The unfair farce that is a 24-team Euro must change

Here in Cologne, the city’s innovative approach to serving beer has frustrated some England fans. Cologne’s bars and brasseries serve “Kolsch” — a traditional lager that can only be produced in the city — in a fine 200 ml glass called “odd“. The bartender counts the quota of each table strange on a coaster.

Monday evening, while a few colleagues and I watched Croatia take on Italy at Cologne’s Bei D’r Tant pub (plentiful food, no air conditioning) and the strange counted on the tables of the English supporters around us, we were engaged in a different type of counting. At the time, Italy’s 97th-minute equalizer was a blow to Croatia, but not fatal, leaving them on the brink of elimination, but with an outside chance of advancing to the round of 16 if other results were favorable to them.

If England had beaten Slovenia by three goals or more last night (even if only!) and Denmark had won against Serbia, Croatia could still have reached the knockout stages as one of the best third-placed teams, although they only took two points in their three groups. Games.

The Croatians spent Tuesday at base camp, likely gloomily watching England and Denmark work to 0-0 draws, before returning home today. This strange and unsatisfactory setup is necessary because UEFA expanded the European Championship from 16 to 24 teams in 2016, so the top four third-placed teams must now join the top two from each of the six groups to form a group of 16 teams. knockout phase.

We’ve reached the point in the tournament where the setup becomes both ridiculous and unfair.

The inclusion of four third-placed teams leads to a lack of danger – with too many low-stakes group matches and too much margin for error – as well as unsporting results and a confusing and unbalanced draw system for the round of 16.

Austria, for example, went into their final group match against the Netherlands yesterday knowing that a 1-0 defeat would be enough to qualify for the round of 16, as they already had a better goal difference than Hungary, which finished third in Group A.

The system is unfair to teams from previous groups, including the Hungarians, who had no idea what to do to reach the round of 16 in their third and final match.

The aim of playing the last round of matches in each group simultaneously is to create danger.

This format creates a situation in which the importance of many of the final rounds of group matches is unclear until the entire phase has been completed.

The first 24-team Euro, in 2016, was won by Portugal, who qualified for the round of 16 as one of the best third-placed teams after three draws. This should have been the wake-up call that the system was flawed and likely to reward negativity. What is the solution ?

UEFA is highly unlikely to reduce the competition to 16 teams, so the obvious solution is to expand it to 32 teams.

There would be some downsides, but it would be worth it to ensure a cleaner qualification process for the round of 16. In the meantime, we’re left to figure out exactly who needs to lose and by how much to keep Croatia and co in the competition, which gets harder the more beer you count.