Tournament review

Analysis
Serbian fans had plenty to cheer about
throughout the two-week event
TIME FOR 16 TEAMS?
The clamour to expand the final
tournament continues
The 12-team format of the final tournament
has become a perennial debating point since
its introduction in 2010. Discussion continued
unabated in Belgrade. While freely admitting
that financial, administrative and organisational
matters have specific gravity in decision-making,
the coaching fraternity unanimously highlighted
the purely sporting anomalies endemic to the
system. Once again, two teams (Hungary and
Slovenia) went home before two of the other
contestants (Croatia and Czech Republic) had
set foot on the field of play. The match schedule
also entailed significant differences in terms
of rest-and-recovery times between matches,
with the seeded teams granted the privilege
of a four-day interval between fixtures. As one
of the coaches remarked, this was a case of
collateral damage, given that, by and large, the
"smaller" countries without professional leagues
were the ones required to play twice in three
days. Ukraine coach Oleksandr Kosenko, looking
at the other side of the coin, commented: "It's
not normal to be qualified for the quarter-finals
after playing only one game."
There was a widespread feeling that longerterm
coaching and player-development
perspectives do not sit comfortably with the
format of the final tournament. As one of the
coaches remarked: "You stage training camps,
play your way through the qualifying phase,
organise friendlies, get your squad together
to prepare for the final tournament – and two
games and 72 hours later you're on your way
home." The unanimous opinion among the
coaches was that a 16-team final tournament
would erase all these issues once and for all.
Kazakhstan were the 18th side to play at a UEFA Futsal EURO
Azerbaijan’s Ramiz Chovdarov lets fly against Italy
36 SERBIA 2016 TOURNAMENT REVIEW
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