UEFA did not continue because obviously it did not work. In general, people hate using drawing of lots to decide whether a team advance or not, so it is better to use other tiebreakers: fair play points, coefficient ranking, penalty shoot-out (if two teams are playing against each other on the last day).Jackson Harrison wrote: Sun Mar 10, 2024 12:11That's the first time I've heard of that - I wondered why Gd etc wasn't shown on Wikipedia.amenina wrote: Sun Mar 10, 2024 04:58Well, in women's euro 2013, which was a 12-team tournament with 8 teams advancing to the quarter-finals. The three third-placed teams are: Denmark in Group A with 2 points and -1 GD, Iceland in Group B with 4 points, and Russia in Group C with 2 points and -2 GD. Yet in that tournament, UEFA introduced the rule that for comparing the three third-placed teams, only points are considered, and if tied on points, no other criteria is considered, and the ranking would be decided by drawing of lots. So Iceland finished as the best third-placed team and advanced to the quarter-finals, while Denmark and Russia were "tied", and so a drawing of lots were held to decide who would advance to the quarter-finals. Rather "deservedly", Denmark were drawn and they advanced to the quarter-finals.Jackson Harrison wrote: Fri Mar 08, 2024 21:58 @amenina
I’ve been thinking about the tiebreak rule and done some research and discovered this wasn’t the first team 2 third place teams in a 12 team (senior wnt) tournament were tied on all the conventional tb rules. In 2013 Denmark and another team were tied and Denmark won the draw.
This had led to me to conclude - surely there is a better way to solve this: most saves?, most shots (on target)?, least fouls? - or even the ranking must be fairer than drawing balls from a bowl?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA_Wome ... aced_teams
UEFA introduced this principle to avoid teams entering their final matches and "playing on" the previous results, and also to negate the factor of the potentially different strengths of the groups by eliminating goal difference from the calculation. However, it really did not have the desired effect of UEFA. Russia in Group C were the last team to finish the group, and in their last match, they were drawing Spain 1-1, which ensured at least a "tie" with Denmark and their fate would be decided by drawing of lots with a 50% chance of advancing. Of course, they could go for a win and avoid the drawing of lots and ensured a 100% chance of advancing, but had they lost that match they would be eliminated with 0% chance of advancing. So what did they do? Of course they preferred to sit back and not attack.
After that, UEFA Women's Euro became a 16-team tournament in 2017, so none of this "best third-placed teams" business apply to the tournament. But of course, the men's Euro became a 24-team tournament in 2016, so UEFA have to choose the four best third-placed to advance to the round of 16. Actually in the beginning, UEFA's rules is that when comparing the six third-placed teams, the result against the fourth-placed team would not be counted. But some time before the tournament, they changed their regulations and went back to the more natural way of including all three match results in the group stage when comparing the third-placed teams. Probably because excluding one result makes comparing too difficult to understand, with a big possibility that a team with fewer total points would advance over a team with more points which would cause uproar among the fans and media.
Why didn't UEFA continue this policy for any future events?
I was going to say taking only 1st and 2nd results may be more effective as some groups have bad 4ths and others not so bad.
And as we could see from that tournament, teams are in general risk-adverse: if taking some action could give you possibly 100% chance of advance but the alternative is 0% chance of advance, while not taking this action gives you about 50% chance of advance, teams will in general not take the action. That is why sudden-death extra time do not work in football because teams are just too afraid to concede the goal which would eliminate them immediately.
Yes one argument for not counting results against 4th place team can prevent a team from benefitting from a really bad last-placed team. But I think in the Euros even the worst teams are not so bad, and again, it is too complicated for the average fan to understand, and it would be unacceptable for many people that a team with a better overall record over all three matches are "eliminated" by a team with a worse record over all three matches.
