The European Championships are UEFA’s flagship competition
in international football. After five competitions with 16 teams, the field is
being expanded to 24 teams for the 2016 tournament. There has been severe
backlash from areas of the continent, suggesting that the competition will be
watered down with the addition of eight more teams. I think the positives
outweigh the negatives, and the change is already paying off.
Whenever a tournament has been expanded in sports, there are
two sides of the argument. One side will suggest that the additional teams
bolster the competition by adding more games and creating a more competitive
and unpredictable tournament. The extra games allow for more participants to be
involved and increases the revenue generated by the event. Opponents suggest
that having more games makes it harder for the truly elite teams to succeed by
presenting unworthy competition the opportunity to take a final shot in the
tournament. In this scenario, the “best” team has a lesser chance of winning
because of the increased amount of games, diluting the competition’s quality. For
example, in the case of the NCAA’s basketball tournament, I am a firm opponent
of expanding the tournament. I feel that the teams who don’t get in had plenty
of chances to prove themselves, and expanding the tournament would water down
the competition so much that the regular season would not matter. In the
European Championships, I see the opposite effect.
In the previous format, just 16 of 54 associations would be
allowed to participate in the final tournament – a total of 29.6%. The host (or
occasionally co-hosts) automatically qualifies, taking away one or two spots
from qualifiers. That pushes the percentage of qualifiers to reach the finals
down (with one host) to 28.3%. This year, with France as host, 43.4% of the qualifiers will
reach the final tournament. This should benefit competition in the groups and
overall parity across the continent. Teams who were drawn from Pot 4 and Pot 5
had virtually no chance in the previous format – the eight group winners often
come from Pot 1 or 2, while second place would not even guarantee a place in
the finals, but a place in the playoffs against a higher-ranked opponent. Now,
players for countries like Wales and Iceland can have a real motivation to
compete because they have a chance. In the first match day alone, we saw
Albania (Pot 5) defeat Portugal (Pot 1), Iceland (Pot 5) defeat Turkey (Pot 3),
Cyprus (Pot 5) defeat Bosnia-Herzegovina (Pot 1), Northern Ireland (Pot 5)
defeat Hungary (Pot 2), and Scotland (Pot 4) lose 2-1 to World Champions
Germany. On the second match day, Kazakhstan, from the lowest pot in the draw
(Pot 6), led the Dutch at halftime. Obviously, these results are not expected
to continue and the top sides will regain their form, but I see the extra
motivation for the minnows as the primary reason for these historic scorelines.
Let’s take a quick look at Montenegro. A Pot 5 side in the
last European qualifiers, the tiny Balkan country surprised by snatching
second-place from Switzerland by a point. Their unlikely qualification for the
playoffs was swiftly met with a playoff against 11th ranked Czech Republic, who
beat the Montenegrins 3-0 on aggregate. Did Montenegro deserve a place in the
finals? Probably not, but their improvement gave the side something to build
upon going into the next qualifiers. This time, their group is much tougher,
with Russia, Sweden and Austria joining them in fighting for three spots. That
group has already been electric – those four sides are separated by just three
points. With just one automatic qualification spot available in the previous
format, one of the four teams would likely be out of the mix before the end,
lessening the quality of their remaining fixtures. With two teams advancing and
a third gaining a playoff spot, all four teams will likely be in it until the
end.
I don’t think the 24-team final tournament compromises the
competition at all. Apart from Greece’s victory in Portugal 2004, which was a
16-team format, there has not been a major shock winner in international
football. I also don’t see a major gap between the sides currently ranked 13-16
and the sides right below them. Ukraine (10), Sweden (13), and Denmark (14)
strike me as marginally better, at best, than the Czechs (17), Ireland (19) and
Turkey (21). There will hardly be a massive drop off in quality. Will there be
a low-ranked side in the finals? Most likely, but again, this is not news. In
the World Cup, eight sides ranked 33 or lower (since the World Cup, in theory,
should be the top 32 teams) qualified for the finals. Only one team, Nigeria,
advanced out of the group stage, and they were eliminated by France in the
Round of 16. That is what usually happens to bad teams – they lose. I see no
problem having more teams involved in the group stage.
Lastly, it changes the way that European footballers look at
international qualifying. It gives the opportunity for players to 1) play for
their home country versus gravitating towards an eligible country to play for a
better team and 2) individually lift their country on the big stage. Wales is
my most obvious example – they are hardly a one-man team, but the star of the
show is clearly Gareth Bale. Given that UEFA has 13 places in the World Cup,
it’s unlikely Bale’s Wales would ever qualify, and with just three more places
in the Euros previously, they didn’t have much of a chance either as they are
currently stuck in Pot 4. However, with the additional places, Bale has the
potential to push the team into the tournament and light up the continental
stage. How many times have you seen a player raise his game to push his team
past a better opponent? They may not all make it, but now the continent’s best
players will at least have the opportunity to qualify. In the end, we could
have a tournament featuring players like Bale, Robert Lewandowski, Zlatan
Ibrahimovic, Cristiano Ronaldo, and David Alaba, none of whom are on the
continent’s best teams. Plus two-time defending champions Spain, and World
Champions Germany. Who would turn that off?
The change is already paying off. We’ve seen a number of
upsets already, and the games are generally closer. Going forward, it’s hard to
see teams like Germany and the Netherlands running a near-perfect slate through
qualifying. This change to the rules has made the qualifying process more
competitive, and should make European teams better on the global stage.
Through three match days, I list the group leaders. Just one
team from the first pot currently leads their group – that really says it all.
Group A – Iceland
Group B – Wales
Group C – Slovakia
Group D – Poland
Group E – England
Group F – Northern Ireland
Group G – Austria
Group H – Croatia
Group I – Denmark
Not exactly your world powers?
PS: The abandonment of the Serbia - Albania game today was the most foreseeable cancellation for quite some time. Why they are even playing each other is beyond me.
