OOn the one hand, the best team in both the European Championship and the Copa América was the winner. On the other hand, there was just about everything, from the general quality of play to the fact that the football authorities seem to have completely lost the capacity to organise matches. However badly UEFA’s organisation of various aspects of the
Euros was, what happened at Hard Rock Stadium was on a whole other level.
An investigation is likely to be launched to determine exactly who or what was to blame for the scenes that delayed kick-off by 75 minutes and led to an estimated 7,000 ticketless fans entering the stadium. What is clear is that major improvements are needed before the stadium hosts seven matches of the 2026 World Cup finals. It’s not just a matter of increased security: long queues in the searing heat are no solution to anything.
What happened at Hard Rock Stadium was just the culmination of a month of desperate organizing. The tournament was organized by Conmebol with little input from officials on the ground in the U.S., but FIFA must learn lessons before the World Cup returns to America in less than two years. Even before Sunday’s chaos, there were the scenes at the semifinal when Uruguay players walked into the stands to protect, as they saw it, their families from Colombian fans.
During the European Championships, the transport infrastructure was broken, basic security was poor and illogical, and no attempt was made to address the problem of beer being used as a projectile.
The inability to handle large crowds has been an increasingly common feature of recent Uefa tournaments, and it should be remembered that two years ago eight people died in a crush outside an Africa Cup of Nations match in Yaoundé, Cameroon. While many have said that there were few such problems at the last World Cup in Qatar, the circumstances were very different – and not just because the kind of all-day drinking that typifies tournaments was impractical there. There were no large numbers of ticketless fans in Doha; very few went there simply to soak up the atmosphere. And yet there were (under-reported) problems, particularly when Morocco played in the final stages.
Both the European Championships and the Copa America suffered from poor playing surfaces. Frankfurt was the worst in Germany, with horrific cracks, apparently due to poor re-laying after an NFL game held there in November. In Düsseldorf, UEFA demanded that the pitch be re-laid three times between the end of the domestic season and the start of the European Championships; unsurprisingly, there was no time for it to break in. There were also problems in Hamburg and Gelsenkirchen.
The problem with the Copa America was that it was being played in NFL stadiums, meaning that the pitches were often narrower than normal and that natural grass had to be quickly laid over artificial pitches. Again, embedding was an issue, leading to larger and looser divots, while in some cases it looked as if the pallets had not been fitted properly, causing gaps and ridges in the joints between adjacent tiles. Given that eight of the 14 stadiums are being used during the World Cup, this is something that FIFA needs to address with some urgency. Conmebol seemed more concerned about the nonsense of a Shakira concert, which meant that the half-time break of the final had to be extended. How about just doing the football right?
But beyond the details, there is something existential at work. Neither the Euros nor the Copa América produced consistently high-level football. With the exception of Uruguay, the pressure was limited. That is often the case in international play and understandably so, given the lack of time coaches have to work with their players. Games are more often defined by individual moments. The lower quality is often compensated for by a greater sense of competition and drama. In both tournaments this summer, however, there was fatigue.
Everyone is exhausted. That’s why so many teams, after taking the lead, sit back: try to hold on, run less, only go one more time when they have to. That’s why so many players underperform. That’s why the most exciting football has been played by countries with fewer players playing at the highest club level.
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Part of that is still the hangover from the Covid lockdown and the subsequent disruption of the calendar by a December 2022 World Cup. For UEFA and Conmebol, there have been three major international tournaments in three years. No one has really had a break since before the pandemic. Plus, FIFA wants everyone back in the US for the Club World Cup next summer, although with players and clubs protesting, no venues booked, and no TV deal signed, there has to be at least some doubt whether it will happen.
Something has to be done somewhere. The current competition calendar is untenable, for players and – possibly – for the public. The sport’s authorities need to think seriously about this, but as the past month has shown, both in Europe and America, it is a long time since they could be trusted to act in favour of the actual competition.
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This is an excerpt from Soccer with Jonathan Wilson, the Guardian US’s weekly look at the game in Europe and beyond. Register for free here. Got a question for Jonathan? Email him at [email protected] and he’ll feature the best answer in a future edition