Probably . . .

[Nowhereman]

. . . the worst international tournament ever

[Ro Sham Bo]

Definitely.

[YassinMoutaouakil]

South Africa 2010 and Euro 2012 were both far worse.

[doulikefish]

Same thread will appear for the next tourney

[Ira Gaines]

2 hours ago, YassinMoutaouakil said:

South Africa 2010 and Euro 2012 were both far worse.

Far worse? Behave.

[sergie's no1 fan]

On the pitch there wasn't much to shout about lets be honest.

The scenes off the pitch though makes it better than WC 2010. The atmosphere in most games has been electric, the Iceland fans stole the show with the war chant and England fans took a pasting.

 

[Jambomo]

I might be the only one but I actually have really enjoyed it [emoji1]

Sure some of the games were a bit rubbish and sometimes the standard was poor (from both the bigger and smaller countries) but many of the games were quite exciting and overall I think that there were more interesting games than not.

I think that the smaller nations added a bit of interest as well, we weren't just seeing the usual suspects.

I wanted the French to win but on the night I think Portugal deserved it. They also deserve it for that fantastic game against Hungary in the group stage.

[Ro Sham Bo]

I can't recall more than 3 or 4 games that could be classed as entertaining. The general quality was very poor hence the likes of Iceland got to the last eight and Wales to the last four. There were very few standout players to the point that it would be a struggle to even name a credible team of the tournament.
The 24 team format needs to be ditched. An 8 team two legged knock out tournament would be much better. Quality over quantity.

[Hertha/BJFC1938]

It was a terrible tournament , safety first football with most teams playing with the exact same pass it to death style , back to the goalies non stop rather than trying a through pass or anything slightly more daring . 

Cant even think of a player of the tournament which is highly unusual , a snore fest for me and when you start a tournament with 24 teams and the majority of 16 teams qualify into the next round then it's seriously flawed. 

 

Classic case of quantity over quality and it needs to revert back to 16 teams and 2 from each section qualifying. 

At one stage it was so boring with the pass it to death routine that I was screaming for one team to come out like the old Wimbledon and get it launched up nice and early and into the mix just for that little something different - maybe Iceland were that team who did play in a slightly different style but personally im getting bored with the Spanish style of passing it to death sideways and back the way non stop and loads of teams are copying it, nobody is willing to beat a man anymore at all.  

Not saying I'm wanting to see every team play hoof ball and far from it but sometimes various styles can make football more interesting to watch. 

[Officer Barbrady]

Definitely the least-inspiring tournament i've witnessed. It was always going to fall short, when approximately 44.5% of members qualified for it. The advent of the NL may provide a more long-term standard at which teams have to adapt to perform or die, but then again, ultimately over a 14 month period, a lot of very poor, but motivated and organised teams were able to eliminate much stronger opponents.

 

It's not the format that needs changed. The game does. Football, currently is shite. Every fucking team, bar the Welsh, Italians and occasionally Portugal, line up with theeee most boring, placid, rubber-stamped format. No teams seem to come up with any idea, or plan, which forces anyone else to change their strategy mid-match. It's obvious enough it's done with safety in numbers, but naturally only some will be genuinely good at executing it....the rest are simply bluffing it. 

 

I was delighted when it appeared that the brain-numbing tedium of 4-4-2, and the idiotic theologies that went with it, had finally died. 4-2-3-1 temporarily restored the touchline-hugging winger, but alas unless he can shield his opposite number oot the road to allow an inferior footballer (who's probably failed in three or four positions already) a few seconds of space, even he is finished these days. 

 

You could go back to the times when they increased the Euros originally, and at Euro 96 a whole host of different styles and lineups made the competition interesting not just for us but for the actual teams....the German's 5-3-2 with Sammer sweeping like f**k, England shifting from 4-4-2 to 3-5-2 with flying wingers, the Dutch 3-3-1-3, Spain's sterile 4-5-1 (should have beat England) and Croatia's freewheeling newbies. The game's fucked. 

[Monkey Tennis]

Quite simply, a dreadful tournament from beginning to end.

The format of it didn't help, but wasn't the whole story.  

Attacking play was on the whole, of a really poor standard.

[Skyline Drifter]

I didn't think it was that bad. I thought the early group games were an improvement on many a tournament. However I would concede the third round of fixtures wasn't at all helped by the route through for so many sides and the knock out stages contained barely a game of any quality.

Certainly wouldn't put it in worst tournament ever categories though.

[s_dog]

22 minutes ago, Monkey Tennis said:

Quite simply, a dreadful tournament from beginning to end.

The format of it didn't help, but wasn't the whole story.  

Attacking play was on the whole, of a really poor standard.

Spot on. Some of the top teams were pretty dismal to watch, at best one fairly good game the rest pretty turgid. Belgium, Spain, England and Portugal all spring to mind. Blaming in on the increased number of teams ignores the fact that a lot of football these days is somewhat uninspiring.

[Officer Barbrady]

1 hour ago, Monkey Tennis said:

Quite simply, a dreadful tournament from beginning to end.

The format of it didn't help, but wasn't the whole story.  

Attacking play was on the whole, of a really poor standard.

Not just the attacking play, the defensive and build-up play were also absolutely rubbish. I can more than tolerate an excellently organised defence withstanding wave after wave of attack, and even specialist teams using it (ala Milan 90s) against opponents who they catch on the break are of immense value to the game. 

 

Anyone blaming the format for the poor quality are missing the point. Had it been a 16 team event, the four teams oft cited as the 'diddy teams (Wales, NI, Iceland and Albania) would still have made the finals before Holland, Denmark, Sweden, the South of Ireland and many others. 

 

The wee teams did what wee teams do....it's the big teams, with the better players who have allowed the standard to drop so dramatically. 

[Monkey Tennis]

48 minutes ago, Officer Barbrady said:

Not just the attacking play, the defensive and build-up play were also absolutely rubbish. I can more than tolerate an excellently organised defence withstanding wave after wave of attack, and even specialist teams using it (ala Milan 90s) against opponents who they catch on the break are of immense value to the game. 

 

Anyone blaming the format for the poor quality are missing the point. Had it been a 16 team event, the four teams oft cited as the 'diddy teams (Wales, NI, Iceland and Albania) would still have made the finals before Holland, Denmark, Sweden, the South of Ireland and many others. 

 

The wee teams did what wee teams do....it's the big teams, with the better players who have allowed the standard to drop so dramatically. 

I agree with the general gist of what you're saying, but feel that your middle paragraph also misses the point a fair bit.  

The expanded format didn't just admit more teams; it also necessitated a structure that eliminated only a third of those teams after thirty six games.  This meant that most of the sides who came third of four, got through.  The incentive to attack and actually win games was therefore much reduced.

The eventual champions prove that winning group games was not necessary.

[Officer Barbrady]

Completely agree, but it's not something that needed this year's event to confirm it. Italy in 82 and 94, Belgium in 86 and Argentina in 90 are testament to the flaws in the format every bit as much as Portugal this time, despite their being the only  winner from third spot, the Italians of course not winning a first round match in 1982.

 

Had we Denmark, Netherlands or Serbia (based purely on the players they have available) instead of Albania, Iceland or Hungary (direct opponents in qualifying iirc) we'd more than likely have had a higher standard of player, and perhaps with that, better performances.

 

Unfortunately football is absolutely festooned with negative b*****ds who can't see the wood for the trees. If the better sides had qualified, and we found ourselves with two or three heavyweights in the same group, why the hell wouldn't you try to inflict a group-stage blow on what could be a major rival later on, by fucking hammering them? 

 

All subjective, of course. Most teams know their limitations, but for me personally Cruyff made a brilliant remark once about wanting Argentina, Brazil and Germany in the opening group so that two of the favourites would be out of his way nice and early. Idealistic, yet blindingly positive.