23 or 26 man squads?

tentan

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Uefa is considering increasing squad sizes for this summer's European Championship in Germany to 26 players following talks with coaches.

Discussions with international bosses whose teams had qualified for Euro 2024 were held in Dusseldorf on Monday.
"Uefa has taken note of the various opinions and points of view shared," said a statement from European football's governing body

"A final decision will be made in the coming weeks."

The subject was discussed as part of a wider two-day workshop for finalists, and now goes to Uefa's national team competitions committee then its executive committee.

Squads are currently limited to 23 players, a return to the regulations used prior to Euro 2020. For that tournament, three further players were allowed to mitigate against the impact of potential Covid outbreaks in the squad.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/68766794



Is 26 the way forward for tournaments or stick to the traditional 23-man squads?
 

bosnian_red

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Won't make a difference really. Just a few people get to join the trip who won't play.
 

Annihilate Now!

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It should be 26, the frequency of injuries has obviously increased due to the excessive amount of football, so yeah, 26.
 

Chipper

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23 is more than enough. It was only Italy (25) and Belgium (24) who used more than 23 at Euro 2000. Spain used precisely 23, everyone else less than that.

Italy and Belgium didn't need that many. It includes things like Sirigu coming on as a sub 'keeper in the 89th minute of the final group stage game when 1-0 up for Italy, and even a loss wouldn't have knocked them out. Castrovilli got his only 3 minutes of the tournament when he came on 2 minutes before him. The more they're allowed to use the more will be used but not from necessity.

It's not a particularly important topic but I'd rather they didn't continue to water down the value of getting caps or a winner's medal if given the choice.

I'd guess they'll go for 26. Coaches always want bigger squads, more subs etc.
 
Last edited:

Red Indian Chief Torn Rubber

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tentan said:
Uefa is considering increasing squad sizes for this summer's European Championship in Germany to 26 players following talks with coaches.

Discussions with international bosses whose teams had qualified for Euro 2024 were held in Dusseldorf on Monday.
"Uefa has taken note of the various opinions and points of view shared," said a statement from European football's governing body

"A final decision will be made in the coming weeks."

The subject was discussed as part of a wider two-day workshop for finalists, and now goes to Uefa's national team competitions committee then its executive committee.

Squads are currently limited to 23 players, a return to the regulations used prior to Euro 2020. For that tournament, three further players were allowed to mitigate against the impact of potential Covid outbreaks in the squad.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/68766794



Is 26 the way forward for tournaments or stick to the traditional 23-man squads?
Click to expand...
26.
 

hobbers

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23 if only because it might mean Rashford gets left out.
 

Gio

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23 is plenty. And it forces decisions to be made which gives the selection process some intrigue.
 

Pexbo

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duffer said:
They never use all 23 as it is.
Click to expand...
That’s not the point though is it? You have to think of it in terms of groups of players, if it allows you one extra defender, midfielder and striker then I imagine it has been the case that teams have run out of backups in one of those positions.
 

rcoobc

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They should force it so only players who have started a group stage game can play in the rest of the tournament.

Force teams to use all 26 players
 

Woziak

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This really is a simple decision, since the winter World Cup, there are more and more injuries. The PL and CL, EL become more intensive. There is more international football, to win the Euros it’s 7 Games now, it used to be 6. The 2026 WC is 12 groups of 4 which is 48 games with a new round of 32, so 8 games to now win.

Next year the CL and Europa league have an extra 2 fixtures in January, the club WC will mean potentially an extra 7 games. Assume a team like City don’t get any sanctions until the season after and end up wining everything that’s potentially 70-72 club games and on top of that for a player like P Foden it’s another 6-8 international wc qualifiers.

This is why all international tournaments now require squads of 26, it means you can allow a 1/2 players more time, if they are recovering from injury, you take the hottest young prospect and you can take 8 or 9 options for the attacking positions, 3/4 start, 4 on the bench, I probably recovering from an injury. This means we see the best attacking football at these tournaments. There is a reason at the last two tournaments internationally you could name all your fit squad players on the bench and you could make 5 subs per game .
 

Bertie Wooster

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26 for me.

It's just common sense with the pace of the game, and all the increased matches and travel, to increase it to 26.

The only reason I can see why it would be kept to 23 is if the smaller nations argue it'll give extra advantage to those with stronger squads to choose from - similar argument that's been used in the past to try and prevent increased substitutions being named / used.

But it definitely should be increased to 26. One of the main reasons for all the extra teams / matches at these extended tournaments is because of smaller nations calling for more qualifying spots to give more nations chances to qualify. That's happened, but there should now be increased squads allowed as a result.

Can't keep asking all these top players to play pretty much throughout the year at all kinds of domestic and international tournaments without also increasing subs / squad sizes to try to prevent injuries.
 
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