Euro 2016 will be bigger, but that might not make it better

For years, it could be argued that the European championship was the toughest soccer tournament in the world. With only 16 teams qualifying from soccer’s deepest and most decorated region, the European championship featured few easy games and constant competitiveness — unlike the World Cup, which has always included some overmatched representatives, particularly since expanding to 24, then 32 teams from across the globe. The Euros format was also one of appealing simplicity that might sound familiar to fans of the old 64-team NCAA basketball tournament: The 16 teams formed a “perfect bracket”: a round robin played between four groups of four, with the top two from each moving on to single-elimination quarterfinals.