Faulty Euro 2016 format could foster glorious chaos

On Saturday in Paris, at the draw for the Euro 2016 finals, UEFA will go through a new and somewhat convoluted process all to arrive at an older and much cleaner situation.

[STORY: Euro 2016 finals draw and seedings: All you need to know]

[LIVE: Follow the Euro 2016 draw with us on Saturday from 4pm]

They will lay the foundations for a tournament that will spend 60% of its matches eliminating just 33% of the field, and getting the 24 qualifiers down to 16 - exactly the number of entries for the last few tournaments, which were so symmetrically perfect. That, it would seem, will be when the real business begins in this newly expanded European Championship.

Whatever about the merits of a reshaped qualification process and the positive effects on football within the countries who make it, it’s still so hard to believe this is the best format.

Nor will it alter the reality of the challenge, that this draw is still ultimately about avoiding by far the three best teams: hosts France, world champions Germany and defending champions Spain.

Those are the countries to have invested the most into their youth infrastructure over the past two decades, so it is no coincidence that they still seem so far ahead of the rest in terms of strength in depth and style - Spain’s 2014 debacle notwithstanding.

In that regard, we’re still in an era of a rather pronounced split in international football. The 1999-2000 Champions League expansion initiated the rise and total dominance of the club game, to the point that competition became the peak of the sport. The time the top clubs spend together means they can develop a cohesion and level of performance almost light years beyond international sides. A further consequence of that, then, is that many countries are more loose collections of stars rather than true teams.

Very few international sides have found a way to bridge this, other than truly special managers - who will tend to gravitate to club football anyway - or youth infrastructures that foster an inherent fluency to play.

That is what we have seen at its best with Spain between 2008 and 2012, Germany between 2012 and 2014, and possibly France now.

We may well see it with Belgium too, but they are obviously a smaller nation, and have had the oddity of ill-fitting manager Marc Wilmots actually constraining the approach of so many brilliant creative players.

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The feeling right now is that they will have to produce in spite of their manager, rather than because of him. It also means that, when it comes to the draw, the worst imaginable “groups of death” are going to involve the Spanish, Germans or French. One of those with a trio of Italy, Poland and Turkey would be an immensely tough group.

On the other side, a group involving England or Portugal as well as Switzerland, Hungary and Albania would probably be the most forgiving. One issue with all of this, though, is that the newly installed safety net greatly distorts what is a group of death and what isn’t.

Given that four third-placed teams qualify for the last 16, a group involving three good teams and one relative whipping boy could see all those cruise through by virtue of the fact they’ve all claimed an easy three points. These were common complications at 24-team World Cups in this format from 1986 to 1994. So, an otherwise tantalising match between Robert Lewandowski’s Poland and a vibrant young Austria could suddenly have its stakes significantly lowered because they’ve both eased past Albania.

The flip side to that, however, is that there might be situations where Martin O’Neill’s Ireland desperately need a win in the last group game against Hungary, but also need to keep an eye on Croatia’s fixture with Portugal, all while bettering the goal difference of third-placed Wales in another group. That could lead to some glorious chaos.

One other potential positive of the tournament is that, beyond the top tiers (the elite of France, Spain, Germany and the second level of Belgium, Italy, England, Portugal) there isn’t all that much difference in the level of the sides. That could also make this a pleasingly competitive group stage, even if - like the qualification campaign - we have to accept that the top sides are under no real danger. Then again, look what happened to Netherlands. Who could have imagined that?

Of course, that highlights another positive of the draw itself this weekend: at this point, when the groups are picked, you don’t imagine any sides with problems or lacking form. You imagine them at their best, potentially setting up the best possible tournament.

That can still be hoped for, even if this is not the perfect format.