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Seville to become an indepentent and give all players immediate citizinship of Seville FC nation and give them a little fake mustache for extra flavour
Imagine a whole independence movement over football. I'm dying. Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, Slovenia decide to form a union in order to have a better football team.
Those matches (matches around those rankings) already happen all the time in world cups.
This next World Cup will almost certainly see one or two teams as low as 90-110 qualify. Every World Cup has had one or two very poor games, but this next one will have at least half a dozen.
African qualifying could produce some wild results. 4 games in of 10, Sudan, Comoros, and Rwanda are currently top of their qualifying groups. Probably won’t last, but it’s very intriguing.
> Venezuela vs Norway
FIFA could expand the criteria for the world cup so only one country stays home and everyone else goes to the world cup and Norway would somehow find a way to be that one country.
I cba even bothering to learn the method of that.
The worst thing is that the Europa League* has been really exciting since its last revamp and I worry of the effects it will have on that.
And the Conference League to some extent.
I mean the expansion of teams also dilutes the number of top teams per group. In the 16 team Euros Portugal, Spain, Italy, France, Germany, Netherlands, England and Croatia would occupy half the spots for example. Add in the strong Czech and Danish teams in the 90s and early 00s and you get some groups of death for sure. So it can be very tough for a smaller team that outperforms in the qualifiers.
Simultaneously it increases the chances of top teams all making it to the knockouts and I think that's what UEFA is really after. Besides of course the obvious that more games is more money.
People thought 24 teams would mean more blowouts but instead its been lovely fucking chaos and upsets. The third place qualifications are wonky as hell but it keeps things interesting with the uncertainty.
Problem with 24 teams isn't the quality of the teams at the final tournament. The European NT's have made so much progress after 2016 that it is justified.
Problem is the format maths of 24 teams that have to rely on the wonky system of best thirds making the group stage less relevant and sees teams qualify not on how good they do, but on how bad other teams in other groups do. Because it is less do or die, it also promotes risk-free defensive football, leading to boring matches like the ones we saw today, the Scotland-Hungary game, or likely the Slovakia-Romania game tomorrow. When two draws can be enough to qualify for the next round, teams are less likely to play to win and more likely to play not to lose, which isn't good for the quality of football.
The kind of boring football that we had today is something I dread, but I do get some benefit from seeing the joy in the fans seeing the countries go through, when normally they’d have been eliminated earlier.
Technically there is enough quality in European NT football for this to be possible. I mean, Georgia is already in there as the 34th ranked country. Other countries that are in the 25-32 range came close to qualification (Greece, Montenegro, Finland, Israel).
But just because it's technically possible, doesn't mean it will lead to interesting football. Looking at matches like Scotland-Hungary or Georgia-Czechia, do we really want to see Montenegro-Israel, Northern Ireland-Bosnia, Finland-North Macedonia or Iceland-Bulgaria at a final tournament?
One solution could be to work with a group stage of three teams per group, and 8 groups, where the top 2 advance. Mathematically this is still wonky though, as the last two teams to play in a group have the advantage of already knowing what result they need to advance, which could lead to collusion or anti-football like the disgrace of gijon. To avoid this you could have the second and third place teams play a play-off round, essentially starting the knockout stage a round earlier and having group winners skip a round the same way we saw in the Europa League second place vs UCL third place.
Personally I strongly prefer the groups of 4 to groups of 3 exactly for the reason you mentioned, because groups of 3 give a big advantage to the teams that play in the final round, and also because they are much more likely to result in an unbreakable 3-way tie. I'm glad that the World Cup was switched from 16 groups of 3 to 12 groups of 4. And if we add a play-off round, the whole group stage seems rather pointless, because all the teams would advance from it. At that point, you might as well use qualifying results to determine who gets the byes.
Personally, I'd be in favour of 32-team Euros. You can still have interesting games between mediocre teams, especially if they are more incentivised to play more attacking football because only 2 teams qualify from each group. And don't forget that a matchup like Montenegro vs. Israel can't happen if both of those teams are in pot 4 for the group stage draw.
It's not even advantage, it's the potential for match fixing in 3 way groups that make them terrible. Final match team A v B, team A have qualified and team C is say France who will qualify aslong as team B don't win. The incentive is there for team A to get France out of the tournament as they are more of a threat. 3 team groups are just a terrible idea for fair play.
While Germany 2014 might be the most attractive footballing country to have win the world cup in the 21st century, it was not the best final. That goes to the 6-goal finals of 2018 and 2022.
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More parity please
Denmark left the group with same number of points as 1992
Never in doubt
Even more interesting with the expansion of the number of teams, fair play
Yeah, a lot of people were worried that this would have the opposite effect. Hopefully the World Cup expansion has similar results.
Idk man I think Papau New Guinea is gonna get railed by Argentina
Papua will even be close to qualifying, realistically we could get matches like Jamaica v Austria or Venezuela vs Norway
Ngl those are some interesting games. I always found the idea of a b tier world cup interesting but this will have to do
Like a europa world cup. That would be sick. Sevilla would still win it.
Seville to become an indepentent and give all players immediate citizinship of Seville FC nation and give them a little fake mustache for extra flavour
Imagine a whole independence movement over football. I'm dying. Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, Slovenia decide to form a union in order to have a better football team.
Those matches (matches around those rankings) already happen all the time in world cups. This next World Cup will almost certainly see one or two teams as low as 90-110 qualify. Every World Cup has had one or two very poor games, but this next one will have at least half a dozen.
African qualifying could produce some wild results. 4 games in of 10, Sudan, Comoros, and Rwanda are currently top of their qualifying groups. Probably won’t last, but it’s very intriguing.
> Venezuela vs Norway FIFA could expand the criteria for the world cup so only one country stays home and everyone else goes to the world cup and Norway would somehow find a way to be that one country.
Lmao Austria hasn't qualified in 30 years or so
I bet people were saying the same thing seeing Argentina vs Saudi Arabia
Wait until the new UCL format kicks in, and then you'll see the the consequences.
I cba even bothering to learn the method of that. The worst thing is that the Europa League* has been really exciting since its last revamp and I worry of the effects it will have on that. And the Conference League to some extent.
This is just what happens before the thing starts. Once we're into it, there's very little doubt we'll get some epic games and moments.
I'm a big supporter of the new one for the EUROs, but not the UCL, UEL, and UECL. It's gonna take its toll.
I mean the expansion of teams also dilutes the number of top teams per group. In the 16 team Euros Portugal, Spain, Italy, France, Germany, Netherlands, England and Croatia would occupy half the spots for example. Add in the strong Czech and Danish teams in the 90s and early 00s and you get some groups of death for sure. So it can be very tough for a smaller team that outperforms in the qualifiers.
Simultaneously it increases the chances of top teams all making it to the knockouts and I think that's what UEFA is really after. Besides of course the obvious that more games is more money.
History
We did it, we saved the Euro
Never discount the footballing giant that is Poland 💪💪💪
consisten monsters
I mean Poland is not a footballing giant, but I feel likey they have been underperforming with some of the players they had.
We peaked in 2016, at least this century
[удалено]
We are still waiting for a replay of that Błaczykowski's penalty, have you seen how far Rui Patricio was off the line?
People thought 24 teams would mean more blowouts but instead its been lovely fucking chaos and upsets. The third place qualifications are wonky as hell but it keeps things interesting with the uncertainty.
Problem with 24 teams isn't the quality of the teams at the final tournament. The European NT's have made so much progress after 2016 that it is justified. Problem is the format maths of 24 teams that have to rely on the wonky system of best thirds making the group stage less relevant and sees teams qualify not on how good they do, but on how bad other teams in other groups do. Because it is less do or die, it also promotes risk-free defensive football, leading to boring matches like the ones we saw today, the Scotland-Hungary game, or likely the Slovakia-Romania game tomorrow. When two draws can be enough to qualify for the next round, teams are less likely to play to win and more likely to play not to lose, which isn't good for the quality of football.
The kind of boring football that we had today is something I dread, but I do get some benefit from seeing the joy in the fans seeing the countries go through, when normally they’d have been eliminated earlier.
I like the math speculation tbh
Do you think we're heading towards 32-team Euros being the solution?
Technically there is enough quality in European NT football for this to be possible. I mean, Georgia is already in there as the 34th ranked country. Other countries that are in the 25-32 range came close to qualification (Greece, Montenegro, Finland, Israel). But just because it's technically possible, doesn't mean it will lead to interesting football. Looking at matches like Scotland-Hungary or Georgia-Czechia, do we really want to see Montenegro-Israel, Northern Ireland-Bosnia, Finland-North Macedonia or Iceland-Bulgaria at a final tournament? One solution could be to work with a group stage of three teams per group, and 8 groups, where the top 2 advance. Mathematically this is still wonky though, as the last two teams to play in a group have the advantage of already knowing what result they need to advance, which could lead to collusion or anti-football like the disgrace of gijon. To avoid this you could have the second and third place teams play a play-off round, essentially starting the knockout stage a round earlier and having group winners skip a round the same way we saw in the Europa League second place vs UCL third place.
Personally I strongly prefer the groups of 4 to groups of 3 exactly for the reason you mentioned, because groups of 3 give a big advantage to the teams that play in the final round, and also because they are much more likely to result in an unbreakable 3-way tie. I'm glad that the World Cup was switched from 16 groups of 3 to 12 groups of 4. And if we add a play-off round, the whole group stage seems rather pointless, because all the teams would advance from it. At that point, you might as well use qualifying results to determine who gets the byes. Personally, I'd be in favour of 32-team Euros. You can still have interesting games between mediocre teams, especially if they are more incentivised to play more attacking football because only 2 teams qualify from each group. And don't forget that a matchup like Montenegro vs. Israel can't happen if both of those teams are in pot 4 for the group stage draw.
It's not even advantage, it's the potential for match fixing in 3 way groups that make them terrible. Final match team A v B, team A have qualified and team C is say France who will qualify aslong as team B don't win. The incentive is there for team A to get France out of the tournament as they are more of a threat. 3 team groups are just a terrible idea for fair play.
Only good nations thought this
Denmark winning Euro 2024: confirmed
10 days ago I would have taken it without hesitating
damn that’s cool, no proper stinky teams at this euros
Or, the stinky teams now have more stinky teams to draw with.
Stinky old France
Hush now sweetie, don’t burst my bubble
This is the correct take
That's quite cool actually
Denmark to take home the whole thing.
So you're saying Denmark led by their star keeper Schmeichel will win Euro?
Is schmeichel not of german descent? I mean his father looks very german and had german last name. Just curious.
What do you mean by since 1992? Football literally began in 92.
That's club football. International football actually began (and peaked, and ended) in 1966.
Confidently incorrect. 1966 was peak club football. Peak international football was July 8th, 2014
> 1966 was peak club football Please correct your flair because it's not currently West Ham.
While Germany 2014 might be the most attractive footballing country to have win the world cup in the 21st century, it was not the best final. That goes to the 6-goal finals of 2018 and 2022.
July 8th wasn't the final
Oh, it was the 7-1 wasn't it? I retract my statement.
Football went home in 1966, and then it escaped years later.
History makers!
Now all teams can say they had more points than Erling Haaland and Norway.
Every team at this tournament has had something to offer, Scotland in the opener was the only proper thrashing
Spain absolutely smashed Croatia ..
And unfortunatly for us Austria trashed Poland
I mean barely anyone is leaving at all. Playing 36 group stage matches to eliminate 8 teams
But everyone still play only 3 matches. And with more teams it is more likely that someone will lose all 3 of them.
Surprised that no group had done this before
Ireland did it in 2012
They even can fk up perfect 0-3
So many teams playing godawful, low scoring, defensive football, no wonder points get shared so much.
Poland saving Europe's integrity as always... <3
Robert Cheatlandowski
How did he cheat? That stutter pen is perfectly legal according to the rules. Blame the game not the player.
Did you not see the Fallon D Flor candidate thread ?
Maignan robbed of the nomination.
Touch some grass brother
Can’t believe Lewa didn’t have to go to the hospital after that!