Are the Euros ready for expansion?

[glennaldo_sf]

UEFA is apparently currently considering expanding the Euros from 16 teams to 20-24 teams by 2016.

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id=548939&cc=4716

What do you guys think? Good idea or not? Personally I like it the way it is. 16 teams maximum. The only expandable number for such a tournament is 32 or else it gets into this silly 4 best third placed teams progressing crap. Either that, or make 5-6 teams / group or a second group stage... but not really doable.

I say keep it as it is.

[Makandal]

I like the current format. Even though I wouldn't mind a 20-team competition (groups of 5, instead of 4). But beyond that, no!

[M]

If they can avoid the "best third placed finishers" nonsense that the WC was afflicted with, I lean towards expansion to 20 teams - there's easily enough strength in depth in UEFA to make this feasible. Four groups of five, with two progressing. That's one extra game per team and would extend the championships by four extra days. Downsides are the likely need for more stadia to host, potentially ruling out some candidates. Plus the qualification competition becomes slightly less meaningful.

[Executor]

What they need to do is find an excuse to let Brazil and Argentina participate. :D

[Timanfaya]

... Four groups of five, with two progressing. That's one extra game per team and would extend the championships by four extra days...
I make it 10 matches per group, instead of 6, no? So in total that's 16 extra group games all involving a team that wouldn't otherwise have qualified. (Er, such as England.) Eight extra days on the group stage, seems like a drag to me.
Plus the qualification competition becomes slightly less meaningful.
Yep, it's all negatives!

[Prawn Sandwich]

8 matches per group in a 5 team group isn't it?

[Timanfaya]

You're making me doubt myself so much I've had to write them down:

1v2
1v3
1v4
1v5
2v3
2v4
2v5
3v4
3v5
4v5

[lanman]

I like 16. It means that qualification is that bit more difficult and somewhat of an achievement. I can see the arguments for more teams, as it would open up spaces for some teams that seam to routinely miss out, but would rather see the status quo retained.

20 or 24 teams also creates other problems. Groups of 5 teams are not ideal - one team will have finished their games and others will know exactly what to do to qualify, possibly giving an unfair advantage. Six groups of 4 means selected third place teams advancing and that means teams advance on results against different opponents.

[Prawn Sandwich]

You're making me doubt myself so much I've had to write them down:

1v2
1v3
1v4
1v5
2v3
2v4
2v5
3v4
3v5
4v5
My bad, you're right

[$crooge]

Oops, I misclicked - chose #1 though I actually wanted to vote for #2. 16 is perfect. I'd like to see more games, but 32 teams is the only possible format that makes sense. Maybe if we get North African sides to participate in the Euro... :)

[eliostar1]

No, the reason I prefer watching the Euros is because it is short and sweat.
Too many teams make for a long and often boring tourney.
Give me quality over quantity.

[leg_breaker]

8 matches per group in a 5 team group isn't it?

It's ten. (n*(n-1))/2

[leg_breaker]

Maybe they could expand it to North Africa and Western Asia. I.e. teams like Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Morocco, Tunisia, Saudia Arabia, England and Scotland. That would be a 24 team tournament, 4 groups of 6.

[Dutchspursfan]

No, the reason I prefer watching the Euros is because it is short and sweat.
Too many teams make for a long and often boring tourney.
Give me quality over quantity.


Agreed!

They will never go to 5 team groups, so they will go to 24 teams, with 6 groups of 4 teams. If they expand it to 24 teams you need 8(!) teams extra. No way there are 8 teams that would improve the quality of this tournament.

Put in England for Austria (they will never ever qualify again in the future) and you pretty much have a good tournament with quality teams... So then you still need 8 teams extra;

Denmark
Ukraine
Serbia
Scotland
Ireland
Bulgaria
Belgium
Norway

Are this really teams that would improve a tournament?

[M]

I make it 10 matches per group, instead of 6, no? So in total that's 16 extra group games all involving a team that wouldn't otherwise have qualified. (Er, such as England.) Eight extra days on the group stage, seems like a drag to me.


Oops, you're right... plus another disadvantage is that with five teams in a group obviously all teams can't play their last group game concurrently.

[Chicago76]

I think 16 teams is the correct number for the reasons already mentioned, but I do think two improvements could be made:

1-Add more fixtures, but keep it 7 max as it is for those making the finals in the world cup. This could be done by consolidating groups instead of the quarterfinal round. For example, Germany and Croatia carry their group result over into a consolidated group of Portugal and Turkey. The results would currently be 4 pts Croatia, 3 pts Portugal, 3 pts Germany, 1 pt Turkey with a round to play. The top two teams earn semifinal berths vs. the other group of Italy, Spain, Netherlands, and Russia. I see three advantages to doing it this way a) more fixtures = more money b) better chance for quality to rise to the top for the semifinal round and

c) there is a lot of disparity in the initial group round and the final round is often meaningless. The incentive for two teams to draw to advance is not advantageous in the alternate system because that result could carry over to the next round. In the consolidated group above, teams are more evenly matched. Every one of them would have a chance to advance to the semifinals if the last round was Portugal v. Croatia and Germany v. Turkey.

2-stagger the qualifying rounds to make the qualifying process more interesting. During the last qualifier, those who qualified for the World Cup could have been given a bye round. A preliminary group qualy prior to and shortly after the world cup could have cut the field down considerably and eliminated some of the lopsided matchups like Faroe Islands coming away with 0 pts and a -39 goal differential in 12 matches.

[ViscaBarca]

I think 16 teams is the correct number for the reasons already mentioned, but I do think two improvements could be made:

1-Add more fixtures, but keep it 7 max as it is for those making the finals in the world cup. This could be done by consolidating groups instead of the quarterfinal round. For example, Germany and Croatia carry their group result over into a consolidated group of Portugal and Turkey. The results would currently be 4 pts Croatia, 3 pts Portugal, 3 pts Germany, 1 pt Turkey with a round to play. The top two teams earn semifinal berths vs. the other group of Italy, Spain, Netherlands, and Russia. I see three advantages to doing it this way a) more fixtures = more money b) better chance for quality to rise to the top for the semifinal round and

c) there is a lot of disparity in the initial group round and the final round is often meaningless. The incentive for two teams to draw to advance is not advantageous in the alternate system because that result could carry over to the next round. In the consolidated group above, teams are more evenly matched. Every one of them would have a chance to advance to the semifinals if the last round was Portugal v. Croatia and Germany v. Turkey.
.
this would take the number of games to 8 though, not 7. which makes players more tierd, with negative results on the quality of the semis and final.
they tried something like this in the CL a while ago, but abolished it soon afterwards because of too many games.

[blanc]

16 is fine. Any expansion is just so some of the major fail teams (cough) can get in too.

[FCK4ever]

16 teams are perfect. It has the best structure and no stupid 'third best team' plus it would be like the nba or nhl. Nearly half the membership of UEFA would participate.

[Chicago76]

this would take the number of games to 8 though, not 7. which makes players more tierd, with negative results on the quality of the semis and final.
they tried something like this in the CL a while ago, but abolished it soon afterwards because of too many games.

It only adds one extra game:

-3 games in initial 4 groups
+2 games in 2consolidated groups (because 1 result carries over from intial group)
+semifinals (top 2 from consolidated groups advance)
+finals
=7 total matches for finalists just like the world cup finalists

CL went away from this because of the conflict of domestic league fixtures vs. european club fixtures. Having the extra group stage in CL added more than 1 match becaue the groups played home and away. They don't do this in international competition, so it only adds 1 more match, as I showed above.

By adding a preliminary group stage to qualifying, there would also be fewer qualifying matches for most of the large international teams. They could advance directly to the final qualifying group of roughly 5 or 6 teams, which means only 8 to 10 qualifying matches. Currently the groups are 7 or 8, which means 12 to 14 qualifying matches.

The total matches from qualifying to finals would actually decrease from 18-20 matches to 15-17 matches. The only way it would increase for any team would be for those who somehow make it through initial qualifiers, the 2nd qualifier round, and through the group stage of the euro. However, any team taking this route wouldn't be in the world cup 2 years prior to the euro, so the net increase would only be 1 match.

For the smaller international teams, more competitive matches could be held in the preliminary qualifying groups.