How would you change European qualifying?

[Dan+]

Another international break passes by and England play out another procession. A fixture they would win 99 times out of 100 is played out and this comes at the expense of a weekend of domestic fixtures.

It's not just England. France, Germany, Spain & Italy all also play out games they simply won't drop points in.

I find the entertainment level to be absolutely minimal. I don't see who is really benefiting from games like today. England don't, Lithuania don't, who exactly benefits?

So, would anyone change the European format? Or do you think it works as it is?

I've not thought about the system I'd implement, and I don't support improving something just for the sake of benefiting the most powerful, but I want to see some competition added to games like this. What exactly has anyone stopped for? A complete routine win for England where everyone watches and thinks oh, that happened then.

I'm not convinced it's any use for countries like Lithuania either.

[Azeem]

Well ever since they expanded the Europeon championship to 24 teams i don't think there can be a good qualification system.If considering the old 16 teams EC format i would have suggested this format for both WC and EC qualification.

Currently there are 54 national associations in UEFA(excluding Kosovo) so this is what i suggest.

40 teams would enter the main qualification and will compete for the places in the summer tournament.

The remaing 24 teams woud be in a second division.They woud not be in the contest for qualification but would rather compete to get promotion to the first division for the next tournament.

Now for the first division 40 teams divide them into 5 groups of 8 teams in each.

The ports would be like something this.

Port 1

Spain,Germany,France,Italy,Holland

Port 2 

England,Portugal,Belgium,Coratia,Switzerland

Port 3 

Ukraine,Poland,Sweden,Russia,Turkey

Port 4 

Czech Republic,Denmark,Ireland,Greece,Bosnia

Port 5

Austria,Serbia,Slovakia,Romania,Wales

Port 6 

Slovenia,Hungary,Norway,Scotland,Bulgaria

Port 7 

Iceland,Nr.Ireland,Albania,Finland,Armenia

Port 8 

Israel,Estonia,Latvia,Macedonia,Montenegro

Consider a group turns out to be like this

Spain

England

Sweden

Greece

Serbia

Scotland

Albania

Estonia

Now for the world cup the top two teams would automaticaly qualify for the world cup from each group thats ten teams decided and the best third place team also qualifies that makes it eleven, the remaining four teams would compete in playoffs for the two spots.

For the Euros top three teams from each group qualify and plus the host to make the 16 teams.

Look at the group is it to easy for England to finish in top two to secure their place at the WC or it will be a challange?

For the 24 teams in second division divide them into four groups of six.

Now five teams that will finish at the bottom of their group in the first division, four of them(excluding the best out of the bottom five) will play against the four group winners of the second division in promotion/relegation playoffs.

Say Malta finished top of their group in the 2016/17 second division qualification and Estonia finished bottom of their group in the first division in the respective season so they would play in playoffs and the winner would enter the Euro 2020 qualification and the loser will be out.

[...Dan]

On 26/03/2017 at 10:34 PM, Dan said:

I find the entertainment level to be absolutely minimal. I don't see who is really benefiting from games like today. England don't, Lithuania don't, who exactly benefits?

Wayne Rooney?

[SirBalon]

In my view there's nothing wrong with the layout in the qualification series at all.  Plenty of big sides haven't qualified for these tournaments in the past and the problem isn't the qualification system but the stupid amount of sides that are now permitted to qualify due to the expansion of both tournaments over time.  The pressure lies in exclusivity and with that comes errors due to tension.  Participating in the finals used to be a prize in itself once upon a time.

[Azeem]

1 hour ago, SirBalon said:

In my view there's nothing wrong with the layout in the qualification series at all.  Plenty of big sides haven't qualified for these tournaments in the past and the problem isn't the qualification system but the stupid amount of sides that are now permitted to qualify due to the expansion of both tournaments over time.  The pressure lies in exclusivity and with that comes errors due to tension.  Participating in the finals used to be a prize in itself once upon a time.

Europe had 13 places at the world cup when it had 24 teams and still holds 13 spots even after expansion to 32 so expansion was irrelevent to europeon qualification for the world cup. Can you tell when a big team missed out beacuse they lost against the likes of Lithuania,Andorra,San Marino etc ? Even when big names like England,Netherlands missed out on recent internationl tournaments they did because of some quality opposition.

Thats what everybody wants only let those team compete who if cannot qualify but atleast can make the qualification difficult for others so there is some entertainment in it. 

[Large]

I'm with @SirBalon on this. I wouldn't want to see changes to qualifying just to make it less tedious for the deemed better teams.

[Azeem]

23 minutes ago, Large said:

I'm with @SirBalon on this. I wouldn't want to see changes to qualifying just to make it less tedious for the deemed better teams.

Its already less tedious for better sides they only have one or two opponents who they need to work hard to beat

[Honey Honey]

22 new countries have been created in Europe since 1992. There lies the problem.

It is easily fixed by forcing everyone in the European Union to play under 1 flag, 1 banner, 1 anthem.

That would take us to about 27 teams, only 5 short of what it was in 1992 so I propose we invite Australia.

Thoughts lads?

[SirBalon]

12 minutes ago, HoneyNUFC said:

22 new countries have been created in Europe since 1992. There lies the problem.

It is easily fixed by forcing everyone in the European Union to play under 1 flag, 1 banner, 1 anthem.

That would take us to about 27 teams, only 5 short of what it was in 1992 so I propose we invite Australia.

Thoughts lads?

Good strike and a very clever one to boot! 

But within your jab at the EU, you have actually answered where the problem has accentuated itself which is the formation of so many countries (some very questionable indeed that aren't even recognised by all the European nations).

@Azeem98 You're right in your answer to my point because the qualification numbers are still the same for the World Cup while I erroneously (although not totally) was thinking more in terms of qualification for the European Championships.

In the advent of the announced expansion for the World Cup by FIFA, are the numbers allocated to Europe (UEFA) still going to be the same?  I don't know because I haven't checked.  Because we could be having Montenegro, Kosovo and all sorts qualifying for that converting the World Cup into what the European Championships have now become...  A tournament where testosterone is eliminated and you defend yourself all the way to the final games.

[Spike]

2 hours ago, HoneyNUFC said:

22 new countries have been created in Europe since 1992. There lies the problem.

It is easily fixed by forcing everyone in the European Union to play under 1 flag, 1 banner, 1 anthem.

That would take us to about 27 teams, only 5 short of what it was in 1992 so I propose we invite Australia.

Thoughts lads?

Future Asian, European, and Eurovision chamos right here folks. 

Actually all commonwealth countries should play under one flag as well. That means England can select elite talent from Jamaica and Canada as well as Wales and Scotland.

[Harry]

Firstly I'd overhaul it to assign 2-4 more WC places to Europe and fewer to Asia, africa and concacaf.

Its not right that a weak team like Australia can qualify fairly easily through Asia when we would be unlikely to beat the likes of scotland and ireland.

The other change would be to have a prequalifying stage or fist qualifying stage where the lowest seeded 16 teams would play off for 4 places... remote the clutter, improve the quality. 

[SirBalon]

5 hours ago, Harry said:

Firstly I'd overhaul it to assign 2-4 more WC places to Europe

You want to assign more places to Europe?

No way mate!  Actually Europe should have a couple taken away so that the "big" nations don't feel so compfortable in their qualifying groups at times.  Definitely awarding more places to Europe so we get fringe countries qualifying isn't good for football.

[Harry]

Mate its more about how average the lower team's in Asia are... if any of the current federation's have scope to add teams its europe and maybe one more for south america.

The teams that just miss out in European qualifying are better than those who scrape in through the other federations. 

[Azeem]

1 hour ago, Harry said:

Mate its more about how average the lower team's in Asia are... if any of the current federation's have scope to add teams its europe and maybe one more for south america.

The teams that just miss out in European qualifying are better than those who scrape in through the other federations. 

That's a necessary evil

[SirBalon]

2 hours ago, Harry said:

The teams that just miss out in European qualifying are better than those who scrape in through the other federations. 

The only reason any of this needs to happen is because of the expansion of both the World Cup and the European Championships for the media's benefit in terms of revenue.  The tournaments were good as they were and all of this is nonsense.

[Harry]

I don't disagree but if its 32 tabs then it should be the 32 best teams. Not the top teams and those in areas we want to grow the sport where we give a free ride to these teams to qualify.