Euros to expand to 24 teams in 2016

[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.

[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

[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.

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.