Mortal Games wrote on 06/19/12 at 08:28:04:


The ref in Spain-Croatia was either the most biased ref in the tm or the Italians had bribed him. Nearly all Croatians got a yellow card and iirc the Spaniards not a single one, Ramos assault was not only a penalty but definitely at least a yellow card. (Mellberg did a very similar thing in the qualifications and got both a red card and suspended for three games.)

One wonders what the point is of having those extra referees in the penalty areas? So far they haven't made a single good call. The job description may actually be "just stand there and never interfere whatever happens".

What can Ukraine really expect ? check for breaking news at  http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=AEB0scnJKO4

Gueler wrote on 06/18/12 at 00:18:06:


I wasn't specific because I meant in general. In the domestic leagues teams play about 40 games and that way you can be quite sure that the best team comes out on top. The knock-out stage is even more cut-throat admittedly. It's a widely held view that these tournaments don't always produce the best team as the winner. I think in the champions league where there are twice as many games except in the final the element of chance is reduced considerably.    

Gueler wrote on 06/18/12 at 00:18:06:


Not at all. The way you say "4 or more goals" suggests a level of dominance that is just ridiculous. The game was very evenly matched. Most of those chances you're talking about were half-chances. If Germany could have had four, Netherlands could have had five. Van Persie had many shots that were very close to going in. I suggest you look at the highlights again: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzG7LOHy648 So I don't think it's at all accurate to say "could have had 4 or more goals", it was a very even game. Maybe you think Germany shaded it and deserved to win... I go back to my earlier point about there not being enough games to eliminate chance.

It´s simple for UEFA, more participating countries mean more games and more attention, i.e. more money.

While this is good news for some smaller european teams who have problems to qualify nowadays (e.g. Norway, Austria, Belgium, Turkey), it is no good news for the leading nations.

Right now qualification to the Euro was about as hard as qualification to the WC (16 countries minus the host for Euro, WC2010 had 13 european qualifiers). Next Euro the qualification groups will be easier. And much more boring for the big nations of course! The only hope is that the qualification groups could be smaller, thus less games to play there.

Instead I would like to something like the Confed Cup for UEFA, a small tourney a year or so before the Euro - to test the locations. Could be with eight teams. Perhaps the host, title holder and 2nd ranked of the last Euro and the five top listed countries in the UEFA-nation-ranking.

For Euro 2012 this would have been a tourney with Ukraine, Poland, Germany, Spain, England, Italy, Portugal and France. This would be better than Germany vs. Montenegro, Faröer, San Maino etc ... no offence meant!!

Yes, that will be the format, although I believe the qualifying format is yet to be decided.

If you exclude the microstates - San Marino et al, then yes, roughly half the teams will qualify. 

I think this will be terribly detrimental to the quality of the group phase, as we'll be more likely to see the top teams play cagily against one another, and then try to whip the minnows. But this is part of a general almost inexorable trend towards bloat in sporting competitions.

The next iteration will feature 24 teams; madness! 

TalJechin wrote on 06/17/12 at 18:09:27:


I really hope this gets changed asap. Goals have a value of their own, and this is not reflected by these regulations (ask the russians). Just doesn´t get into my head that a team with a +2-score is ranked behind a team with a 0-score.

So why don´t they keep it simple and clean and use the FIFA-rules from south africa 2010?

P.S.: Just read in our paper about even worse regulations ... enjoy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbados_v_Grenada_%281994%29