Is it me, or was there a Premiership season going on a few weeks ago? I can’t recall because this international break has sucked all the life out of me.
I know this is a Fulham blog but I am going to diverge from my usual SW6 scribing and propose a new Euro Championship qualifying method that will eliminate these tedious international breaks while still maintaining some integrity in the qualification process.
Instead of the current egalitarian formula that UEFA uses, it could easily divide the continent into two rounds of qualifying.
Why? Because the tournament is so drawn out and so many nations involved, it’s quite difficult for smaller nations to catch lightning. Anytime you increase the amount of games, you decrease the chances of upsets and Cinderella’s. We’re just two (in some cases one) games in and already about half the teams involved are practically eliminated.
Also, Andorra scored their first goal in a year yesterday. San Marino has conceded 11 goals in two games. Are we sure they belong in Gen Pop?
By having two rounds, smaller nations can gain valuable experience by playing another in (meaningful) games and give some of the big nation’s time off. Additionally, splitting the qualification process into two rounds would also make every game matter. Currently, depending on what group and place a nation is in, games against the sixth placed teams don’t even count.
I did some anoraking and came up with the following method for Euro 2016 in France (I would have done 2012 but there’s no point in bickering what’s already been done).
Using UEFA’s latest coefficient rankings, I took the bottom 25 teams a placed them into five pots, ranked by their coefficient, as seen in the image below. I’ll explain why I chose 25 in a minute.
I then randomized the groups they were placed in by drawing random numbers to correspond to letters (i.e. 1=A, 2=B, etc). Below is how the First Qualifying Round could easily look.
Each nation would play its group member twice. Using this year’s calendar, these games could easily occur at the following international breaks: 3/4 and 7 September 2010, 8/9 and 12 October 2010; 12/13 and 17 November 2010; and 25/26 and 29 March 2011. This would give the bigger nations some time off to recoup from the World Cup, while also limiting the interruptions to club football.
The group winners would then advance to the Second Qualifying Round. For the sake of this scenario, I just advanced the higher seeded nations.
By having 5 teams qualify out of 25, you are left with 32 countries. Making the First Qualifying Round any smaller would muddle up the math for the Second Round. So by using 25 teams it equally provides 8 groups of 4 nations. In 2016, 15 teams will be qualifying for the Euros because France, as hosts, already qualified. Euro 2012 has two host nations, but this formula could still easily be followed with a change at the very end, which you’ll see in a moment.
I then put the remaining 32 nations into four pots of 8 teams, as seen below.
Like with the first round, the groups were drawn by generating random numbers that correspond with letters. The groups could look like this:
Each team would play another twice, for a total of six games. Using this year’s calendar, these games could easily occur at the following international breaks: 3/4 and 7 June 2011, 2/3 and 6 September 2011, 7/8 and 11 October 2011.
The group winners would automatically advance to the Big Dance. To make up the final 7 spots, I would have the top 6 second-placed teams with the most points also automatically qualify, while the two-lowest second-placed teams have a playoff. This method would truly make every game count, unlike the current system.
I’m sure UEFA has thought of this, only to dismiss it because it means fewer games for most nations. And fewer games mean fewer gate receipts.
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