In a way, it’s nice to see a competition involving 24 nations – international football should be an inclusive celebration, and no one can argue that this isn’t that.
However, football is meritocratic not democratic, and 36 games to eliminate just eight teams feels like far too many. One win takes a team to the cusp of the knockout stages, and with no draws in the first five games, it feels relatively simple to predict which teams will progress from the groups we’ve already seen.
Moreover, each game has been won by the favourites so to do – in three cases, convincingly – all off which makes it hard not to wonder as to the precise sporting point of it all. Of course, the tournament will still be a lot of fun, and if we’ve learnt one thing these last couple of decades, it’s that football always wins. But events such as this one should be the pinnacle of quality and competition, and that is a long way from the case here.