Four years on from the last one, two years on from Brazil 2014, I'm happy to report that the European Championships are back - I haven't been able to do a day-by-day rundown of what's happened, since I work and the matches are all broadcast early. One of the unfortunate things about watching a European tournament from the West Coast, I guess.
In any case, here are some thoughts about the tournament so far, with each team having played twice in the group stage:
Too much football
Well, it doesn't really feel that way, because I haven't been watching Copa America, but in another way, it totally feels like there's too much football on to follow. I understand it's the Copa America Centenario, but it's a little unfortunate that they decided to schedule it against the Euros. And yet, it's been entertaining seeing the results from a little closer to home (including a pretty spectacular crash-and-burn from Brazil). Also, a small part of me regrets that the African Cup of Nations isn't also on...
Goals, goals, goals?
So I was trying to decide if there had been a lot of goals scored so far, or if it's been a cagey affair. Because I'm a research analyst, and I'm trained to look at numbers and see what stories they tell, I can now report that there's actually been fewer goals per game than the past two tournaments. Euro 2016 has seen an average 1.96 goals per game, compared with 2.9 at Brazil 2014 and a whopping 3.8 at Euro 2012. There have been two 0-0 draws so far in the group stage, compared with three in 2014 and none at all (!) in 2012.
It FELT like there'd been a decent amount of goals, though, because we didn't start getting scoreless draws until just a couple of days ago, but on the whole, the games have been low-scoring. On Matchday 1 there were only three games won by a margin of more than one goal, and none in which either team scored more than two (or in which the total number of goals in a game was more than 3). As of Matchday 2 there have been a couple of 3-0 games, and a 2-2 draw, balanced out by two 0-0 results.
I haven't seen anyone refer to the number of goals yet, but some comments I've read or heard on podcasts might shed some light on why it's been so low. One issue might be the expanded format - we've gone this year from 16 teams to 24, which entails all kinds of weird permutations to determine who goes through as a third-place finisher. The extra teams means that worse teams are participating - the likes of Hungary, Iceland and Albania have been held up as teams that wouldn't have qualified under the old system. And yet... Hungary shocked everyone by beating Austria 2-0 in their first game, and Iceland have nicked a pair of 1-1 draws, playing entertainingly if not always fluidly.
The existence of third place finishing might have something to do with it too, as it appears to reward playing cagily and not conceding too many goals. And the field is still quite open, as any of the third-place teams as of now could win and go through, while only one team (Ukraine) has been definitely eliminated.
Another possible cause is the dearth of good strikers, apparently. I haven't looked at it systematically, but some of the big powers - Italy, Spain, Germany, France - don't really have any good options up front. The only big team that does have a good strike force is England, with Harry Kane and Jamie Vardy (who incidentally were the first English top-scorers in the Premier League since 1999-2000). Spain and Germany, in fact, have pretty much done away with the need for strikers, though Alvaro Morata did manage to bag two against Turkey this morning. It would be interesting to see if this holds true across all teams, and if so why, but it's Saturday night and I don't know if I have the time to go looking myself. But watch this space!
Thank gosh for streaming
The other noteworthy thing, at least for me, is that this is the first tournament I've watched exclusively on streaming. I did have to nick a Comcast profile off a friend, because my mom's moved away from the Bay Area and I can't use hers, and I also did have to get my home internet upgraded (although that's more because I'm working from home more regularly now).
In 2014 I managed to watch a lot of the games for free on through Univision's website, but they've wised up, and anyway aren't showing the tournament themselves - slightly less interest if the Copa America's on, I suppose. But it's interesting that with some strategically deployed technology and cannily downloaded apps, I can stream games to my TV and watch as normal - or log into my phone or laptop and watch them there.
Thinking back, four years ago, in England, it doesn't even seem like it would have been an option, or at least not for all matches. Even further back, in 2002, I remember having to slip unnoticed to a colleague's desk to watch Italy get knocked out on a portable TV - now I can just sign into whatever device I want and watch there. It's maybe not the most earth-shattering use case, but it does sometimes feel like all this tech isn't a bad thing.
Anyway, those are my thoughts for now - I'll be back after the group stage ends, and hopefully before the knockout round begins with some more. Or at the latest, on July 6th to think about the tournament as a whole...
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