Are international tournaments too big?

**DangerousSausage** · June 26, 2015

I came across this article (and an interesting discussion below it) on the WSC website yesterday.

http://www.wsc.co.uk/wsc-daily/1197-june-2015/12576-smaller-euros-and-world-cup-would-save-international-football

Next year, 24 teams will take part in the European Championships. There is even talk of expanding the World Cup from a just-about-OK 32 to a ludicrous 48. The author reckons that the World Cup and European Championships are becoming increasing bloated in the search for ever more money, and that a smaller field would result in better quality and fewer boring group matches. He has a point. However, you also need to give enough countries a realistic chance of taking part. An 8-team EC would mean Wales and Scotland could more or less kiss goodbye to any chance of taking part.

Personally I found 16 teams for the Euros OK, but 24 won't work as it'll take two weeks to eliminate 8 teams, generating a lot of pointless matches. As I can never see UEFA members agreeing to whittle down the numbers again, I would suggest this: a 32-team, pure knockout tournament. The first round is carried out in a home/away format immediately before the tournament "proper", when the remaining 16 teams go to the host nation and the round of 16, quarter-finals, semi-finals and final are played. The last 16 teams automatically qualify for the next tournament, making qualifying a shorter affair yet still giving the likes of Luxembourg the chance to play a major team. Apart from completely eliminating "dead rubbers", this would give smaller nations a real shot at glory and make it easier to host by cutting down the number of matches from 31 for the previous format (God knows what for 24 teams) to a more manageable 15, meaning that the whole thing could be held at just 4 stadia.

What do you all think?