I know it's real early to be talking about this, but the draw takes place for qualifying in a few weeks, and there's an interesting twist this time round, which I think makes excellent sense: http://www.espn.co.uk/football/sport/story/276667.html?CMP=OTC-RSS In the above link, it explains that France, as ther host nation and therefore already one of the finalists, will also be part of the qualification process - but only as friendlies. The draw will put the fifty-three (yes, fifty-three) other nations into eight groups of six and one group of five. France then get added to that group, so that they play semi-competitive games alongside the rest of Europe for two years. The home and away games against France don't count towards qualification points, but could be interesting if they perform badly against other fancied teams in the run up to the competition proper. Got to mention the number of nations again though - FIFTY THREE! Didn't think there were that many myself.... Bosnia-Herzegovina, England, Germany, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Republic of Ireland, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, Austria, Israel, Montenegro, Norway, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Turkey, Armenia, Belarus, Bulgaria, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Poland, Scotland, Wales, Albania, Azerbaijan, Cyprus, Georgia, Iceland, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Northern Ireland, Andorra, Faroe Islands, Gibraltar, Kazakhstan, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, San Marino.
What a joke! Reminds me of the cricket world cup, where you don't get to the REAL games till the quarters. They've made a right dog's dinner of this imo.
Think they should have 3 divisions and 3 euro competitions, give minnows a chance to win something and get promotion to a higher division, so take top 16 countries in Div 1 and so on. Good for everyone
They should certainly have a qualifying competition for the Micky Mouse countries so that it would eventually leave the Top 40 countries in eight groups of five with only the strongest of the minnows getting through. The San Marinos and Andorras are a joke and shouldn't be playing the bigger countries crowding the fixture lists. Mind you Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have struggled against rubbish in the past, perhaps they'd end up in the qualifiers as well before long...
