Remember it clearly as they knocked us out -Croatia. We topped a difficult group which consisted of a good Spanish team then got done in the knockout by a turgid playing Portugal in extra time. Agree the increased number of teams has diluted not just the quality but the integrity of the competition.
UEFA and FIFA should be praised for opening up competitions to more teams, so that more countries get a chance to compete and win. Compare that to the ESL, which aimed to turn the European Cup into a closed shop. The Euros this year will be a great experience for the nations of Finland and Macedonia, as it's all new to them. Greece went from bottom of the qualifying table who never won a tournament game, to EC winners in 10 years. While Croatia reached the semi finals in their first World Cup. I don't think they criticised the decision to increase the tournament that year. 4 years later, Turkey and South Korea were semi finalists. Australia would never qualify before, now they are one of the first qualifiers for every WC. Everyone has to start somewhere.
In the Euros now, every group game has something on it. Before the last expansion, the same countries qualified every time. There were a lot of dead rubbers in the last group game. Now even if you draw/lose your first 2, you can still get a third spot and a possible qualification spot in your last game. Sure, not every game will be a classic, but that's the case in any tournament. But it's definitely better to be one of the later groups to finish, as you know where you stand and who your next round opponent is, sooner than those in the earlier groups, where you could be waiting around up to 3 days after your last game to find out who and where you'll be playing, or if you'll be playing in the second round at all.
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