Will this be the best Euro's Ever?

After 7 days of Euro 2012, I think most football fans would agree it has been pretty bloody excellent. Lots of goals, close games, and not a 0-0 in sight (the closest was a couple of 1-0's in the group of death (B)).

However, with the tournament set to extend from 16 to 24 teams for the next championships (France 2016) is this likely to be the last group stage with so many entertaining games.

As a Scotland fan, I am obviously excited as this should give us a very good opportunity to qualify for a major tournament for the 1st time since 1998. However obviously most of the additional 8 teams who get in will be relatively minor nations (such as Scotland, Estonia, Bulgaria etc) that when faced with the task of playing any of the top nations will look to put two sturdy centre half's with a couple of combative midfeilders in front of them and maybe have a pacy striker playing up front who can latch onto the odd long ball / clearance.

While I'm sure the fans of these countries will be happy to give this a go - it seems unlikely that there will be as many attractive matches in France as their has been in Poland / Ukraine.

That said - both Greece and Denmark have won European Championships (2004 & 1992 respectively) and neither of these sides are what you would call 'elite' nations who qualify for every tournament. Indeed, Denmark didn't officially qualify for the 1992 tournament in Sweden, and were only entered when a civil war broke out in Yugoslavia (who had qualified ahead of them). Therefore - we can say that it is possible for a smaller nation, who may not otherwise have qualified, to compete and even be a factor in the larger tournament format.

I do think the extention is a good thing for football in Europe. Scotland used to qualify for tournaments more often than not. Indeed they qualified for 6 out of 7 World Cup's from 1974 to 1998 (incl. 5 in a row, 74-90) as well as both European Championships in the 1990's. Now France 98 remains the last major tournament where a saltire was waved in anger and a generation of children have grown up, not knowing the feeling of running home from school on a sunny June afternoon to watch with a sense of over inflated optimism as Scotland miss out on the group stages on goal difference.

I am looking forward to June 2016 and hopefully seeing Scotland take part in a major tournament once again!