Euro 2024: European football looks to the East and the Balkans: national team record in the Euro Cup, finals, tournaments…

The Euro Cup it’s more Euro Cup than ever this summer, as long as we understand the tournament as the maximum sporting, but also social, representation of the continent. A broad continent that not only faces the Atlantic and to Mediterraneanbut look straight ahead Black Sea and expands beyond the Danube. The European Union has gone from six to 27 countries since its creation and European football championship They have disputed it since 2016 24 selectionstriple that of ocho that they played it in 1984. This year, Romania represented Eastern Europe in the tournament. She was the only one of the eight, 12% of the total. Now there are eight of the 24, 33%.

The presence of Slovakia, Georgia, Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, Romania, Ukraine and Türkiye This edition is a summary of the last decades and how Europe and its football have grown towards the East, although the differences are still huge. This, together with the participation of four teams from the Balkans (Albania, Croatia, Slovenia and Serbia), talks about a tournament that focuses on countries that are traditionally hidden at the football level, more pending internal or border conflicts that of the ball.

The 24-team Euro Cup arrived in 2016 at the insistence of Platinumformer president of UEFA, and although he continues to receive criticism from those nostalgic for those short tournaments with eight major teams, the reality is that the level of the weakest countries in Germany is being extraordinary. Romania has the least valuable squad in the tournament but defeated Ukrainecompeted against Belgium and this afternoon the round of 16 is played against Slovakia. His wardrobe is worth it 92 million euroshalf as many as footballers like Bellingham, Mbappé or Foden, but he is shining.

The same as Albaniathe second least valuable, which has lost by the minimum against Italy and Spain and has tied Croatia. Slovenia, Slovakia, Georgia, Hungary and the Czech Republic They complete the list of squads with less value and all of them can still get into the second round.

UEFA’s interests in expanding the number of teams in the Euro Cup are evident, like those of the FIFA in the World Cups. More live matches, more hours of television, more money and more national Federations, whose vote counts just as much as the big ones, happy. And here comes one of the keys.

The end of the USSR and Yugoslavia It has had a logical and capital influence on European politics but also on football. It is simple. Suddenly, UEFA and FIFA found themselves with more federations, more teams and more money to distribute. The expansion was a matter of time. «If you maintain the reduction in the number of teams, you mean that football will not evolve in many countries.. And my duty as president of UEFA is for football to develop throughout Europe,” Platini defended in 2011.

The impetus of the organization has been gigantic. The UEFA has set Poland and Ukraine as venues for Euro 2012the 2021 edition reached Azerbaijan, Hungary, Russia, Romania and that of 2032 will be shared between Italy and Türkiye. Furthermore, in recent years the final of the Champions has landed in Istanbul or kyiv, the Europa League in Budapest, Baku or Varsovia and the Conference League in Tirana o Prague.

The facilities, however, continue to be the main problem. «I would say that is the biggest difference between Western and Eastern European countries.», he admitted in an interview with this newspaper Peter Gulacsi, goalkeeper from Hungary. Many of them were left in ruins after the fall of the USSR and Yugoslavia and have taken years to be renovated. The arrival of official UEFA competitions is the excuse to give them a facelift or build new ones. This is what you will do in Albania and Serbiawho plan to jointly organize the Euro U21 in 2027. All while in Germany the tension between them continues, with insults, threats, complaints and sporting and economic sanctions.

The next competitive leap of these teams will depend, in part, on this advance in facilities and social peace. Croatia’s success in the last decade has been as remarkable as it is unique for the Balkans and in the last 30 years only one Eastern European country, Czech Republic in 1996, has played in the Euro Cup final. The Czechs, in 2004, and Russia, in 2008, remained in the semifinals.

Eastern Europe knocks on the door of the European Union, but also of its football.

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