I do not recall any summer with three big tournaments: 1) Euro 2016 expands to 24 teams. 2) Copa America Centenario: the biggest field ever. 3) Olympics: Brazil as the host will be interesting. They always want to win that Gold Medal. This isn't Beijing, Athens or London. So this is it! Don't forget they suffered humiliation at the WC Finals in 2014. They also came close four years ago. They need the redemption badly! The pressure must be up!
Diluted competitions with milking group phases (plus imbalanced groups) are imho not great. 10 or 16 countries are more than enough (plus Mexico and USA). The 2016 olympics will be great to see.
Only the Euro is a big tournament featuring first-choice senior National Teams. One is a youth tournament and the other is likely to have "B" teams playing, although that remains to be seen.
If there's no Dutch, it isn't much. But yeah, if they qualified they would have taken Belgium's spot among the seeded teams, likely giving us 3 interesting groups ( 1-Spain's with Croatia, 2- Netherlands with Italy, and 3- Belgium with either France, England, Portugal or Germany). Oh well...
Actually, the Dutch would have been in Pot 2 (they were seventh in the UEFA national team coefficient at its latest update). See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA_coefficient#National_team_coefficient
Well, yeah, because they finished 4th in their group. If they finished even 3rd their coefficient would've been top 5, thus seeded first.
I'm sort of torn on it. In some ways I think it's quite exciting, but at the same time we only had one last year and the latter stages are going to be overshadowed by the Euros. I mean there are some days when the Euros will have 3 games in a day. Staying up late at night to watch the Copa might be a struggle.
I just want to say a few things. 1) I would have preferred a 16 team than a 24 tournament, but i am not going to complain about 24 teams. I just skip the games that I am not interested. I am also excited about Iceland. I just like the idea of an underdog. They might have a chance for second round, btw.
What else do you have to say? you said a few things but only have 1 point listed above. Spit it out, man!
Definitely. But the great charm of the euros was the competitiveness with 16 teams. Sure, there was a gap between #1 and #16 but the big teams and 2nd tier teams could bow out after three matches. From a money point of view I understand what they did, but from a sports perspective current groups are milking.
2) I do not care if Copa America is about money-making. I want to see Mexico and the USA playing against Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Uruguay and Chile. That is good enough for me. If I want to think about social issues, I have more things in life than a soccer tournament to think about. 3) I like games played under a lot of pressure. I can sense the pressure in Brazil the day Mexico grabbed the Gold medal in London. Now, Rio 2016 is Brazil playing at home for the only thing they have not won in football. And when Germany beat them 7-1.....
I really am in two minds about this. I hated it when it was announced, and I still see the disadvantages, but I get that it is great for teams like Wales or Northern Ireland who stood no chance to qualify for a big tournament. The football might suffer a bit, but it gives small countries the opportunity to participate.
The chance to participate with the top dogs was already there during the qualifiers. As 'The Economist' highlighted, the main purpose seems to be to cut out 'surprises' and make sure all the big markets will qualify (they give the example of England 2008, costing them a lot of money) + progress into the third week. The group winners (which in some groups is a foregone conclusion) will also meet a 3rd place team in the round of 16, as opposed to the 2nd placed previously.
I don't get this. Those 2 countries would have made it to the Euros even if the Euro had 16 teams. The expansion helped Turkey Sweden Ukraine Rep of Ireland and Hungary Not the ones above + Albania and Iceland
Well, technically, with 16 teams, Wales might have lost its playoff. Northern Ireland would have qualified anyway, though, so yeah, that was a bad example. Personally, I'm all for the expansion. It's not like the World Cup. UEFA has the quality to have a decent 24-team tournament.
Wales was second. Anyway I don't like this ideea that there are more smaller teams due to the expansion If those 4 or 5 new teams were all small teams I would agree but only Rep of ireland and Hungary are the only small teams that truly benefited from the expansion Turkey Ukraine and Sweden and in no way shape of form small teams so you can say this format gave an extra chance to struggling good teams (Netherlands too) than it helped bring minnows to the tournament
Exactly. I said they might have lost their playoff. Or they might have won it. The point is we don't know if they would have qualified or not (unless they were the best runner-up - I don't remember who that was). They might still have qualified, but we'll never know for sure. All we know is they would have had a chance to do so through the playoffs. But yeah, it is true that the expansion helped some of the bigger teams as well, while some of the minnows improved. That is a valid point.
3rd places played in the play off. For the Euro 2nd place was always a direct spot. In the WCQ second place plays in the play off.
This time yes, but when there were 16 teams in the Euro in 2012, only the best runner-up (Sweden) qualified automatically. The others entered the playoffs. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA_Euro_2012_qualifying#Ranking_of_second-placed_teams Basically, my point regarding the expansion was that, with 16 teams, Wales would have been in the playoffs, so the expansion did help by allowing them to qualify automatically. But yes, it did help some bigger nations to a greater extent. I in no way mean to diminish Wales' achievement. But the new format certainly did make it more comfortable than it otherwise might have been.
I was annoyed at the Euro going to 24 teams at first but I've gotten used to it. Need to keep in mind that the number of federations in UEFA has been slowly increasing over the years. We just added Gibraltar and in the future we could add the likes of Kosovo, Catalunya, Crimea, Greenland and who knows what else. I think the long term goal is for the quality to continue increasing and diversifying so those races for 2nd and 3rd place are played by good entertaining teams. I think UEFA is definitely seeing signs that the competition is improving with countries like Iceland, Wales, Northern Ireland and Albania who are now proving that they can play at this level. As long as the 24 teams in the tournament are good I have no problem watching them.
The big problem with Euro 2016 is the format. You shouldn't be able to come third in the group (potentially losing twice) and advance. That's not good for the competition. Having said that I thought qualifying would be ruined too and it turned out to be hugely exciting. As a Welsh fan I'm obviously delighted that the expansion helped them to qualify but we'll see after the tournament how things work out. Arguably it was the move away from the simple format at the World Cup (from 1974 onwards) which helped to stop the really exciting editions of that.
Greenland would add new territory, so if that happens en masse then an expansion makes sense. New countries that are not new territory would logically mean an argument for fewer teams, not more teams. Because that will in effect (not by design) mean 'divide and rule'. Separated countries are often less than the sum of its parts. Similarly, bigger countries are more than the sum of its provinces. I don't think the expansion made the qualifiers better than previously (1996-2012) either. Not fond of the new 'Nations League' (as a closed shop) too.