A Tale of Two Tournaments: EURO 2024's Tedium vs. Copa America's Chaos
We've made it through the Summer of Soccer, and how was it for you? Are you feeling sad, relieved, verklempt, or just plain exhausted. How did they stack up?
Two tournaments. One channel. All day. What could possibly go wrong?
Let’s see who came out on top…
The Formats: with the Euros at 24 teams and Copa America at 16, the former including extra time and penalties and the latter straight to penalties, Copa America reminded us that less is sometimes more. And the insanity that was third place qualification confused even the best mathematicians. Lord only knows what an expanded 48 team World Cup is going to be like.
Winner: Copa America
The Soccer: neither were classic tournaments by any means. The Euros had very few great games, although there were great moments with some very good games in the group stages. But, they tailed off as the tournament and the favorites progressed. France and England were terrible overall, Germany exited too soon, and the likes of Portugal, Belgium, Netherlands underperformed or were distinctly average. At least the best team in the tournament, Spain, won it. Copa America at least saw the better teams perform, but too many games turned into bad-tempered affairs, which detracted from the soccer - the standard of the pitches also not helping. Probably the best team won the final and Canada were a nice surprise package, but Uruguay didn’t live up to their billing, and the USMNT failed to get out of their group. VAR spoiled both tournaments, but at least the Euros had it set up properly. Unfortunately, neither tournament had a decent final to be remembered by from a footballing perspective.
Winner: EURO 2024 Loser: The Beautiful Game
The Logistics: Copa America, with its World Cup dry run in NFL stadiums suffered from some terrible playing surfaces, badly considered and overpriced ticket allocations with partially empty stadiums (even for USMNT games), a disastrously-organized delayed final, and Uruguay players fighting with fans. A very poor showing other than some meme-worth drama. But, the fan spectacle in stadiums that were full was impressive. Other than some early travel complaints in the group stages, the Germans held a great tournament with minimal trouble and some fantastic atmospheres both inside and outside the grounds.
Winner: Euro 2024
The Punditry: This pretty much sums it up.
Winner: Euro 2024
The Players: Too many household names just didn’t show up - Mbappe, Kane, Bellingham, Foden, Ronaldo, De Bruyne, Brazil and USMNT, but we did see the re-emergence of James Rodriguez, as well as excitement from Lamine Yamal, Georgia and Austria. At least Rodri cemented his place as best midfielder in the world and Messi was Messi. Spain were excellent, but how would they fare against Argentina? Moving forwards, if international tournaments are to recapture their magic then top players need to play like them. It might be a workload problem, which could be fixed by addressing domestic seasons or, as we saw with the scheduling of the Qatar World Cup, holding it mid-season.
Winner: Nobody
Overall, what have your thoughts been? Let us know in the comments…
EURO 2024 Round-up
SPAIN 2-1 ENGLAND
Olympiastadion, BERLIN — Spain clinched an historic fourth European Championship title, defeating England 2-1 in the Euro 2024 final.
A scoreless first half saw both teams struggle to create clear opportunities. Spain controlled possession while England relied on counterattacks, but neither side could break through.
The second half started disastrously for England. Lamine Yamal beat Luke Shaw on the wing, setting up Nico Williams for an easy finish to put Spain ahead.
England manager Gareth Southgate responded with substitutions, and the move paid off in the 73rd minute. Cole Palmer, a substitute, equalized for England, finishing a move initiated by Jude Bellingham.
As the match seemed destined for extra time, Mikel Oyarzabal, another substitute, scored the decisive goal for Spain, capitalizing on a pass from Marc Cucurella.
England, masters of the last gasp equalizer this tournament, had those hopes dashed in the 90th minute when Dani Olmo cleared off the line. [Highlights]
Anyway, here’s the occasion in memes:
COPA America Round-up
ARGENTINA 1-0 (AET) COLOMBIA [Highlights]
Hard Rock Stadium, MIAMI - AFP’s Simon Evans was at the final, and here’s his report of the chaos prior to kick-off [:
The chaotic scenes at the Copa America final have raised serious questions for the organizers of the 2026 World Cup which will be held in North America.
The start of Sunday's final between Colombia and Argentina at Miami's Hard Rock Stadium was delayed by 82 minutes as overwhelmed security struggled to process the safe entry fans into the stadium.
Organisers blamed ticketless fans for rushing the entry points into the venue for their decision to keep the gates closed for almost three hours after the planned opening time.
But, while there was plenty of evidence of ticketless fans entering, it was also clear that the security system was unable to cope.
Some fans needed medical attention for heat exhaustion after being stuck in the crush around the fencing at the entrance to the 65,000 capacity venue amid alarming scenes.
Hard Rock Stadium will host seven games at the 2026 World Cup which the USA is co-hosting with Mexico and Canada.
The Copa America was organised by South American confederation CONMEBOL while the World Cup will be controlled by global governing body FIFA and it's local organisation.
"This is not a good look," said former USA international Alexi Lalas, now a leading television pundit for Fox Sports.
"I understand this is not a good look for CONMEBOL and this is also, because it is happening on our watch, in our country, not a good look for the US less than two years out from the World Cup," he said.
FIFA, who had no role in the running of the Copa, did not immediately comment on the incidents but sources indicated they would now intensify discussions with stadiums over their security plans.
'An embarrassment'
A former stadium employee, who spoke to AFP on the condition of anonymity, said that the incident at Hard Rock was down to bad organisation.
"I know this facility like the back of my hand, this should never happen," he said after spending over two hours in the crush outside the ground.
"If you're worried about weapons, if you're worried about guns, if you're worried about knives, you set up a perimeter, you check them and check tickets outside, not in a gate where you funnel in 10,000 people when you have women and children, you have women and children passing out at the gate trying to get into the stadium with people paying $2,000 a ticket," he said.
"This is an embarrassment, for CONMEBOL, for the Hard Rock Stadium, an embarrassment that should never happen," he added.
FIFA's World Cup stadiums tend to use such a perimeter control, as the initial check on fans, before they enter a zone closer to the venue.
"I have no doubt that FIFA and the USA and Canada and Mexico will sort this out and make sure that this doesn't happen going forward," said Lalas during the match broadcast.
But the Miami debacle was not the only incident to raise concerns during the Copa America.
Wednesday's semi-final between Colombia and Uruguay in Charlotte ended in ugly scenes as Uruguayan players climbed into the stands and clashed with Colombian fans, claiming family members had been threatened in the unsegregated stands.
As in Miami, local stadium security and police appeared to be caught by surprise by the very different behaviour of soccer fans compared to the far less rowdy NFL spectators they are used to.
All the World Cup stadiums for the 2026 World Cup are NFL venues. The USA hosted the World Cup in 1994 which was viewed as a successful tournament, setting a new attendance record.
The placing of grass surfaces over or in place of American football's artificial turf fields caused plenty of issues during Copa America, with several coaches including Argentina's Lionel Scaloni complaining about the poor quality.
FIFA sources said they intend to have all stadiums install grass in good time, rather than the very late switches that occurred for the Copa America.
But the bigger issue appears to be in training and preparing stadium security to deal with soccer crowds and having an effective system in place.
Canada's American coach Jesse Marsch believes that the Copa's issues were mainly due to CONMEBOL's inexperience in the US market and that FIFA will do a better job in 2026.
"They made the mistake of thinking that they were just going to bring all their people from South America and be able to run a tournament in a new country and they were going to be able to do it seamlessly. And they made a massive mistake in that," he told Canadian Press.
"(FIFA's) overall experience for running tournaments, I think, is at a much different level," he said.
In Other Soccer News
Transfers:
The Guardian’s interactive transfer thing.
Stat(s) of the Day
England are the first nation in UEFA European Championship history to lose consecutive finals. Well that’s something.
Martínez has won 4 consecutive trophies since becoming the #1 goalkeeper for Argentina.
Since the start of 2023, Rodri has lifted twice as many trophies (8) as he has lost games (4) for club and country.
2x Premier League
1x FA Cup
1x Champions League
1x Super Cup
1x Club World Cup
1x Nations League
1x European Championship
22/23 UCL Final Player of the Match
22/23 UCL Player of the Season
2023 Club World Cup Golden Ball
2023 Nations League Finals Best Player
2024 EUROs Player of the Tournament
“I hope the birth rate will rise in 9 months, because its very low in Spain (...) I don't know if Yamal has exams tomorrow, but if his dad lets him, he can party with us.” - Cucurella
Thanks for reading The Daily Soccer! Subscribe for free to receive new posts…