Kjello wrote:I would like 20 teams in four groups. The winners go trough, the best runner up go trough, while the last four runner ups play playoffs for the last two spots in the quarter-finals.
I guess you meant in 5 groups. That's an interesting format.
Another format could be to have 20 teams in 4 groups. The group winners qualify for the quater finals, the RU's play 3rd ranked teams from another group for the other 4 spots (I think that UEFA might like this one).
we wont get it because we are never good at home soil.. almost all of our best wins in our football history was outside the country. some shit happens when we play at home and nobody can solve this mystery
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it wont be co-hosted by 2 or more countries. especially this funny rumour i once heard : denmark-finland-norway-sweden!! it's crazy! many good teams will stay out
1 wrote:it wont be co-hosted by 2 or more countries. especially this funny rumour i once heard : denmark-finland-norway-sweden!! it's crazy! many good teams will stay out
I don't really see the problem
Sweden - one of the best teams in the world
Denmark - participated in 2004. Quite good team
Norway - most unlucky team. But I think they won't be underdogs
Finland - one of the most ambitious teams in Europe. Just look at their performance in qualification.
However I still think that it's time now to give Euro to a big country (France, Italy, England, etc)
Kjello wrote:I would like 20 teams in four groups. The winners go trough, the best runner up go trough, while the last four runner ups play playoffs for the last two spots in the quarter-finals.
I guess you meant in 5 groups. That's an interesting format. It will make a total of 39 matches.
Another format could be to have 20 teams in 4 groups. The group winners qualify for the quater finals, the RU's play 3rd ranked teams from another group for the other 4 spots (I think that UEFA might like this one). It will make a total of 51 matches!
Yes I meant five groups. Four groups won't be an option if UEFA still wants all teams to finish the group stage on the same time. With five teams in one group one of the teams won't have a team to play against at the last matchday.
This is the format I would like to see,
GW A - GW E
GW B - RU A
GW C - RU B/RU C
GW D - RU D/RU E
More teams as it is now would bring mediocrity. 16 is enough, even at this number of participants, there are every tournament some teams which are only tourists.
1 wrote:it wont be co-hosted by 2 or more countries. especially this funny rumour i once heard : denmark-finland-norway-sweden!! it's crazy! many good teams will stay out
That was a bid for this Euro. UEFA said that the number of hosts was the main reason why they didn't get it.
The only good thing about a 24 team Euros would be that co-hosting between three (or even four) smaller countries ought to be possible.
There would still be 20 qualification spots left for everyone else (compared to 14 this time).
As for the "format". I doubt very much that UEFA will go for anything other than 6 groups of 4 with the top two & the four best 3rds qualifying for the next round. I don't think this is a particularly good format but once you shift from a nice neat 16 teams (or 32) teams there isn't a good format out there. Bear in mind also that once you increase the actual group sizes you're also going to have to expand the length of the tournament quite a bit more - I therefore think that groups of 5 are incredibly unlikely.
With 6 groups of 4 the length of the tournament could be kept pretty much the same (or at least just three or four days longer) just by playing three group games per day rather than two in the first two rounds and then finishing two groups per day. Then you just have the extra 8 KO games (2 per day) to fit in.
I don't think there should be 24 in the tournament. Where are all the qualification matches for then. Certainly top-countries like Spain and England will complain that they do not want to play them anymore, as they will be certain to be in the tournament anyway.
As it might happen, I also don't see it happening that there will be 20 in the tournament, due to the complex solutions that are needed. Either you have 5 in a group, where 1 doesn't play on the final day, or you have 4 in a group, ending up with 5 groupwinners and 5 runners up, that will make it very uneven for the teams...
So if it is going to be expanded it will be 24.
First 6 groups of 4, 12 qualifying toa second groupstage: 4 groups of 3, with the 4 winenrs qualifying for the semi-finals
This actualy would mean only 1 more match to the final for a team. So from a team-prespective, there is not much to be against it. But the tournamen twould take 2 weeks longer if we stay on 1 group/2 matches a day. So we would have to go to 3 matches a day, bringing it back to 4 weeks.
Sweden - one of the best teams in the world
Denmark - participated in 2004. Quite good team
Norway - most unlucky team. But I think they won't be underdogs
Finland - one of the most ambitious teams in Europe. Just look at their performance in qualification.
they can be good but when one of these teams dont qualify a major tournament, it's not really a big surprise. i mean; when france doesnt qualify, england doesnt qualify, netherlands doesnt qualify, people are ... but even when sweden doesnt qualify (which is the best team among these imo), personally i'm not very surprised because they arent one of the 1st tier teams despite having a more succesful history than many teams
so awarding free qualifications to all these teams are too much. 1 is okay, everybody has the right to host a tournament, but 4
Ricardo wrote:So if it is going to be expanded it will be 24.
First 6 groups of 4, 12 qualifying to a second groupstage: 4 groups of 3, with the 4 winners qualifying for the semi-finals
I think the idea of two group stages is pretty horrible. One possible (if unlikely) variation would be to have the top two in each group qualifying (better than some 3rds going through) but with the best four group winners qualifying directly for the quarter-finals with the other 8 teams entering a preliminary KO round.
This would have the added bonus of giving the group winners something important to play for in their last match.
The main negative - looking at this year's tournament - is that it might actually be a disadvantage to have the extra gap between winning your group & playing the quarter-final...
Just had wanted to post the same when finally came across badgerboy's post...
Why doesn't everyone like 4 groups of 6? I think it would be the best format in respect to convenience of organisation. Euro would be hosted by 3 or 4 countries on 12 pitches.
Group stage would consist of 60 matches. UEFA could hold 2 groups every day (6 matches) so statistically every pitch holds a match once per 2 days. Since we had 6 matches per day, for the group stage we'd have 10 days for groups (it's 2 days shorter!).
So I don't really see the problem in organising (or at least trying only once) such competition.
I would prefer your system (4 groups of 6), but i'm afraid that it will be like in the 1986-94 WCs, i.e. 6 groups of 4 with the 4 best thirds qualified to the last 16.
... but even when sweden doesnt qualify (which is the best team among these imo), personally i'm not very surprised because they arent one of the 1st tier teams despite having a more succesful history than many teams
