European Championship 2016

[Ken4155]

The format used to be quite simple to work out and plot a team's route to the final. Not now, not with this format. I mean, i have tried to work out who will probably play who in the knock-out stages but my brain imploded and the grey matter began to ooze out of my ears. I only got as far as working out who was going to win each group and who would be second to them. So i've done an accumulator with straight forecasts and one with dual forecasts on the following;
Group A; France 1st - Romania 2nd
Group B; England 1st - Russia 2nd
Group C; Germany 1st - Poland 2nd
Group D; Spain 1st - Croatia 2nd
Group E; Belgium 1st - Italy 2nd
Group F; Portugal 1st - Austria 2nd
A £5 acca on the S F/Cs gets me £13,000, a £5 acca on the dual F/Cs gets me just over £1,000.
And i will be doing a couple of other bets incorporating doubles and trebles from the above.
Roll on Friday!

[ToraToraTora]

all they've done is add the best 4 out of the 6 3rd place teams into the knockout stage so it gives hope to more teams to at least get past the group stage. Bit like the fastest losers in the heats in athletics. Not a bad Idea IMHO!

[Ken4155]

It's certainly opened the competition up, TTT, but not very good from a betting point of view when, say, trying to name the four semi-finalists.
As indicated, i have done 2 more bets (trixie/trebles) and split the 6 S F/Cs into 2 group of 3; C, D and F in the first bet, A, B and E in the second. It would be a shame to get 4 or 5 correct from the 6 and to not receive a penny:-)

[ichkeria]

There are far too many teams in the finals. Not far off half the original entry.
What makes it tricky to follow now is the 'best 4 from 6' rule, which obviously can't be predicted merely by group.
I worked out once how many games would have been played just to get down to the last 16. Some ridiculous number just to eliminate less than 40 teams