Get ready folks. Euro 2012 is coming up this summer and following yesterday’s draw, this will be another exciting tournament. Sadly, it will also be the final Euro Cup that will be considered great. In my opinion, UEFA’s decision to expand it from 16 teams to 24 teams for the 2016 edition will extinguish the flame that made this tournament great.
The draw for this summer Euro 2012 group stages took place last week and once again, the draw reminded me why this is my favorite tournament in football. Where else can you get a group with three European champions? Where else can you get arch rivals meet at the group stage? World Cup? Rarely. Copa America? Not that often. The Champions League does come close in terms of providing us a sort of the Best of the Best in Europe competition. However, nothing can top the Euro Cup.
My first ever football memories were that of Euro 88 when Holland finally won their first ever tournament and put to rest the despairs of their shortcomings in the past. Since then, I have been following them as they continued to break my heart in 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, and 2008 Euro cups. In my opinion, this summer presents the final time that the Euro cup will be special. UEFA’s president, and former winner of the Euro cup, Platini will be expanding the Euro cup from the current 16 teams to 24 for the 2016 edition. I hope that somehow that will never be implemented but I don’t the chances of that happening any more than the chances of FIFA switching venues for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.
I have always gotten grief about my belief that the Euro Cup is harder to win than the World Cup. I still stand by that statement. In the past, it was hard just to qualify for the Euro cup. Before 1996, only 8 countries qualified for the tournament. 8. Defending champions Spain failed to qualify in 1992 and even the Italian national team failed to qualify in 1992 along with three other times after winning the tournament in 1968. Can you imagine a World Cup or Euro Cup now where Italy and Spain are not present? For some reason, this one tournament that did not have its usual teams until it expanded to 16 for the 1996 Euro Cup. The change was needed after UEFA expanded from 33 countries to 47 teams after 1994.
16 teams did double the number of participants but it did not dilute the competition. Unlike the World Cup or the Champions League where more is not better, doubling the number of nations fighting for the Euro Cup was a boost. The big factor that differentiated between the Euro Cup and the World Cup were the group stages. The World Cup now might have one group of death but most of the time, we know which teams will advance from their groups along with the odd surprise such as France and Italy’s elimination from this past World Cup group stage or France and Argentina’s shock elimination back in 2002.
However, most group stages never pack a punch like the Euro Cup. Euro 88 gave us a Germany, Spain and Italy group. Euro 96 gave us a group consisting of France, Spain, Bulgaria and Romania, 3 of which were in the knockout stages of the previous World Cup that France failed to qualify for. Euro 2000 gave us a group consisting of then defending World Cup champions with Holland and Denmark while England was grouped with Germany and Portugal and Romania. Euro 2004 gave us a group consisting of Holland, Germany and Czech Republic while the last edition of Euro 2008 gave us a group consisting of Holland, Italy and France. How often do you get those types of group stages where the previous World Cup finalists are grouped together?
On top of that, how often do you get to see arch rivals such as Holland and Germany, or England and Germany get grouped together? Brazil and Argentina? Only during the World Cup qualifiers and that started this past decade when Conmebol scrapped the two group stages to keep Brazil and Argentina separated. As a fan of the Oranje, getting to see Holland face Germany in the group stages is something to get ready for. Holland’s group this year will pit them once again against Germany and also against Portugal, the side that knocked them out of Euro 2004 and World Cup 2006.
Those group stages are a killer to get out of and if you do advance, you still have other teams that are no pushovers. When France won it all in 2002, they had to defeat Denmark and Euro 96 finalists Czech’s before losing to Holland in the final group stage match. They then had to face Spain, Portugal and Italy to win the Euro Cup for the second time. Spain had to defeat Russia, Sweden and then Greece before having to beat Italy, Russia and Germany for the cup. Denmark’s amazing story in 1992 saw them get invited at the last second to replace Yugoslavia and they survived a group that featured England, France and Sweden before defeating Holland and Germany.
As much as we all love the World Cup for what it is, it does not generate that much excitement till the final group stage match or the knockout rounds. It is diluted with teams that some would consider minnows that are out of their league. Even then, sometimes the knocks out stages fail to deliver us big games. Looking back at the 2002 World Cup, Germany made it all the way to the final without defeating a single European country. They tied with Ireland in the group stage and defeated Saudi Arabia and Cameroon before knocking out Paraguay, USA and South Korea before falling to Brazil in the final. Heck, even Brazil made it to the final by playing Turkey twice, Costa Rica, China, Wilmots’s inspired Belgium, and England. France did have its work cut out for it in 2006 when they had to go through Spain, Brazil and Portugal while Italy had to go through Ghana, USA, Czech Republic, Australia, Ukraine, and Germany before defeating the French.
I know the World Cup is no easy task and I expect some rebuttals in that if the Euro Cup is harder to win than the World Cup, then how come Denmark, Holland and Greece never won the World Cup. That’s not the point. Comparing the two tournaments in terms of level of difficulty is what I’m getting at. We will never see a World Cup group stage with Germany and Holland or Spain with Brazil, or Italy with Argentina as often as we would like. World Cup keeps its mega powers away from each other whereas the Euro Cup didn’t care. Can you recall the last time Germany was eliminated from a World Cup group? I recall Germany crashing out in 2000 and 2004. Prior to World Cup 2010, you had to go back to World Cup 1974 to see Italy crash out of a World Cup group stage while it happened to them twice in recent tournaments, Euro 96 and Euro 2004. Will we ever see a country win the World Cup playing a group with Holland and Italy before taking on the likes of Spain, Germany, Brazil and Argentina in the knock out stages? I highly doubt it. That’s the type of strength that the Euro Cup provides us with.
This summer, we are going to see England and France meet again like they in 2004. Holland and Germany meet again after recently being grouped together in Euro 2004 and also back in Euro 92. Sadly, this will probably be the last time we will get to enjoy a tournament with such group stages. Euro 2016 will see the teams expand from 16 to 24. This will lead to the introduction of two additional groups which will spread out the big teams and thus lessen the chances of seeing the same sort of groups we are accustomed to seeing. However, why mess with a good thing? 16 teams were more than enough and in a time where we are complaining of too many matches for players for both club and country, how does expanding lessen that dilemma?
So sit back and enjoy this great tournament one final time. The next one might be only exciting when it comes to the final group stage or the knock out stages, which is what we have right now with the World Cup and to a lesser extent, the Champions League. Here’s to the last toughest international football tournament.
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