Defence To Dominate Euro 2016

The prevailing theme of the European Championship’s history is its constant expansion. For the first 20 years, just four countries competed at each Euros, doubling to eight in 1980, 16 in 1996 and now, for the first time, 24 at Euro 2016. There will doubtless be a couple of memorable stories made this summer by outsiders, but overall the latest expansion is likely to encourage defensive football, and might make the group stage somewhat underwhelming.

Admitting eight extra countries has, by and large, made the tournament lineup more defensive. Underdogs realise they’re unlikely to punch above their weight by playing free-flowing, attack-minded football; the fewer the goals, the more likely they are to cause a shock. Open matches favour better sides. Deep defending and counter-attacking will be the general approach for the tournament’s outsiders, possibly inspired by Leicester City’s incredible Premier League triumph.

Group A sides Albania and Romania, for example, are both overwhelmingly defensive. Albania didn’t concede a single goal on their travels during qualification, with manager Gianni de Biasi concentrating heavily upon keeping his side compact. The lack of attacking quality is incredible for a side competing at a major tournament, and Albania managed just seven goals in qualification, including five against Armenia. They’re a decent team, yet it would nevertheless be unsurprising if they failed to register a single goal.

Romania, meanwhile, scored just 11 times in qualification but kept eight clean sheets. Three consecutive goalless draws midway through the campaign summarises the story, but you can’t blame veteran coach Anghel Iordanescu for focusing upon defence considering his lack of attacking firepower. These two sides compete in the opening two fixtures against Switzerland and France, respectively, and could set the tone for a rather flat opening fortnight.

In fact, most groups feature a couple of overwhelmingly defensive sides. Russia and Wales in Group B will sit back and counter-attack, as will Ukraine and Northern Ireland in Group C. Groups D and E look more appealing, but Iceland and Hungary won’t entertain much in Group F.

Are there any genuinely attack-minded minnows? Austria are good at transitions and build play from the back neatly, but as the tournament’s ninth-favourites are hardly true outsiders. Other teams that play open, technical and sometimes high-tempo football, like the Czech Republic and Turkey, Group D rivals, are handicapped by the lack of a genuinely dangerous centre-forward.

Indeed, this is a problem among stronger sides, too. Spain and Germany have wonderful midfields but no reliable source of goals, meaning both teams could end up deploying a false nine instead, in the form of Cesc Fabregas and Mario Gotze respectively. There’s nothing wrong with that in itself, but there’s little point concentrating on overloading midfield against teams that don’t care about possession, who are determinedly sitting back. Olivier Giroud isn’t loved by the French public and is hardly prolific, but his back-to-goal style might be crucial in encouraging onrushing midfielders into attack.

Portugal have long lacked a quality centre-forward, but Italy’s absence of attacking talent is quite startling. Arguably only England, of the top nations, are in good shape up front thanks to Harry Kane and Jamie Vardy’s emergence, but their lack of experience outside the Premier League means they can hardly be considered world-beaters just yet.

Croatia might provide some magic thanks to the combination of Luka Modric and Ivan Rakitic in midfield, while Mario Mandzukic is capable of holding up the ball. Poland’s Robert Lewandowski does something similar, although Poland’s lack of genuine midfield creativity is problematic. In all, there probably isn’t a single side in this tournament possessing both a top-class midfield and a great centre-forward.

Nevertheless, the defensiveness will come primarily from the weaker sides, and the format of the 16-team tournament is one of the major problems. Four of the six best third-placed sides will qualify for the knockout round. This means, in all probability, that a couple of teams will qualify for the knockout stages despite not having won, or with a negative goal difference. Three points, from three draws or perhaps one victory and two defeats, will probably be enough. Even two points might do it. Either way, it’s likely to be decided upon goal difference. This is a problem.

Because we’re dealing with teams who have effectively finished in the bottom half of their groups, this will be about which side has the “least worst” goal difference. For example, a team who has a negative-one goal difference will qualify at the expense of a third-placed side with a negative-three goal difference.

That means the objective for, say, Romania against France in the opening game should be, more than anything else, ensuring they’re not thrashed. A 1-0 defeat wouldn’t be disastrous, but a 3-0 would be, so defensive football makes sense, even if it’s simply about keeping the score down. And if Romania fall behind, will they go chasing the game? Probably not. A scoreless draw, of course, would be a fine result for the Romanians, even more so than usual.

Even the basic nature of the group stage — 36 group games, simply to cut 24 teams down to the 16 we’re accustomed to at European Championship — means the opening fortnight might be somewhat arduous for viewers, essentially an extended qualifying process. The knockout stage should, as ever, provide fantastic entertainment. The main outcome of the 24-team tournament, however, means that we’ll simply have to wait longer for proper entertainment.