You can't do that because some teams would have four days between matches and they would potentially play a team that had seven days between matches.
"little or nothing" to play for. You didn't read my post, even though it was only 3 lines long. Take Italy v Wales for example. Wales lost and were "punished" by having to play Denmark and then Czech Republic to reach the semifinal. While Italy were rewarded with playing Austria then Belgium to reach the semifinal. IOW, Italy v Wales meant almost nothing. That's why Italy fielded a B team. If we had the format for a 16 or 32-team tournament, the group winner (Italy) would have played Denmark (B2) in the next round, while the loser (Wales) would have played Belgium (B1). That's just one example, but you can do a similar thing for each group and you end up with 9 of the 24 teams with little or nothing to play for in their final group game.
I find a 32 team tourney preferable, but regardless I favor changes to give additional weight to winning your group and making sure teams that win their group are rewarded not penalized for it. To accomplish this in a 24 team tourney, I would give the (6) group winners a bye to the quarterfinals. The (6) runner-up teams, plus 2 best* third place teams, would then have to play 2 playoff matches for two of them to join the (6) group winners in the QF. *I would pick the "best" 3rd place finishers differently than the criteria used for such purposes now, but that is for a different discussion.
It's still fairer than some team reaching the final after beating all favourites and another after beating mostly minnows. So you can do it.
It's not that simple because in the alternative you reach the final game with more people completely out. I haven't done the math, but it felt like the final group stages had more teams playing for something than in the old format.
Yes, that's true. But generally we are not talking about a lot of teams. In the case of these Euros (small sample size, granted) only 2 teams would have been completely knocked out before the final game if no third-place teams could advance, namely Turkey and N Macedonia (and the latter was knocked out anyway even with some third place teams advancing). Of course we can take this further. i.e. The first 2 games of the group stage are less meaningful when most third-place teams advance.
IMO, the awkward 24-team format is the only reason to expand. 24 teams is already a lot and it becomes a bit of a farce to go any higher. Its just a shame it comes with a sucky format.
How about a 28 team Euro? 7 groups of 4, top 2 in each group and the 2 best 3rd place teams qualify for round of 16. 28 teams wouldn’t be as convoluted with only (2) 3rd place teams qualifying for round of 16. And only half of Europe would qualify for the tourney. I’m hoping and thinking they’ll expand to 32 teams. I’d love more games in the tournament and I don’t think the quality will suffer too much and a 32 team tourney will likely provide more upsets. 32 teams will also provide a non convoluted process and more balanced brackets
The key thing I'd like to see is a 16-team (or 8) group stage. Group games free teams up from the paralysis of every match being crucial to win (not least because draws are possible), and having top teams together in the same group produces the sort of match-ups that are really worth watching. I wouldn't object to a format that had extra teams involved before the groups, such as a playoff round or two.
Standard 32 teams...top 2 teams in Groups A to H advance into the Round of 16 Just like your traditional standard World Cup but with a 32 team EURO, it would be more competitive
The extra teams would be worse, making it less competitive. The switch to 24 teams has seen 9 teams reach the tournament who finished the qualifying groups in 3rd or 4th place. 7 of those didn't get out of the finals group stage, the other 2 lost in the second round.
2024 is probably not fitting for a rehearsal, but 2028 might have the posibility of learning from Champions League from 24/25 onwards expermenting with large groups playing Swiss System as group stages, which in turn would make just about any team-size easier to handle
Disagree. There is a big drop off in quality beyond about the top 20 UEFA teams. Having 2-4 teams in over their heads is one thing, but having a dozen crappy teams in the tournament would be too much. The awkward format that comes with six groups of 4 isn't a good enough reason to expand IMO. Just use a different format. I think they should give 4 groups of six a try (Swiss style). Top 4 advance (which is a lot but of course you avoid other group winners until at least the semis if you win your group so there is incentive to finish high).
Imagine if Finland had finished second instead of Denmark. They almost had and would have deserved second place too; however, and with all due respect to Wales and Czechia, Finland would have had an "undeserving" path to the semi-finals because when you look at the group winners, Belgium, they had to beat the defending champions Portugal and then the eventual winners Italy in order to reach that very same stage of the finals Finland could very well have. There is a danger that if UEFA don't rework the format then we'll eventually have that sort of outcome. I think they'll have to make a change of some kind before the next finals.
It's not very different for Denmark, but Finland were rank outsiders and Denmark were always dark horses. The fact Denmark made the semis I don't think is a shock, but it would have been a shock if Finland had.
They beat France in a friendly and they were unlucky not to ear a point to Russia at the Euros which would have seen them finish second place as a result. I can see them maybe getting results against Wales and Czechia, even if the odds didn't favor them.
Finland could have gotten a result on Wales with some luck. However their road would have ended certainly against the Czechs.