The competition format

[JS_FFC]

There’s been a lot of complaints online about the format of the 24 team euros. After a brilliant start the final match day of the group stage was a dull event with many teams in the later groups knowing a 0-0 draw or 1-0 defeat would be enough to send them through. I’ve seen many suggestions online on how to fix this, ranging from the somewhat normal to the downright bizarre, including:

 

- Changing the “four best third place teams” rule to “four best teams who failed to qualify” such that Ukraine with their 4 points could qualify despite finishing bottom, ahead of Slovenia who qualified with just 3 points.

 

- Give the best 4 group winners a bye to the quarter finals and eliminate everyone who wasn’t top 2. The remaining 2 group winners and all 6 runners up would play a repechage round.

 

- Rank all of the qualified teams 1-16 based on their group record and have the top seed play the 16th seed etc. This would remove the current “easy half, hard half” type discourse but would mean there would potentially be group stage rematches in round 2 and also the fans wouldn’t be so able to plot their travel through the tournament in advance.

 

- Variation of the previous one, I’ve seen it suggested that UEFA scrap the group stage altogether and move to a Swiss style system like the champions league with every team playing 3 matches and then moving on to the knockout stage.

 

- The most popular suggestion of all seems to be to simplify the format by expanding to 32 or even going back to 16. The latter will never happen for financial reasons but the former surely will.

 

 

What would you like to see happen (if anything) to change the format going forward?

[Shannon]

I think a change to 32 teams would make the groups better rather than best third placed teams complications. Likes of Georgia show that smaller nations can make an impact and don't detract from the tournament. It does look like 24 teams already set in stone for next 2 Euros though?

[Lurkst]

I think it's fine as it is. If you want to make sure you're not eliminated in third place, then get the results that guarantee first or second in your group.

If you've set a target for other teams to eclipse in third place then that's just the luck of the draw.

32 team Euros is way too big. There are only 55 UEFA nations!

Note that the World Cup has now reverted to this format with 48 teams in the groups being whittled down to 32 for the knockouts.

 

 

 

Edited June 27 by Lurkst

[JS_FFC]

I don’t think 32 would be nearly as bad as people think. Let’s suppose the 8 remaining places went to the 4 playoff final loser and the best 4 semi final losers. That would be:

Greece, Finland, Wales, Norway, Montenegro, Luxembourg, Sweden, Israel

 

All of those teams would equip themselves just fine in the tournament.

 

There will probably be a drive to reduce the number of mid season international matches soon and as part of this, I think they’ll eventually merge the nations league with the qualifiers.

 

It’ll be structured in such a way that league A teams mostly automatically qualify, with poor performing teams going into the playoffs.

 

League B+C would have a mix of automatic qualifiers, playoffs and elimination’s.

 

League D teams just have playoffs.

 

Something like:

 

League A - Top 3 in each group (12 overall) qualify directly. Bottom team to playoffs (4 to playoffs)

 

League B - Top 2 in each group (8 overall) qualify directly. Third place to playoffs. Fourth place drops out.

 

League C - Group winners qualify directly. Second places to the playoffs. Third and fourth drop out.

League D - Top 2 teams to the playoffs.

 

That gives you 24 direct qualifiers and 16 playoff teams for 8 remaining spots. You can doctor the number of playoff teams down depending on how many automatic qualifiers there are, or have some triangle playoff where group winners just have to play a single match at home.

 

For the World Cup you’d dampen it down as only 16 spots to fill, but it would be something like:

 

12 automatic qualifiers - Top 2 in each league A group, winner or each league B group

 

4 playoff paths - Remaining 8 league A sides, Group B runners up, C winners + best 2 runners up, and D winners  

[Lex]

It should be 16 or 32, 24 is a nonsense compromise.
If they do go down the route of 32 they’d be aswell doing away with qualifying for the non diddy teams, given there’s only 55 nations in UEFA.

 

[JS_FFC]

7 minutes ago, Lex said:

It should be 16 or 32, 24 is a nonsense compromise.
If they do go down the route of 32 they’d be aswell doing away with qualifying for the non diddy teams, given there’s only 55 nations in UEFA.

 

I fully expect a variation of this to happen in the next few cycles. The top countries want to reduce the overall number of matches played and not have to play the diddies so I think we’ll eventually see the main qualification tournament scrapped and the nations league will be used with slots massively weighted towards leagues A and B.

 

 

[The Master]

31 minutes ago, Lex said:

It should be 16 or 32, 24 is a nonsense compromise.
If they do go down the route of 32 they’d be aswell doing away with qualifying for the non diddy teams, given there’s only 55 nations in UEFA.

 

So we’d still need to qualify, yes?

[Skyline Drifter]

1 hour ago, Lex said:

It should be 16 or 32, 24 is a nonsense compromise.
If they do go down the route of 32 they’d be aswell doing away with qualifying for the non diddy teams, given there’s only 55 nations in UEFA.

 

I mean in theory 32 would be ideal but it has two very obvious issues.

1. 32 qualifiers means more than half the nations in UEFA qualify and ultimately, once you remove nonsense like Gibraltar and Andorra, qualifying is bordering on pointless.
2. Those extra 8 teams make the infrastructure involved in staging the thing more complex and bigger which in turn even further limits who can actually host it to a handful of big countries (Spain, England, France, Germany, Italy, Russia if they ever behave themselves again). Anyone else wants to be involved they'll need a joint bid.

The problems with a 24 are not just the inequity of basing a "best 3rd place" team on inconsistent opposition. Croatia for instance not being a "best 3rd" because they played Spain and Italy whilst Georgia did by grabbing a draw with the Czechs and playing a Portugal side that were already through and made 8 changes. In addition to that there's the fact that teams in the last day or two knew what they needed to do in reality whereas the likes of ourselves, Croatia, etc had to make decisions about whether to stick or twist. It's always better to know your target. In the end we now know that 2 points wouldn't have done us but at the time it wasn't that big a reach that it might have.

[HibeeJibee]

They could somewhat nullify the advantage teams in later groups have in knowing what will suffice for a best 3rd place - by ringfencing 2 of those 4 places for Groups ABC and 2 for DEF.

I think this was floated for 48-team World Cup.

It should never have been expanded from 16 to 24 but having done so they won't go back, while expanding again to 32 would render qualifying farcical.

[Lex]

13 minutes ago, Skyline Drifter said:

I mean in theory 32 would be ideal but it has two very obvious issues.

1. 32 qualifiers means more than half the nations in UEFA qualify and ultimately, once you remove nonsense like Gibraltar and Andorra, qualifying is bordering on pointless.
2. Those extra 8 teams make the infrastructure involved in staging the thing more complex and bigger which in turn even further limits who can actually host it to a handful of big countries (Spain, England, France, Germany, Italy, Russia if they ever behave themselves again). Anyone else wants to be involved they'll need a joint bid.

The problems with a 24 are not just the inequity of basing a "best 3rd place" team on inconsistent opposition. Croatia for instance not being a "best 3rd" because they played Spain and Italy whilst Georgia did by grabbing a draw with the Czechs and playing a Portugal side that were already through and made 8 changes. In addition to that there's the fact that teams in the last day or two knew what they needed to do in reality whereas the likes of ourselves, Croatia, etc had to make decisions about whether to stick or twist. It's always better to know your target. In the end we now know that 2 points wouldn't have done us but at the time it wasn't that big a reach that it might have.

They're never going back to a 16 so a 32 team tournament does seem inevitable at some point.

The qualification for it should be incorporated into that nations league nonsense, make it more interesting. Just say all of Nations League A & B qualify and that's 32 teams right there.  If you wanted playoffs they could be the four bottom placed teams in League B playing off against the four top placed teams in League C for a bit extra interest and the final four slots.

Given the size of Europe we should just rotate the hosting around regions of the continent, Western Europe, Central Europe and Eastern Europe. Everyone takes turns and individual cities can apply when it's their regions turn. Gives the chance for smaller nations like ourselves to host games. 

[Skyline Drifter]

22 minutes ago, HibeeJibee said:

They could somewhat nullify the advantage teams in later groups have in knowing what will suffice for a best 3rd place - by ringfencing 2 of those 4 places for Groups ABC and 2 for DEF.

I think this was floated for 48-team World Cup.

It should never have been expanded from 16 to 24 but having done so they won't go back, while expanding again to 32 would render qualifying farcical.

You're right but imagine the outcry when all three groups in DEF finish with 3pt or more after two of the 3 3rd places in ABC managed only a point ! That would be the end of that idea. Luck of the draw to play late is a lesser evil I think.

[Lurkst]

6 minutes ago, Skyline Drifter said:

 Luck of the draw to play late is a lesser evil I think.

And as Scotland have shown in the past it offers no advantage whatsoever 

 

[JS_FFC]

28 minutes ago, Skyline Drifter said:

I mean in theory 32 would be ideal but it has two very obvious issues.

1. 32 qualifiers means more than half the nations in UEFA qualify and ultimately, once you remove nonsense like Gibraltar and Andorra, qualifying is bordering on pointless.
2. Those extra 8 teams make the infrastructure involved in staging the thing more complex and bigger which in turn even further limits who can actually host it to a handful of big countries (Spain, England, France, Germany, Italy, Russia if they ever behave themselves again). Anyone else wants to be involved they'll need a joint bid.

The problems with a 24 are not just the inequity of basing a "best 3rd place" team on inconsistent opposition. Croatia for instance not being a "best 3rd" because they played Spain and Italy whilst Georgia did by grabbing a draw with the Czechs and playing a Portugal side that were already through and made 8 changes. In addition to that there's the fact that teams in the last day or two knew what they needed to do in reality whereas the likes of ourselves, Croatia, etc had to make decisions about whether to stick or twist. It's always better to know your target. In the end we now know that 2 points wouldn't have done us but at the time it wasn't that big a reach that it might have.

Isn’t that pretty much already the case though? In 3 instances of 24 team euros, we’ve had two of them in major Western European nations and the other was the one off pan European tournament. 
 

The only 24 team World Cup to be in Europe were in Spain and Italy respectively.

 

Since the World Cup went to 32 we’ve had France, Germany and Russia. Spain are the next European country to host it but now that it’s gone to 48 they aren’t even big enough to go it alone and have had to call in every Tom, Dick and Harry to host games.

 

Even when it was 16, the norm was either one major country (1996) or a joint bid of two smaller nations (2000, 2008, 2012). The one exception to that was Portugal in 2004 who went it alone as a solo host with disastrous consequences. Like every European nation apart from England, Germany, Spain, Italy, France and Russia, the Portuguese domestic game isn’t big enough to support so many massive stadiums.
 

Many of the Euro 2004 stadiums are either total white elephants now or are hosting games in front of a few hundred fans every week. 
 

The biggest difference now (and more so if we go to 32) is that even the big nations are having to consider joint bids (2028, although I still think England could go it alone. Italy/Turkey in 2032) and that the smaller joint bids will need to be rainbow coalitions of three or four countries now rather than just the two country efforts that were the norm 10-20 years ago.

 

Also given that every major European nation will have hosted a major football tournament between 2016-2032, the smaller country rainbow coalitions will dominate the next few decades imo. 

 

After the two we already know about, the next five euros will be (in some order): One in the Nordic countries, another Benelux tournament, one in the Balkans, a Central European one hosted by Czechia/Hungary/Slovakia/Austria, and if geopolitics allows another Poland and Ukraine effort with some of the Baltic nations involved). 

[forameus]

I'll never understand the clamour to reduce things back to 16 when you always get a few sides that wouldn't have made it doing well at the tournament, and fairly routinely get games between two "giants" being fucking turgid.  England have been eye-bleeding to watch.  France have yet to score a goal themselves from open play.  Belgium continue to be one of the most pointless football entities to actually have talent. Whereas several of the smaller sides have impressed.

I'm not sure the format needs changing really.  There's the possibility of mutually beneficial results, but (I may be wrong on this) I don't remember this being much of an issue the last time.  The 3rd round of fixtures has been a bit pish, but in a traditional format, there's no guarantee they'd be better.  There's more to play for for longer when 3rd place sides can qualify.

I think the next change will end up being 32 teams.  I don't think it'll be as bad as people make out.

[Alert Mongoose]

1 hour ago, Skyline Drifter said:

Those extra 8 teams make the infrastructure involved in staging the thing more complex and bigger which in turn even further limits who can actually host it to a handful of big countries (Spain, England, France, Germany, Italy, Russia if they ever behave themselves again). Anyone else wants to be involved they'll need a joint bid.

I get this but, even at 24 teams, are we not probably already at the stage of only a few countries being able to host it anyway? I wouldn't mind restricting the hosts to a revolving few as long as they do it well. I'm not convinced shared hosting is really all that good.

[JS_FFC]

Also on the joint bidding chat, both Italy/Türkiye 2032 and the 2030 World Cup prove that it needn’t just be your neighbours that you joint bid with. Given both fan friendliness of clustering stadiums and a general desire to be more green I think UEFA will end up setting these tournaments up more like four mini tournaments in separate countries with the winners coming together in the last week for the semis and final. 
 

It’s a bit of a moot point since we’ve got 2028 anyway but in other circumstances the SFA should be considering chucking their hat into the ring with the next Benelux bidding effort or joining forces with our old foes Switzerland and Austria. I think we are all a bit guilty of being married to the idea that the only two options are either getting involved with an “England + friends” bid like we did for 2028 or being the main player of a Celtic nations bid. 

[Jacksgranda]

2 hours ago, JS_FFC said:

Isn’t that pretty much already the case though? In 3 instances of 24 team euros, we’ve had two of them in major Western European nations and the other was the one off pan European tournament. 
 

The only 24 team World Cup to be in Europe were in Spain and Italy respectively.

 

Since the World Cup went to 32 we’ve had France, Germany and Russia. Spain are the next European country to host it but now that it’s gone to 48 they aren’t even big enough to go it alone and have had to call in every Tom, Dick and Harry to host games.

 

Even when it was 16, the norm was either one major country (1996) or a joint bid of two smaller nations (2000, 2008, 2012). The one exception to that was Portugal in 2004 who went it alone as a solo host with disastrous consequences. Like every European nation apart from England, Germany, Spain, Italy, France and Russia, the Portuguese domestic game isn’t big enough to support so many massive stadiums.
 

Many of the Euro 2004 stadiums are either total white elephants now or are hosting games in front of a few hundred fans every week. 
 

The biggest difference now (and more so if we go to 32) is that even the big nations are having to consider joint bids (2028, although I still think England could go it alone. Italy/Turkey in 2032) and that the smaller joint bids will need to be rainbow coalitions of three or four countries now rather than just the two country efforts that were the norm 10-20 years ago.

 

Also given that every major European nation will have hosted a major football tournament between 2016-2032, the smaller country rainbow coalitions will dominate the next few decades imo. 

 

After the two we already know about, the next five euros will be (in some order): One in the Nordic countries, another Benelux tournament, one in the Balkans, a Central European one hosted by Czechia/Hungary/Slovakia/Austria, and if geopolitics allows another Poland and Ukraine effort with some of the Baltic nations involved). 

Juan, Miquel and Pablo, shurely?

[Lurkst]

22 hours ago, forameus said:

I'll never understand the clamour to reduce things back to 16 when you always get a few sides that wouldn't have made it doing well at the tournament, and fairly routinely get games between two "giants" being fucking turgid.  England have been eye-bleeding to watch.  France have yet to score a goal themselves from open play.  Belgium continue to be one of the most pointless football entities to actually have talent. Whereas several of the smaller sides have impressed.

I'm not sure the format needs changing really.  There's the possibility of mutually beneficial results, but (I may be wrong on this) I don't remember this being much of an issue the last time.  The 3rd round of fixtures has been a bit pish, but in a traditional format, there's no guarantee they'd be better.  There's more to play for for longer when 3rd place sides can qualify.

I think the next change will end up being 32 teams.  I don't think it'll be as bad as people make out.

Agreed. I don't understand why some people would want to fix the problem of a couple of teams being unlucky lucky losers by denying eight countries entry to the tournament.

 

[lanky_ffc]

On 27/06/2024 at 14:24, forameus said:

I'll never understand the clamour to reduce things back to 16 when you always get a few sides that wouldn't have made it doing well at the tournament, and fairly routinely get games between two "giants" being fucking turgid.  England have been eye-bleeding to watch.  France have yet to score a goal themselves from open play.  Belgium continue to be one of the most pointless football entities to actually have talent. Whereas several of the smaller sides have impressed.

I'm not sure the format needs changing really.  There's the possibility of mutually beneficial results, but (I may be wrong on this) I don't remember this being much of an issue the last time.  The 3rd round of fixtures has been a bit pish, but in a traditional format, there's no guarantee they'd be better.  There's more to play for for longer when 3rd place sides can qualify.

I think the next change will end up being 32 teams.  I don't think it'll be as bad as people make out.

I'm in this camp as well, as I think the drawbacks are somewhat overplayed. I saw the Slovakia-Romania match being used as an argument against the format but both teams had a go in the early stages and we saw goals when a lot of people were predicting a dull 0-0. The last time I can remember a game where both teams appeared to have settled on a mutually beneficial bore draw is France-Denmark at the 2018 World Cup.

Also saw people saying it was unfortunate that Ukraine went out on 4pts whilst Denmark and Slovenia went through on 3pts. Again, this is something which could also happen in a 16 or 32 format.

24 teams is an imperfect format but I personally like the bit of randomness it brings, especially when you see competitions like the Champions League trying to gerrymander it so the best teams always go though. 

Edited June 28 by lanky_ffc

[Jacksgranda]

22 minutes ago, lanky_ffc said:

I'm in this camp as well, as I think the drawbacks are somewhat overplayed. I saw the Slovakia-Romania match being used as an argument against the format but both teams had a go in the early stages and we saw goals when a lot of people were predicting a dull 0-0. The last time I can remember a game where both teams appeared to have settled on a mutually beneficial bore draw is France-Denmark at the 2018 World Cup.

Also saw people saying it was unfortunate that Ukraine went out on 4pts whilst Denmark and Slovenia went through on 3pts. Again, this is something which could also happen in a 16 or 32 format.

24 teams is an imperfect format but I personally like the bit of randomness it brings, especially when you see competitions like the Champions League trying to gerrymander it so the best teams always go though. 

UEFA will probably attempt that at the next Euros.