Quote:
Originally Posted by Magnum PEI
So adding 8 weaker teams doesn't water down the tournament? 
The first round of the World Cup has a lot of less than steller matchups, not that it's not interesting, but I don't think I'd watch an Algeria-Slovenia game under any other circumstances. But look at Group C from Euro 08: France, Italy, Netherlands, Romania. You will never see a group like that in the Euro anymore because almost certainly the other two teams will be seated. I do agree that more teams equals more soccer which equals more entertainment, but you can't argue that it isn't watered down. |
Except the 8 teams being added are almost guaranteed to be of elite calibre, at least on par with the likes of Romania. We might not see 3 teams like Italy, France and the Netherlands in the same group, but we will see more games involving top notch teams. It's not like Luxembourg is going to find their way in due to this, we're talking about adding teams like England, Sweden, Czech Rep, Croatia etc. Maybe not teams in the top 10 (although teams ranked that high have missed out on the Euro) but still world class teams. I'd rather see more elite games than less.