European Internationals New Structure

Oct 10, 2016 12:27:33 GMT @bambergasgroin said:

Good luck with that.

We have the World Cup and Euros where everyone has a chance to qualify, the finals are prestigious events due to the rarity of matches between top nations.

Also, as long as over 80,000 people pay to watch Rooney stink the house out yet again against Malta and many millions tune in to see a non-event, nothing will change.

I agree that the debate is currently academic - but I could envisage a situation where the on-pitch product deteriorated to such an extent that ratings and attendances do fall.  We're not there yet but I think there's a noticeable lack of interest in international among younger generations of fans particularly.  Certainly the idea that International football represents the pinnacle has long gone and, increasingly, the perception increasingly seems to be that international breaks are tedious interruptions to the real football circus.  If the trend continues in that direction you could see a mini-crisis for international football somewhere in the not too distant future, particularly if clubs and top leagues start to really assert their power and squeeze it further.

The rarity argument is a fair one but I think it is trumped by the competitiveness argument.  Ie. I'd rather watch international football that was consistently competitive than have 90% of it being largely meaningless and 10% absolutely critical.  I have no interest in watching England v Malta but not only would I be interested in England vs France/Germany/Italy etc on a consistent basis but I'd also be much more interested in the games that didn't involve England if they were more competitive.  I don't think that would endanger or dilute the rarity of international tournaments because of the unique context of those events.

Oct 10, 2016 18:59:02 GMT @bambergasgroin said:

Oct 10, 2016 16:15:31 GMT Bridgeman said:

I understand the principle of what you are suggesting but even a regular competition could start to become meaningless eventually, look at the old Home Nations competitions, it was only the games against England that interested anybody and the Scots fans normally used it to reinact Braveheart, it got tedious and boring.

Exactly.

After a few years Irish would be back complaining that all we ever see is England / France / Germany / Italy / Brazil / Holland and wouldn't it be great to give the small guy a day in the limelight, let's invite Iceland to Wembley, sure, we'll beat them 10-0, but we need a change from the same old fixtures

Well that would be a potential problem which is why I think you'd have to turn over the top group of nations more regularly.  10/12 teams with 4 dropping out each time would do that I think - so I'm not convinced it would go stale.  The cycle of international football teams means you'd get a lot more turnover than you do in say the Champions League where top clubs in most countries are basically guaranteed entry every year.  So I'd argue the reverse is true. In fact the main reason I think there's not a cat in hell's chance of something like this actually happening is because of the high likelihood of big countries regularly dropping out of that group damaging revenue, TV exposure etc.

I actually think this system would give the 'small guy' far more of a day in the limelight than they currently get.  For example, under this system when you get a 'golden generation' they would spend a few years playing against the best teams week in week out and you can raise yourself into that top group of seed quickly unlike now where it takes a couple of qualification cycles and by the time you get yourself in a position of seeded advantage in the qualification stage the core of the side is probably past it.

I'd argue that the current system is pretty tedious and, possibly more importantly, doesn't really develop the quality of international football very well.  If teams play most of their games against sides they are mismatched against (one way or the other) it doesn't really prepare them to play games when evenly matched.  More often than not I think that produces underwhelming games between dysfunctional undercooked sides that just haven't played enough competitive football together.

Oct 10, 2016 20:01:36 GMT @bambergasgroin said:

Oct 10, 2016 19:25:35 GMT irishrover said:

Well that would be a potential problem which is why I think you'd have to turn over the top group of nations more regularly.  10/12 teams with 4 dropping out each time would do that I think - so I'm not convinced it would go stale.  The cycle of international football teams means you'd get a lot more turnover than you do in say the Champions League where top clubs in most countries are basically guaranteed entry every year.  So I'd argue the reverse is true. In fact the main reason I think there's not a cat in hell's chance of something like this actually happening is because of the high likelihood of big countries regularly dropping out of that group damaging revenue, TV exposure etc.

I actually think this system would give the 'small guy' far more of a day in the limelight than they currently get.  For example, under this system when you get a 'golden generation' they would spend a few years playing against the best teams week in week out and you can raise yourself into that top group of seed quickly unlike now where it takes a couple of qualification cycles and by the time you get yourself in a position of seeded advantage in the qualification stage the core of the side is probably past it.

I'd argue that the current system is pretty tedious and, possibly more importantly, doesn't really develop the quality of international football very well.  If teams play most of their games against sides they are mismatched against (one way or the other) it doesn't really prepare them to play games when evenly matched.  More often than not I think that produces underwhelming games between dysfunctional undercooked sides that just haven't played enough competitive football together.

So, a Supergroup of 8, with 4 from probably a pool of the same 8 'yoyoing' in and out of the group.

Sounds brilliant.

Or,

How about a major event every 2 years, one across the whole of Europe (and a bit beyond) the other global, everybody gets a crack at it, sure there are some tedious non-events in qualification, but when the finals come around you get 24 teams there, all on the biggest stage.

I don't think there would be a supergroup of 8 teams - I think international football is sufficiently cyclical that in any given 10 years nearly every major nation would probably drop out at some point especially as European international football has a decent amount of depth.  I think there would be far more churn over time among those group of teams than you get in most national leagues.  But I might be wrong on that.

That seems a lot of somewhat needless tedium to put up with in order to get to that main event.  In South America nearly every round of World Cup qualifiers is a major event in itself - in Europe it's increasingly become a pin that pops the football balloon every month or so (although maybe that's no bad thing in some sense to be fair).  International football will never go away because it has far more capacity to capture the imagination of the casual fan than anything else.  But I definitely feel like it will continue to decline in relevance unless something is done to jazz it up a bit for both fans and players.  I don't see any clear reason why you should be so committed to this current qualification system.  It's not like it's particularly fair (an awful lot rides on luck of the draw) and it's not like it has a grand tradition of producing great and memorable football.  Those sacred major tournaments you mention have been tinkered around with constantly since their conception generally for the better so it seems odd to me that qualification is never looked at.

Oct 18, 2016 22:28:08 GMT @bambergasgroin said:

Oct 18, 2016 22:11:49 GMT irishrover said:

I don't think there would be a supergroup of 8 teams - I think international football is sufficiently cyclical that in any given 10 years nearly every major nation would probably drop out at some point especially as European international football has a decent amount of depth.  I think there would be far more churn over time among those group of teams than you get in most national leagues.  But I might be wrong on that.

That seems a lot of somewhat needless tedium to put up with in order to get to that main event.  In South America nearly every round of World Cup qualifiers is a major event in itself - in Europe it's increasingly become a pin that pops the football balloon every month or so (although maybe that's no bad thing in some sense to be fair).  International football will never go away because it has far more capacity to capture the imagination of the casual fan than anything else.  But I definitely feel like it will continue to decline in relevance unless something is done to jazz it up a bit for both fans and players.  I don't see any clear reason why you should be so committed to this current qualification system.  It's not like it's particularly fair (an awful lot rides on luck of the draw) and it's not like it has a grand tradition of producing great and memorable football.  Those sacred major tournaments you mention have been tinkered around with constantly since their conception generally for the better so it seems odd to me that qualification is never looked at.

OK, pretty busy right now, but when time allows I'll look at who has qualified for the WC finals from Europe since 1970, there will be the odd occasion when England or Holland drop out, but mostly it will be the same old faces, but that's just what I think, I'll check and get back to you ASAP.

You'll get the odd team surfacing and then sinking again without trace, Croatia, Turkey, but that's happening already.

Next WC will have more teams, maybe that will help, doubt it though, but more games means more advertising revenue, so those poor impoverished souls at FIFA can all earn an honest crust.

Oh I'm sure you're right on that one.  8 out of a group 12 being protected just seemed like a reasonable threshold. But it could be 5 out of 8 etc - whatever would be a reasonable set-up so that, while the top nations had a clear advantage they couldn't be certain of keeping that advantage so would be incentivised to compete properly against each other rather than mailing it in which I think happens in 100% of friendlies and about 80% of qualifiers. The cyclical rise and decline of the likes of Croatia, Turkey, (Bulgaria in the 90s etc) would be a good thing and would allow those teams to test their full potential game in-game out. Also, remember the number of qualifiers has risen steadily over the year which masks some variation in performance. I agree that England, Holland, Italy, Germany etc will only slip out of the group of qualification nations once in a blue moon but I think all of those teams have fallen out of a European 'top 8' at some point over the last 15 years. Even Germany had a dodgy patch within recent memory where they needed playoffs to qualify - not enough to keep them out of major tournaments but certainly enough to drop them out of a top 8.

But that's not really the point I'm making.  What I'm saying is that (contrary to the cliché) there are easy games in European international football, there are far too many of them and they create a pretty crap spectacle.  I'm not bothered about different sides qualifying for the World Cup at all-in fact I think that would probably be a bad thing on balance.  I have no desire to see top nations being less likely to qualify in general.  That was a problem for many years with African World Cup qualifying by knock out - you had these great stories where small nations would qualify but that meant their big guns consistently failed to get there which shot the tournament in the foot somewhat. All I want to do is to have a qualification system in which the top teams played each more regularly and had a decent amount riding on those games.  How it's done - I don't really care.  That was just one idea.  I know it's all rubbish and irrelevant but it's born of genuine frustration of not feeling remotely excited about international football anymore.  I'm just thinking that once every 6 weeks or so we split the best players in the world by country which should be interesting and yet the best we can apparently do is endless England v Malta, Germany v Lithuania etc.