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

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

Monday night, while a few colleagues and I were watching Croatia take on Italy at the Bei D’r Tant pub in Cologne (hearty food, no air conditioning) and the strange The scores of the English fans around us were counted differently. At the time, Italy’s 97th-minute equalizer was a blow to Croatia, but not a fatal one, leaving them on the brink of elimination but with a small chance of qualifying for the knockout stages. final if the other results were in their favor.

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, no doubt watching ruefully as England and Denmark settled for 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 that the four best third-placed teams must now join the top two in each of the six groups in a 16-team knockout phase.

We have reached the point in the tournament where the course of events becomes both farcical and unfair.

The inclusion of four third-placed teams results in a lack of risk (with too many low-stakes group matches and too much margin for error), as well as unsporting results and a confusing round of 16 draw system and unbalanced.

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 was needed to reach the round of 16 when they played 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 where the significance of most of the final group matches is unclear until the entire phase is 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. That should have been a warning sign that the system was flawed, likely to reward negativity. What is the answer?

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 drawbacks, but it would be worth it to ensure a cleaner qualification process for the round of 16. In the meantime, we still have to work out exactly who needs to lose and by how many points to keep Croatia and their teammates in the competition, which becomes increasingly difficult the higher your beer count.