Euro 2012: Why We Need to Savor This Year's Tournament

On June 8, one of the most hyped competitions in recent memory will begin. The Spanish squad will be worryingly looking over their shoulders as 15 other nations will attempt to wrestle away the trophy from the hat-trick-seeking Spaniards.

However, football fans are going to have to fully appreciate this tournament while it lasts, before it expands to 24 teams in 2016—a decision beneficial to smaller nations, but not to the overall enjoyment of the tournament.

In 2010, the World Cup was characterized by its slow start, with many teams playing highly defensive football in fear of losing their opening game. Additionally, a competition featuring 32 teams meant that all the big teams, to a certain extent, were separated until the knockout stage.

This combination provided many "dead rubbers" in the group stage, and the tournament as a whole struggled to live up to the vast expectations placed upon it.

Expectations for Euro 2012 are similarly high.

However, the draw for the group stages has provided many intriguing and potentially amazing games. The opening round of fixtures will include Germany vs. Portugal, Spain vs. Italy and France vs. England—a mouth-watering start to any tournament.

Such draws encourage these nations to establish themselves early in the competition to prove why they are considered favourites, as well as harming their competition's chances.

The comparatively smaller nations—Czech Republic, Sweden and the Republic of Ireland, to name a few—are also encouraged to win rather than draw. In a competition of such high quality, they have to beat the bigger teams and their smaller peers.

All in all, the focus for every team is to attack, score and, ultimately, win.

The desire to play attacking football and to fight tooth and nail for a win permeates into a tournament, and with only 16 teams, this kind of atmosphere is far easier to create. 

But an opening—and probably entire tournament—of this standard is unlikely to appear again.

Once the tournament is expanded, the chances of nations such as Spain, Italy, England, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Portugal and Russia actually appearing in the same group will be vastly reduced—if not impossible. As a result, seeing high-quality games, such as the Netherlands vs. France from Euro 2008, will be left to the knockout stages.

UEFA's decision to expand the tournament was primarily based around a desire to increase revenue and to stir up more widespread interest across Europe.

Joint General Secretary of UEFA David Taylor said via The Associated Press (h/t Jakarta Post), "Our ultimate objective is to promote football across Europe," suggesting that the increased profits gained, or surpluses, will be put into increasing prize money for European club competitions, potentially helping to spread more wealth throughout the European game. 

While this argument does have some logic behind it, Taylor's further comments on the matter are perhaps more subjective. It's not surprising to hear that Taylor is from Scotland when reading, "If your country is not participating, it's very different. It's interesting academically but there's no passion for you."

As a Scot myself, I can empathise with this view. I would of course have far more interest in any tournament that Scotland were actually competing in.

However, as simply a fan of football, I have been passionately excited about this tournament for months.

Many may disagree, but for me, the chance to see football of the highest quality throughout a tournament outweighs the chance of seeing Scotland playing in a poorer tournament.

Ultimately the expansion of the Euros is always going to be met with controversy. Unless the competition includes every nation in the continent, some fans are always going to be disappointed.

However, I would argue that they can find far greater solace in watching a smaller, more competitive tournament that produces huge games from the opening round rather than watching the mini-World Cup we are likely to experience in 2016. 

For this reason, those who are simply happy to enjoy the football, whether or not their nation is present, should savour this tournament while it lasts.