
Serbia
Romania
Hungary
Israel
Switzerland
Norway
Scotland

[tetsujin1979]

to compare with the current set of qualifiers, using the above template the finals in Poland & Ukraine would consist of

Hosts:
Poland, Ukraine,

Qualified:
Germany, Turkey, Russia, Ireland, Italy, Estonia, France, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Netherlands, Sweden, Greece, Croatia, England, Montenegro, Denmark, Portugal, Spain, Czech Republic

Best third placed team:
Hungary

Play offs:
Belgium, Armenia, Serbia, Romania, Israel, Switzerland, Norway, Scotland

That leaves 25 teams, because of the two hosts.

Estonia and Turkey are the stand out weaker qualifiers there

<EDIT>

legendz posted his while I was working on my list. Great minds, and all that.

[elroy]

Whatever about the actual finals. It will probably make the qualification process a non event for the bigger teams. The chances of a shock non qualification for the likes of England, Spain, France etc will be almost gone.

On the flip side the chances of us qualifying and a major tourno at least every four years to look forward to are greatly increased. So think im in favour overall.

[BonnieShels]

I hate the idea of it. I think its complete tosh.

[pineapple stu]

It will probably make the qualification process a non event for the bigger teams.

Definitely.

I think I'm overall in favour though. But maybe that's because I like seeing the minnow do well, and would enjoy seeing the likes of Estonia or Armenia in the finals. I think they'd be an ok addition too, even if we didn't see the best of them in our games.

Estonia and Turkey are the stand out weaker qualifiers there

It's probably an endorsement for expansion if the semi-finallists from the last tournament are now deemed one of the weaker of 24 teams.

[legendz]

If a look is taken around at other nations cups in other confederations, it has to be a good move to have more countries involved. The main issue will be keeping qualifying competitive. using qualification as seeding for the final draw itself could be of benefit e.g. for France '16, France as hosts in pot 1 along with the 5 best group winners, the remaining group winners (4 of 9) and 2 best runner-up to be placed in pot 2 etc.

[BonnieShels]

Good move in what sense?

The reason a finals tournament should be limited is so that there can be a higher quality tournament. I like that the Euros are nigh on impossible to qualify for. It would suck that the likes of Israel and Armenia should get to a tournament on the basis of coming third in a group of 6. It's bull.

If we had larger groups it would make sense but the logistics of that is as mental.

45% of a region should not qualify for a tournament. Only 15% can qualify for the World Cup and 30% qualified for Euro 2012 (26% if you exclude Poland and Ukraine)

[born2bwild]

88 was a good year - eight teams only. To think we were one of the top teams in Europe in those days! Just got my copy of Ronnie's book signed by the man himself in Swords tonight.
Eight is a bit low but opening it up to 24 degrades the whole thing.

[DannyInvincible]

Good move in what sense?

The reason a finals tournament should be limited is so that there can be a higher quality tournament. I like that the Euros are nigh on impossible to qualify for. It would suck that the likes of Israel and Armenia should get to a tournament on the basis of coming third in a group of 6. It's bull.

If we had larger groups it would make sense but the logistics of that is as mental.

45% of a region should not qualify for a tournament. Only 15% can qualify for the World Cup and 30% qualified for Euro 2012 (26% if you exclude Poland and Ukraine)

It certainly devalues qualification to the extent where it will become a mere formality for sides like us who tend to finish as runners-up. I'd hate to be an England, Spain or Germany fan in the sense that qualification is so taken for granted, it provides little to celebrate. Once the 24-team format is introduced, the same will apply for us.

[BonnieShels]

It certainly devalues qualification to the extent where it will become a mere formality for sides like us who tend to finish as runners-up. I'd hate to be an England, Spain or Germany fan in the sense that qualification is so taken for granted, it provides little to celebrate. Once the 24-team format is introduced, the same will apply for us.

I have to say I missed the tension last night.

[thischarmingman]

For purely selfish reasons it would be nice to qualify more often.

However that said, in an age when expansion, TV ratings and money often force football into second place it's a shame to see one of the 'purer' football competitions be diluted. No big team cares about the UEFA Cup, the CL somehow manages to go through 7 months and countless games before it even begins to get exciting, and the World Cup frequently pits hopeful against hopeless in the groups. That's not to say it's a bad thing the North Korea's of the world get to mix it with Brazil, just that the one football tournament that managed to resist was the Euros and it was all the better for it. Euro 2000 and Euro 2008 were two of the best football tournaments of the past quarter century.

And just have a look at the teams going to Ukraine and Poland- it's one seriously good lineup. Any of maybe 12 teams, three quarters of participants, could probably see themselves lifting it with a bit of luck. This is a strong, strong competition:

POL UKR ESP NED
GER ITA ENG RUS
CRO GRE SWE POR
DEN FRA CZE IRL

[backstothewall]

The format should be 20 teams qualify. Hosts and Champions automatically. 9 groups, top 2 go through.

Then 4 groups of 5 in the finals. Top 2 go through.

[SwanVsDalton]

For purely selfish reasons it would be nice to qualify more often.

However that said, in an age when expansion, TV ratings and money often force football into second place it's a shame to see one of the 'purer' football competitions be diluted. No big team cares about the UEFA Cup, the CL somehow manages to go through 7 months and countless games before it even begins to get exciting, and the World Cup frequently pits hopeful against hopeless in the groups. That's not to say it's a bad thing the North Korea's of the world get to mix it with Brazil, just that the one football tournament that managed to resist was the Euros and it was all the better for it. Euro 2000 and Euro 2008 were two of the best football tournaments of the past quarter century.

And just have a look at the teams going to Ukraine and Poland- it's one seriously good lineup. Any of maybe 12 teams, three quarters of participants, could probably see themselves lifting it with a bit of luck. This is a strong, strong competition:

I don't think the tournament will be particularly diluted by expansion. Less teams will have a realistic chance of winning but that would be the case no matter the number of competitors. Could just have eight teams if that was the real thing.

There are problems with expansion, but I think the teams mentioned above would bring something more to the competition. In Europe, international football us uber-competitive and there was a bunch of teams who missed out on qualification on a point or two. Armenia wouldn't have disgraced this tournament never mind the likes of Romania, Switzerland and Belgium, teams with proud histories and great fans who would enhance a tournament.

45% of a region is an awful lot, I wouldn't go that far, but these teams are very fine sides. The 2016 Euros could feature and unprecedented amount of surprises and at least one or two unfancied teams making a run to the quarter's and beyond. We'll have to wait to find out but I'm for seeing what it's like. I do regret it'll mean qualifying being less competitive with the top seeds pretty much guaranteed going through. But...

I'd hate to be an England, Spain or Germany fan in the sense that qualification is so taken for granted, it provides little to celebrate. Once the 24-team format is introduced, the same will apply for us.

I wouldn't go that far! We came fourth in a group only six years ago and European football is too competitive to take our place at the top table for granted. I'd expect us to be involved more in Euros but in the long-term it'll be interesting what this does to the qualification process.

Another thought - the qualifying process itself while less competitive, might feature more open, flowing football. Teams have more opportunity to qualify, and less to lose, so may have a go a bit more in games, particularly against close rivals in the group. Just a stray observation...

[legendz]

The format should be 20 teams qualify. Hosts and Champions automatically. 9 groups, top 2 go through.

Then 4 groups of 5 in the finals. Top 2 go through.

All options for expansion were considered when the move was made i.e. 20 or 24. 24 from reports had unanimous backing. If there were 20 I'd be more in favour of 5 groups of 4 than 4 groups of 5.

World Cups '90 and '94 were good, having 24 teams with 4 third placed sides going through to the last 16 worked well. When groups used to have the top 2 going through automatically, it was always easy win the group and finish in the top 2. Some countries will become more competitive chasing for the third placed spot. As long as UEFA can have an incentive for winning groups as outline above, I think the new tournament will be good. It'll still only come around every 4 years. Politics could see UEFA lose one or two World Cup spots. Africa is bound to get more unless the World Cup goes in the direction of an expansion.

[Eirambler]

Of course it was the FAI that proposed the expansion initially and brought it forward to UEFA together with the SFA. Although the Scots are not in Europe's top 24 in the seedings co-efficient at present and are showing no signs of progress so they might not benefit much from the change.

I think we win in a big way with this expansion. Qualifying this time proves that we can do it with just 16 teams and means that if we make it the next time we won't feel like we've needed the expansion to get to tournaments like this. We will also welcome not being the underdogs in every single game. It might also give us the chance to hockey the north at a finals tournament some day.

Saying that qualification will become almost automatic for us is well wide of the mark though, I'm sure we'll still find it tough enough and will occasionally miss out.

[legendz]

At the time it was proposed the FAI and SFA badly needed the exposure of a big tournament for the game within each country. I'd take satisfaction that we have gotten their before the expansion.
We're not always going to get into top 2. It's not easy and the third place should offer us decent chance to be within a shout.