Here in Cologne, the city's novel approach to serving beer has frustrated some England fans. Cologne's bars and beer halls serve "kolsch" — a traditional lager which can only be produced in the city — in a thin, 200ml glass known as a "stange". The barman tallies up each table's quota of stanges on a beer mat.
On Monday night, as a couple of colleagues and I watched Croatia face Italy in Cologne pub Bei D'r Tant (hearty food, no air-con) and the stanges tallied up on the tables of England fans around us, we were engaged in a different kind of tallying. At the time, Italy's 97th-minute equaliser was a crushing blow for Croatia, but not fatal, leaving them on the brink of elimination, but with an outside chance of progressing to the knockouts if other results went their way.
If England had beaten Slovenia by three goals or more last night (if only!) and Denmark had won against Serbia, Croatia could still have reached the knockouts as one of the best third-placed teams, despite taking just two points from their three group games.
The Croatians spent Tuesday at basecamp, presumably gloomily watching England and Denmark labour to 0-0 draws, before heading home today. This strange and unsatifying set-up is necessary because Uefa expanded the European Championship from 16 to 24 teams in 2016, so the four best third-placed sides now need to join the top two from each of the six groups to make a 16-team knockout phase.
Including four third-placed teams leads to a lack of jeopardy as well as some unsporting outcomes
We have reached the point of the tournament where the set-up becomes both farcical and unfair.
Including four third-placed teams leads to a lack of jeopardy — with too many low-stakes group games and too much margin for error — as well as some unsporting outcomes, and a confusing and lopsided system for drawing for the last-16.
Austria, for example, went into their final group game against the Netherlands yesterday knowing a 1-0 defeat would be enough to make the knockouts because they already had a better goal-difference than Hungary, who finished third in Group A.
The system is unfair on the teams in the earlier groups, including the Hungarians, who had no idea what was needed to reach the knockouts when they played their third and final game.
The whole point in playing the last round of matches in each group simultaneously is to create jeopardy.
This format makes for a situation where the significance of many of the last round of group games is unclear until the whole phase is complete.
The first Euros with 24 teams in 2016 was won by Portugal, who scraped through to the knockouts as one of the best third-placed teams after three draws. That should have been the alarm bell that the system was flawed, liable to reward negativity. What is the answer?
Uefa are highly unlikely to reduce the competition back to 16 teams, so the obvious solution is to expand it to 32 sides.
There would be some downsides, but it would be worth it to ensure a cleaner process of qualifying for the knockouts. In the meantime, we are left to tally up exactly who needs to lose and by how many to keep Croatia and co in the competition, which gets harder in line with your tally of beers.
