With the European Championships expanding to 24 teams up from 16, there remained a mathematical problem to address when heading into the knockouts. As 24 divided by two equals twelve, that won’t leave you with two finalists come the end of the tournament.
So, to round up enough teams to make a Last 16, Uefa will add the four best third-place finishers to the six group winners and six runners-up. That’s fair enough, you might think.
However, not only is the new system complicated as you can’t now look at the groups and fixtures anymore and easily determine who will play who in the next round until the last group game is complete, but it also encourages defensive play in the group stage.
Slovakia were determined to just hold out for a point in their game against England on Monday. Instead of fighting for a win to qualify top or second of the group, which they could have done with a victory, they just sat back and defended.
Uefa have obviously increased the number of teams to spread the appeal, encourage smaller nations and ultimately bring more revenue in. However, the sight of teams just parking the bus to scrape through with what could be as low as just three draws and a decent goal-difference surely counteracts what Uefa is trying to achieve in terms of spicing up the tournament.
It’s also a bit disrespectful to group winners and runners-up that four chancers or lucky losers can still edge through doing the bare minimum. It also prolongs the agony for the viewer who will have to watch these mediocre sides get their second chance in the next round.
Fair enough, all the best four third-place finishers will play a group winner from either Group A, B, C, or D, and the chances are that they will now crash out of the competition due to that fact.
But then, why do we have to endure that? If you’re not good enough you should have been knocked out already. Not only has this new rule ruined the excitement and competitiveness of group stage matches, but it has also killed the second round. Also how unfair is it for the winners and runners-up of groups E and F who won’t get a lucky loser in the second round, but instead a genuine winner or runner up from one of the other groups.
On top of it all, it remains highly probable that if a lucky loser makes it through to the semi-finals, they could face a team they played in the group stage again.
Uefa need to revisit this new format because it clearly doesn’t work. The options are either to revert to a 16-team tournament, or to expand to a 32-team event. Either way, you can’t make a mockery of the group stages by allowing third-place finishers to progress.
