Some say it's tactics, some say it's the older players not delivering anymore. Most agree, though, that Hiddink and Blind are to blame for this. Their squads have often been a bit strange imo, and under Hiddink's reign especially the team looked clueless tactically. Van Gaal gave us a rigid system, in which all players knew exactly what to do. This caused it to thrive in the World Cup. Hiddink, however, is a less hands-on type of manager, and that backfired spectacularly with our current set of players. Blind has been doing a bit better imo, but he too made some mistakes in the matches against Turkey and Iceland. He selected Vd Wiel and Martins Indi, who didn't play at their clubs at the time. Because of that, they lacked a certain sharpness and they both played horribly. Last game against Kazakhstan our line-up made sense though, so I'm fine with Blind for now. In my opinion, it was Hiddink who screwed it up most.
I, too, liked the 16 teams format better, even though the 24 one might still allow us to qualify. I'm not looking forward to watching games like Albania - Ireland or so in EURO 2016; 16 was a perfect number, with tough groups everywhere. Now, even subpar countries get to qualify, and it's not good for the quality of the tournament imo.
I mean, look back at the EURO 2012 groups: there's Germany - Portugal - Denmark - The Netherlands, there's France- Sweden - England - Ukraine.....that's what I want to see in a European championship.
