One man's trash is another man's treasure I suppose. I like the fact we have new blood (and old blood back again). I like the fact a traditional power got left out even though most said that expanding the tournament would guarantee all major powers qualifying. I also love the fact there was some parity. I can't really say there is a dominating favorite going into this tournament. I would not be surprised to see a non traditional team winning as in 2004.
Nah. These were the most interesting ones. So many surprises and upset. 1. Netherlands failing to qualify even for the playoffs. 2. Poland & Ireland getting wins over Germany. 3. Wales getting an automatic qualifying spot, plus a win over Belgium. 4. Slovakia getting a win over Spain and plus an automatic qualifying spot over Ukraine. 5. Albania getting a victory over Portugal, while automatic spot. 6. Iceland qualifying automatically. 7. Austria topping their group over Russia and Sweden.
Compared to the snoozfest of before this has been quite exiting I have to say. Even if it needed Germany losing two times for the thrill of it.
Surprising? It was inevitable that many new countries would qualify due to the expanded final tournament. It is not that surprising for Austria to qualify for a 24-team tournament, lets be honest. Same applies to Iceland, Poland and Wales. Albania got an automatic spot mostly because of a bunch of nut jobs suspending a match. The playoff round is beyond boring! Some of that is just bad luck - if the Netherlands and/or Croatia were involved, neutrals probably would have had more reason to get excited. But it is what it is. When its Saturday evening in the middle of a season and the only football match going on in the world is Ukraine x Slovenia first leg, its not a great day for a fan.
I said Austria topping their group not only qualifying. Wales could have been expected for playoff spot but not automatic qualification.
Moderately surprising I guess, but ultimately unimportant since nobody cares much whether a team finishes first or second if both qualify anyway. I think it would be nice to see a couple of changes for 2020 qualifying. Maybe find a way to not have the playoff round since it just results in a wasted int'l break for players and teams, apart from a hand full of small Euro nations.
Largely wasted for UEFA teams to be precise. Only 8 out of ~55 members are playing competitive matches this week, most of which are small nations.
I see what you are talking about now. Well you are in luck. with the proposed UEFA Nations League there should be no wasted FIFA dates any longer in your World.
Yeah but the rest of the world has WC qualifers The thing is yes there some newcomers and countries that haven't been to an Euro for a very long time but 5 (+N Ireland) of those surprises would have made it to a 16 team Euro
Gotta disagree.... there have been quite a few surprises here. And bad choice of an example with Ukraine vs Slovenia as that happened to be the one day with a double header, the other which was Sweden v Denmark, and was actually a pretty good game, unless you're Danish of course.... But to be honest, I've actually really enjoyed the qualifiers (hopefully not more than the tournament itself but we'll see). Also, while yes some surprise qualifiers were inevitable (wait a minute, isn't that last sentence a bit of an oxymoron!), there were still a lot of interesting twists and turns along the way, and not all the underdogs qualified without having to take down a more traditionally bigger team along the way. Look at how the groups looked two years ago when they were first drawn: A - Holland were clear favorites and Turkey probably considered the best of the rest. Neither finished in the top 2 as Iceland and CR turned the table on its head. B - Belgium and Bosnia probably favorites, but Wales crashed the party C - Spain clear favorites but Slovakia were surprisingly good especially in the beginning beating Span and Ukraine away. D - Germany eventually qualified but made a meal of it not sealing qualification until the final day. The other three teams battled it out in what was quite an interesting group that went down to the wire - in fact the final showdown between Poland and Ireland. E - Probably one of the least interesting groups. Started out wacky with Estonia beating Slovenia, and then the Slovenes downing Switzerland, but the Swiss recovered and none of the other teams were consistent enough to challenge, and England breezed it. F - This was a group with no clear favorite and turned out to be one of the more chaotic. It was certainly a sensational Greek tragedy as the favorites Greece finished rock bottom and Northern Ireland made their first ever Euros. G - Contrary to a previous posters opinion, I actually think Austria topping this group was a surprise, as one would have fancied Russia and Sweden ahead of them, and Montenegro were sort of seen as the dark horses in this group having had a couple of good qualification campaigns under their belt. But Austria won it with relative ease, even without Tim Cahill! H - Italy and Croatia expected to go through and did but Norway made a fight of it downing the Croats and looking like they could pip them to second place. I - Portugal won with relative ease, but Denmark were surprisingly poor, a key moment was the Serbia-Albania game which was abandoned and the 3-0 victory handed to Albania proved decisive as they qualified 2 points ahead of Denmark. Not particularly entertaining football played by teams in this group, but went to the wire for 2nd. Serbia and Armenia were disappointing, especially as the latter had shown some promise in the last WC qualifiers. So all in all, I don't think it's been a boring qualifying campaign by any means, and some of the first time / minnow qualifiers did have to do it the hard way, Iceland over Holland, N.Ireland over Greece, Slovakia beating Spain, Wales over Bosnia, Albania over Denmark, etc., etc..... I'm wondering if this will continue into the Euros next year too...
Yup, if Euro 2016 had 16 teams it would have been a very different field than four years ago. Yeah, knew that of course. But we're talking about Euro qualifying so....
I must say I disagree with Turkey being favorites for second best. Before this happened, I thought Turkey wouldn't make it. I thought Holland would win it, with Iceland and the Czechs battling it out for second and third place. I knew Iceland would make it somehow.
My point was that the dates still exist. So instead of some pointless friendly games we get to see some official games with importance. And for me even the most boring one is still more exciting than any friendly
True, you can always put a positive spin on it I guess. FWIW, Germany already clinched a top 2 spot before their final game since the teams chasing them were playing each other and thus couldn't both leap-frog them. Anyway, my main point was that it was boring, not unsurprising. There's a slight difference, IMO. Well, what I'm suggesting to consider is not having a playoff round so that you could have two regular group-stage matchdays instead, like every other int'l break. Just an idea to consider. I know there is a playoff round in WC qualifying too, but with 3rd place teams playing instead of 2nd place teams, it makes it considerably less appealing for neutrals.
Which actually turned out to be a pretty good game with many scoring chances, if only a bit one-sided as it was dominated by the hosts.
I would say Group E is the Group of death only because I can see Belgium and Italy going all the way. Outside of Spain I can't really see the other teams in Group D making it past the Quarters.
Croatia might surprise actually. They have a world class team. I wouldn't be surprised if Croatia upset and topped the group actually.
France got a gift!! Group F is a 'hotbox' group, anyone could win it, but I picking Austria to win that group and Iceland 2nd and Portugal as a 3rd place team!!
Group A: 1. France 2. Switzerland 3. Albania 4. Romania Group B: 1. England 2. Slovakia 3. Russia 4. Wales Group C: 1. Germany 2. Poland 3. Ukraine 4. Northern Ireland Group D: 1. Croatia 2. Spain 3. Czech Republic 4. Turkey Group E: 1. Italy 2. Belgium 3. Ireland 4. Sweden Group F: 1. Iceland 2. Portugal 3. Austria 4. Hungary