Euro Nation's Cup Joke

The entire population of the Most Serene Republic of San Marino (29,000) could fit in most any German football stadium with room to spare. They clearly do not belong in this competition.

 

Let them have their day in the sun, even if they get burned.

 

Hey, San Marino has a guy in Serie C, they're legit!

Seriously though, coutries like this probably do make a ton of money on hosting these matches, so I'm sure they'd be happy to continue being a part of it.

 

I am against booting any teams out of this competition. Perhaps the qualifiying can go through some changes, but every country deserves a chance to qualify. Even if 13-0 matches take place, I feel it is only fair these countries be given a chance.

 

I think that the only way to eleviate the problem is to have the smaller country's play first and then the winner gets the challenge of England, Italy, France and the big bucks.

Plain and simple. There are so many International matches that it is really causing a strain on club football. IMO.

 

I like the idea of preliminary rounds. Perhaps the way the UEFA Cup is played and such. Three rounds of prelims followed by a smaller group stage with winners from the groups advancing to Euro 2008, etc. Nice idea!

 

UEFA could easily use the same coefficients used to judge how many CL/UEFA Cup entries each FA gets to determine pre-qualifiers. However, there are really only a small handful of countries with no chance of winning anything. I'm not sure if making only 5 teams (out of 40 some) go through an extra stage is really necessary.

 

There will still be a problem though as club leagues around Europe will still have to have "International breaks" even for the small countries. Therefore I am sure the larger countries will still use these breaks for friendlies and such. Thus, the idea that UEFA creating a new format will help cut back on international matches is not entirely true. Something does need to be done though on this front.

 

Certainly all of the lower/mid-table clubs are only going to be hurt by this practice. The Reds, Blues, etc. of the worlds have deep enough squads to take the toll, but one would think they would want to make the table as fair as possible.

Do the teams get any money from feeding their player up to the national teams?

 

I love the fact that every country gets their shot. I just read that in the Farroe Islands first ever game they beat Austria on the road! That kind of thing is awesome to me.

On a similar note the September Four-Four-Two has a little story about the VIVAworld cup, a tournament in France which stars nations that aren't recognized by the international community. Teams participating are Sampi, Monaco, Tibet, Western Sahara, Kosova, Greenland, Occitania, Chagos(population 2,000)