Has Euro 2024 ACTUALLY Been The Worst Tournament of All Time?

Euro 2024 is the worst Tournament of all time or at least that's what I keep hearing said on social media the football has been boring the star power sorely lacking the goals few and far between and the entertainment almost entirely absent on the few occasions in which the ball has found the back of the net invariably it has been either an own goal or following a dubious penalty awarded after a v intervention the top score at this tournament is a certain Mr own goals with 10 goals which is three times as many as any other player which surely has to put him in much belated balandor contention there have been more own goals at Euro 2024 than there were in the first 15 editions of the Euros combined meanwhile there have been no fewer than 12 penalties awarded ahead of the final tonight in Berlin the Outlook is so dire that France boss did a deum before his team exit against Spain even had to fill a question from a Swedish journalist about why France's games had been so boring AI de responded by stating that if the Swedish found Francis football to be so boring then they should watch something else but the majority of fans would probably side with the journalist from Sweden in his assessment of France's games France didn't score a single goal themselves from open play in their entire run to the semi-finals only scoring twice in five matches namely a penalty and an own goal with Randall coo moani becoming the first and indeed the only France player to score from open Play throughout their entire Euros campaign in their semifinal defeat against Spain in the buildup to that game day sha wasn't the only one to field questions about the quality or La thereof of France's football despite being widely perceived as having the most talented Squad and team at the tournament Spanish midfielder rodri found himself coming to the unlikely defense of the French in his own pre-match press conference insisting that Spain's upcoming opponents quote aren't boring to me what a ringing endorsement France aren't alone though England's football at this tournament at least prior to the semifinals has been described as and I quote mind-numbingly tedious and enough to make you want to gouge your own eyes out with a rusty spoon Portugal attempted to beat France at their own game by boring them to death in the quarterfinals unsuccessfully might I add they lost on penalties and Italy might as well not have even turned up to this Euros putting up about as much fight against a vastly superior Switzerland team in the round of 16 as they did in the east African campaign so just what on Earth is going on why can't team score goals where have all of the great players gone and has Euro 2024 really been as bad as some people are making out well that's what today's video is all about so sit back relax and join me perhaps for the last time quite literally to Germany for an in-depth look at where the football has got rubbish and Euro 2024 is the worst thing to happen in Germany since the second world war demarle or whether it's just that the wife has left you and she won't let you see the kids anymore I promise you that intro will all make sense soon when contemplating whether Euro 2024 really is a historically terrible tournaments or not we must of course compare it to former tournaments the framing of Euro 2024 if not of recent tournaments as a whole as being uniquely terrible and historical aberration that ought to be bemoaned necessitates the perception either real or imagined that tournaments of old Were Somehow better whether that be the quality of the football the entertainment or indeed both but how do those perceptions stack up to some scrutiny some of the most lionized tournaments especially ones in which England went on good runs like Italian 90 or Euro 96 are remembered as being something very different to what they actually were Italian 90 in particular was a tournament packs full of turgid football and offensive tactics averaging an all-time low of just 2.1 goals per game and actually leading to the introduction of both three rather than two points for a win and the back pass rule both as a means of encour enaging more attacking and entertaining football as bad as some of the games may have been France versus Portugal I don't think Euro 2024 has been so bad that it is likely to result in the rules of the game being radically redrawn as Italian 0 did finalists Argentina scored just five goals all tournament an all-time record low for finalists and across the quarterfinals semi-finals and the final itself they scored a grand of drum roll [Music] please one goal England's much lorded run to the semis which immortalized the likes of Paul gascoin and manager Bobby Robson consisted of just one win within 90 minutes across seven matches and just two goals in their three group games Euro 96 meanwhile which was the first Euros to feature three points for a victory for the reasons already alluded to in reference to Italian 90 wasn't all that much more exciting The Knockouts in particular were among the most tedious and offensive of all time with only nine goals scored across seven matches four of which would decided by penalty shootouts anyone who thinks of or remembers Euro 96 as being some kind of enthralling Zenith of the European championships should probably go back and actually watch the games as I during Co when they were repeated on free toar TV England Drew against Switzerland in a drab game were fortunate to beat Scotland and scored three goals in 11 minutes to turn an edgy game against the Netherlands into a compelling win watching either of those tournaments back not the highlights but the full games is the shest way to disprove the notion that football used to be thrilling to watch and has only recently been bladed by boring games you spend most of them or at least I did waiting for the big name players like gascoin and plat to do something spectacular and outside of quite literally a few moments throughout the entire tournament you are kept waiting oddly enough Steve McManaman who was obviously a fantastic player but is rarely talked about as having been one of the stars of Euro 96 is probably the standout player for England when you watch the full games back but even he is no more impressive than say Bayo saaka at either this Euros or the last that is not a criticism of him by any means sacka has been consistently excellent for England it is just a comment in regard to this Euros in comparison to previous ones that's not to say that nothing has changed or that people are wrong to notice certain changes and not to enjoy or be happy about them they are right in many respects and by that what I mean of course is that I agree with them as we will come on to but before that it is just what worth asking the question why are former tournaments lionized in this way and remembered as something that they most assuredly were not I think that there are a few reasons one of them is that as with so many things in life Nostalgia kicks in and the bad bits all of the turgid and offensive football the ball draws and the lack of goals they get airbrushed from our Collective Consciousness and slowly but surely All That Remains is gaza's volley and dentist chair celebration Shar thumping the ball into the back of the Dutch net and singing It's coming home into the early hours at Street parties it doesn't help or it does help I suppose depending on your perspective there almost no one unless you are a total weirdo like me ever actually goes back and watches the games in full that goes for almost any game instead what we see time and time again replayed so many times in fact that they become practically ingrained in our retinas and more deeply implanted in our minds than the names of our own family members is constant highlight reels and montages highlighting as their name suggests only the best bits of previous tournaments further entrenching the association between tournaments of old and only their best and most entertaining aspects I promise you with enough time the same thing will happen with Euro 2024 if England beats Spain in the final this evening do you honestly think that anyone is going to remember the nil-nil board draw against Slovenia in the group stage if Kane scores the winning goal in the final most likely winning himself the Golden Boot in the process no one will reflect in 10 or 20 years time on the fact that he was quiet for much of the tournament struggled with and played through a severe back injury and that the work calls for him to be dropped for either Ivan Tony or olle Watkins at almost every juncture when Euro 2074 comes around do you really think that the BBC long ago privatized and now owned by the rotting corpse of Rupert Murdoch with 90% of its coverage dedicated to transphobia and claiming that we are all much better off without all of the countries that are now underwater do you really think that the since renamed Britain's burning Corporation in their Montage celebrating 50 years since England's historic run to the euro 2024 final are going to show 50 clips of kieren trippier cutting back inside from left wing back onto his favored right foot and passing the ball to mark gay or JN Stones no of course not they'll show bellingham's overhead kick Trent's winning penalty in the shootout against Switzerland Watkins turning and firing past Bart veran in the Netherlands net and hopefully some kind of highlight from the final and assuming that we are still alive we'll all go I remember that what a great tournament football was far better back in those days before teams were managed solely by artificial intelligence and the goalkeepers were literal robots and and woke or you know something along those lines it's not just a case of football Nostalgia or selective Amnesia but Nostalgia more broadly lots of people yearn for their youth or at least some kind of bygone era or their romanticized idea of it which they impose upon the football of that time Euro 96 was great not just because of gaza's goal against Scotland or the 4-1 win against the Netherlands but because I was young in 1996 fully submerged in brit pop and cool Britannia culture I didn't have any dependence and I spent most of the summer in pubs and beer gardens with a blood alcohol content of 0.25 this isn't me just to be clear I was literally 6 months old during Euro 96 I am channeling my inner 50 something year old man I've also now changed my Facebook profile picture to a photograph of my BMW and started sharing memes on there about how it's illegal to say that you like boobs nowadays if anything I have taken the method acting far more seriously than I needed to for this segment of the video but never question my commitment to this channel in a moment I will address what I think are actually some pretty legitimate criticisms of Euro 2024 and football in 2024 more broadly and why I think it is probably reasonable to say that the 2014 World Cup for example unlike the 1990 World Cup again if you go back and watch the full matches probably actually was more exciting and fun if you like than Euro 2024 but even there I feel a Pang of personal Nostalgia kicking in and an overwhelming sense of Doubt as to my own perception of that tournament I was 18 at the time of the 2014 World Cup I had literally just finished school which you know I was delighted about I went on a lad's holiday to Malia for the start of the tournament followed by about 4 weeks living in Portugal to paint a caricature then I Was Young Wild and Free I didn't have a job I'll be honest that one really does throw a spanner in the works of having fun spoiler alert for any of you who aren't there yet I spent almost the entire summer in the sun with friends having a great time and meeting my now long-term gu friend it was unmistakably the best summer of my life the 2014 World Cup was also unmistakably pretty entertaining there was the Netherlands smashing the favorite Spain 4 One in the group stage the joy of Colombia and Hames Rodriguez the surprise package of Costa Rica and of course Germany's 7-1 annihilation of the host Brazil in the semifinals but it would be remiss and indeed hypocritical of me to pretend like my personal nostalgia for the summer of 2014 and my life events during that tournament didn't color my perspective of it when I think about the 2014 World Cup I don't think of Argentina's fairly drab run to the final the tedium of Group H or even just how useless England truly were it is a blind spot we all have them one of the legitimate criticisms of this Euros I think is that it has lacked a bit of star power football is a team sport of course but into ational football more so than the club game is often defined by its Stars when we think about the 1970 World Cup invariably we think about Pelle 1974 C 1978 KZ 1982 Paulo Rossy 1986 maradon 1990 scalae 94 stov bagio and ramario 1998 Ronaldo and zidan the list goes on and on the biggest star at this year kellyan mbappe took a whack in France's opening game against ustraa in which he broke his nose and was fairly subdued up until France's semi-final defeat against Spain meanwhile a statuesque 39-year-old Cristiano Ronaldo held Portugal back if anything more closely resembling his bronze Recreation at madira airport than the Ronaldo of Euro 2012 or Euro 2016 Harry Kane as already alluded to has been a shadow of his usual self struggling with a back injury and fatigue Robert levandowski missed Poland's opening game and a half the Bundesliga Player of the Year floran vers was subdued and out Shon for much of the tournament the Premier League Player of the Year Phil foden was largely ineffective prior to the semis and there was no dream ending in this tournament for either Tony Crow or Luca Modric that is probably a valid or at least a coherent criticism then but others are not at one point I saw the netherlands' Cody hacko being the tournament's top scorer being used as a stick with which to beat Euro 2024 and cited as evidence of just how far our once beautiful game had fallen aside from the fact that hacko is pretty good that is why Liverpool paid a potential €50 million EUR for him the idea that every other Euros top scorer has been a household name is total fiction Patrick schik was the joint highest scorer at the last euros Alan Zago was tied for the award at Euro 2012 Milan baros won it outright with five goals at Euro 2004 a tournament which was absolutely littered with superstars Sao mosovich was tied for top spot at Euro 2000 and if you want to go even further back than that at only the second ever Euros Euro 64 dejo noac a Defender who only ever won nine caps for Hungary was the joint highest scor in a Euros final incidentally hacko is now joined by the likes of Harry Kane Jamal Masala and Danny Elmo All Tied on three goals at Euro 2024 ahead of the final which is hardly a drop off in class from the plays that I just mentioned and while geriatric Mega stars like Ronaldo and levandowski whose combined age of 74 exceeds the retirement age in every country in the world may not have had the most memorable tournaments a 16-year-old has been one of the Stars of this Euros which is an amazing story if you think about it Georgia beat Portugal and made The Knockouts in their first ever major tournaments a genuinely astonishing achievement which probably isn't being fully appreciated and turkey in their role as self-appointed co-host turning every ground into a cauldron fit for Istanbul made it through to the quarterfinals their second best ever run at the Euros there have been loads of great games narratives and performances at this Euros it is just a question of whether people have absorbed them and how much weight they have given them balanced against the less entertaining and compelling matches which have obviously accommodated them one of the reasons I think why Euro 2024 has been quite so maligned isn't because the standard of football has been poor or it has been a poor spectacle overall but because specific games which live long in the memory have been spectacularly uninteresting England's group games for for example particularly the final one against Slovenia wasn't just a bad game from a neutral point of view it was a joy sucking 90 minutes that you will never get back I mean Group C and group e as a whole were remarkably low on drama and entertainment Portugal's quarterfinal defeat against France featuring two out of the four pre-tournament favorites was a crime against football if not an international War crime no one ought to have been surprised given Roberto Martinez and Didier de chs's approaches to this tournament and what both teams produced during the round of 16 but an eagerly anticipated game like that between two big hitters in The Knockout stage with a big audience they live long in the memory for either good or bad and in this case of course Very Bad the latter stages of tournaments also invariably tend to determine their legacies this same conversation happened during the 2022 World Cup following alleged lack of entertainment in about half of the groups but the final the first 75 to 80 minutes of which it must be said also wasn't very interesting had such a dramatic and climactic ending that that is all that 90% of people will ever associate with that World Cup as a whole well you know that and all of the corpses I suppose still at least David Beckham did well out bit every cloud aex where there is an even more conspicuous lack of star power at this Euro as it must be said is in the dugouts there has been a gradual but certain shift over the last couple of decades where the international game largely for financial reasons but also just due to the less Hands-On nature of the role and Prestige has become secondary in the eyes of many coaches to the club game it used to be the case that the world's best managers wanted to manage their national teams and go to a Euros Copa America or World Cup most of them probably still do deep down but the fact of the matter is that they aren't at the moment whereas at Euro 96 England were managed by Terry venal the Netherlands by Goose hiddink France by AE ja Germany by betti vots and Italy by Aro saki all outstanding managers who could have walked into some of Europe's Most high-profile Club jobs a Euro 2024 the caliber of head coaches has been severely diminished that's not just in terms of their talent or reputation or not even primarily in those terms but in terms of what they bring to the tournament as a whole the likes of venables hidden Kaki were or are very big characters who were often Great Value in press conferences and added to the narrative that surrounded games how many managers can the average football fan even name at this Euros assuming that they haven't watched my excellent video ranking them all on their playing abilities let us alone name what they have added or any memorable moments from them at this tournament continuing on the theme of things that have actually changed it's not just because you're getting old and miserable football has become more tactical methodical and in some senses predictable in recent years the emphasis now unless you are Carlo angelotti in which case you just use Wizardry in great players is almost always on control how can we get it how can we retain it and how can we reduce the amount of Chaos in a game at all times if we are simplifying things we can call this the pep ification of football but he is now just one of a whole raft of managers attempting with varying degrees of success to do the same thing of course reducing chaos is good for Guardiola because his teams tend to have very good players and extremely well-defined roles meaning that all being well in a game with less chaos they will win the vast majority of matches reducing chaos is less good arguably for football fans who let's face it at least when it isn't punishing their own teams love a bit of chaos people aren't wrong to have noticed this shift within football it has been acknowledged and criticized by some of the game's greatest thinkers including very recently Uruguay boss Marcelo Bel Elsa along with the likes of CES fabrigas the Brazilian Ronaldo and of course our old friend Michael Owen B Elsa's most memorable sound bite was the claim that there are becoming quote fewer footballers worth watching this is a sense that a lot of football fans have I have made two videos exploring this topic in the past one a good while ago about the absence of flare players in the modern game compared to 20 years ago when I first got into football and one about the broader question of whether football particularly tactically and from an entertainment perspective really has got worse so I am reluctant to tread upon too much old ground but footballers in arguably have become more robotic it's not just at the senior level that this happens when the stakes become higher for everyone involved forcing players and managers to become more risk averse and conservative it is actually drilled into them now almost from the very beginning as I covered in the second of those two videos that I just mentioned Academy players are coached or over coached if you like into being more risk averse with the efficiency of their play prioritized above almost anything else there is another significant and legitimate reason I think why this euros and indeed the last two Euros as well have felt historically unsatisfying and that is the format itself again I have talked about this in the past most notably in a video about the 2026 World Cup which makes this problem even worse but tournament football has been devalued by the constant pursuit of Greater Revenue the way to generate more revenue is simply to have more teams and play more matches which is why the Euros has gone from being a 16 to a 2014 tournament the problem isn't actually the expansion in of itself even if you could argue that it slightly Waters down the quality of the teams at the Euros but rather as with the World Cup it is the format change which has accompanied it because the overall number of teams no longer allows for two teams to progress from each group of four we end up in the ludicrous situation where the third place team from four out of the six groups still progress a Euro 2016 Portugal progressed from their group in third despite failing to win a single group game and went on to win the Euros meanwhile Slovenia made it through to The Knockout stage of this Euros again without winning a single game look it's just rubbish tournament football is supposed to be all about Jeopardy in a two- team progression system rather than three the likes of France the Netherlands and even England would have gone into their final group games with a real risk of getting knocked out of course from an English perspective I wouldn't want England to be knocked out but clearly that degree of Jeopardy of it all still being to play for makes for a better spectacle and a more entertaining group stage what we actually get under the the current format is a situation where the top teams know that they can muddle through to The Knockout stage without doing all that much during the group stages instead conserving their energy and attempting to turn on the sty when it really matters if you ask many of the players themselves at Euro 2024 they'll tell you that if there has been a reduction in quality or entertainment it has less to do with the tactics the tournaments format or even some of the terrible pitches here in Germany most notably in Frankfurt and more to do with tiredness and the sheer amount of football that they've played again this is hardly a new criticism and it's another one that I have explored in depth in a video dedicated solely to it but Euro 20124 unlike the 2022 World Cup which was of course played during the winter comes at the end of a long hard season when we talk about the lack of star power it's not just that there are fewer individual superstars in the mod game although there are it's also that those star players like Kane levandowski and mbappe are either exhausted playing through knocks niggles and injuries or both of the above footballers could play a 100 games a season they could play a game every single day if you made them but don't expect the quality of their football their mental and physical agility or their athleticism not to Wayne and therefore the quality and entertainment of the football not to be watered down the idea that we are seeing anything like the best from the best players at Euro 2024 is obviously absurd and until people confront the problem of too much football fatigue and saturation even on the part of the viewer at this stage that will continue to be a problem in actual fact what we are getting is a push in the direct opposite direction towards more games more football and more saturation with all of that being said I don't actually think that Euro 2024 has been that bad it certainly hasn't been uniquely bad as I said euro 96 was many orders of magnitude worse by almost any metric other than maybe the weather and I actually think Euro 2024 has probably been the best Euros in terms of entertainment at least since Euro 2012 that is not to dismiss all of the criticisms of it and modern football as a whole many of which are valid it's just that to some degree for a lot of people it's not the football that's changed it's them maybe the 1998 World Cup was more enjoyable because it predated pep and the positional rigidity of many teams the Tactical ubiquity and the slow buildup play or maybe it was just because I didn't have any kids yet I was three stone later and women still found me sexually attractive acve again I am channeling my inner 50s something year old man just so that we're absolutely clear I don't have kids I've lost about a stone living in Germany during this euros and I am still I think we can all agree profoundly sexually attractive and if there is nothing else that you take from this video on the cusp of the Euro 2024 final then let it be that that is it for today's video but thank you all very much as ever for watching hit the like button if you enjoyed it obviously I hope that was the case let me know your thoughts Down Below in the comments and of course it goes without saying make sure that you are subscribed and have notifications turned on not just for this Channel hitc 7s but also my second Channel Alfie poot Sama both of which should be about to appear on your screens now along with a couple of videos that you might enjoy watching after this one you can also find me on Twitter Instagram or threads via the username at HCC 7s on all three should you wish to do so and all of those links that I just mentioned plus a whole lot more should be down in the video description below cheers

Channel: HITC Sevens

Views: 30,608

Keywords: HITC Sevens, Football, Soccer, Euros, Euro 2024, Worst, Tournament, UEFA Euro 2024, UEFA, All Time, England, Spain, Final, France, Germany, Netherlands, World Cup, FIFA World Cup, Boring, Goals, Debate

Id: wfeBLEiMU2M

Length: 29min 35sec (1775 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 14 2024