British Expatriate Network

Isn't it time we had a two-tier qualifying stage for the Euros and World Cup?

Looking back in my 1980 and 1982 Panini books I remembered most qualifying groups were just 6 or 8 games. Now we are playing 12. All that is jammed in a gap between the summer of the previous tournament, and the following November. Next autumn most teams will be playing two games in September, October and November.

And Blatter wants the club leagues to reduce the number of games due to burnout! Start in your own house, pal.

We have seven groups of seven (or something around that) this time round. Surely that can be reduced to five teams per group by pre-qualifying. The teams that have to pre-qualify can start in July or August as they will probably not have made the finals that summer. The teams that are seeded into the main rounds can either start their known games in September or just ramp up with some friendlies.

Personally I would go with 5 teams per group, of which 1 is a qualifier. So 28 teams get seeded through, and 21 teams have to play in 7 groups of 3, the winner going into the round proper. Once the 14 teams have failed to qualify they can enter their own little system of maybe 3 groups of 4/5 playing round robin so they can stay in match fitness.

How about we all just play each team once in a round robin style? In a similar way to the 6 nations rugby.

For a moment there I thought you meant every team.

Sounds like a good idea, but in tight groups (like the one with both World Cup finalists in) can you imagine the stink when the Italians don't get to play the French at home, or vice versa?

In the 6 nations everyone rotates. You can't do that in the qualifiers because it's different every 2 years. At least it is random. Don't tell the Scots and the Faroes it's different every time.

What about the stink when they do get to play them? Garlic, onions, cheese..... :wink: