2007-04-17 - Euro 2012 - 16 Participants
OK, welcome news at least for me and those who have a similar opinion to myself. UEFA have decided to keep with just 16 participants for the 2012 tournament. While I feel sorry for the smaller nations in that they are not going to have more chances to play at the European Championship (at least until then), I feel that common sense has prevailed. Increasing the tournament to 24 teams as had been proposed by one or two members would have made a mockery of the tournament in my opinion. Not only would it have been difficult to determine quarter final or second round placings (see previous article) but it would just devalue the tournament for the better teams because it would mean that almost half of the continent's teams would take place, and that would in turn mean that the qualifying tournament would be a waste of time for a lot of the bigger teams who would be unlikely to miss out and instead be forced to play a number of meaningless matches. I argued in a previous article that any changes in the number of places at the finals would have to be combined with an overhaul of the whole qualifying system. I'm not going to recount that whole article but my solution would mean more meaningful matches for every team in UEFA, and a proper tournament structure.
The only reason I can see for the subject to have arisen in the first place is that the smaller nations, or rather those that are among those less skillful at the game, want to have an increased chance to play at this tournament and thereby gain from the increased competition. I personally feel that this is attacking the problem from the wrong end. Those nations just aren't good enough to participate at such a tournament, and they're only going to get better at defending if they come up against the more skillful nations more regularly. The only solution I can see is if these nations have more regular competitive matches amongst themselves to see which one(s) of them are good enough to progress to the next level. That's the way they'll get better at all aspects of the game, and not just defending and tactical play. That's what happens in most other sports but not in football. In most other sports such as tennis, ice hockey, basketball, etc. you have tiered systems where you can only progress to the next level if you're good enough, and drop down a level if you're not good enough to play at the level that you're at. In football we refer to such systems as leagues, but no one seems to have the balls to introduce such a system in international football, even though it is pretty much what the whole world's domestic club football is based on. Even the European Champions League has a system that almost fits that model, in that there are pre-qualification rounds to get rid of teams that don't belong. This might seem like I don't like the smaller nations and that I just support the more successful ones, however, I don't see it that way. In my opinion everyone deserves a chance, and no one (that qualifies as a member of any confederation) should be stopped from taking part, but we shouldn't be making it easier for teams that are just not good enough just to qualify. We should instead concentrate on giving them the opportunity to get better. That's good enough in my opinion. If a share of the money of what can be gained at the top level is what they after, then I suggest what I have already suggested, to organise other tier championships that will attract sponsorship that will give them more money to play for, but don't let's be unrealistic and try to aim for the big money that they're just not good enough to play for yet. If you look at the success stories of Turkey and to a lesser extent Latvia and Slovenia, we should see that nothing is impossible. The latter two qualified for the European Championships by right from the current system, but unfortunately neither could sustain the standard. Others have gotten very close to major championship participation such as Slovakia. Turkey of course have gone one better. Once they were receiving end of score lines such as 8-0, but now they can give the top nations a good game, and their peak was of course a World Cup semi final appearance. That proves that the system allows for what the smaller nations yearn for, although maybe it just doesn't go far enough. Thankfully UEFA didn't go mental by increasing the number of finalists, but hopefully they'll have noticed that the current system is in serious need of an overhaul.
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2007-04-18 - 2012 Poland / Ucranie |
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| Euro 2012 Poland / Ucranie |
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This weblog will list the latest interesting issues in international football to do with tournaments and results in general.
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