Future of Co-Hosts Rests With Austria Tonight

From a logistical point of view, co-hosting is a great idea. Countries the size of Austria or Switzerland would struggle to host a European Championship on their ownsome. But the temporarily united Swissautria is plenty big enough.

Problem is that co-hosting means two teams automatically qualifying. That’s two out of sixteen teams automatically qualified, which is a bit of a problem if those teams turn out to be the two worst in the tournament.

Switzerland are already gone. They weren’t terrible and they were terribly unlucky. But they still weren’t good enough and are out with two defeats from two games, currently the worst record in the tournament. And they were supposed to be the good co-hosts.

Should Austria fail against Poland tonight, that’ll be both co-hosts out early. Not good. Questions will (or at least should) be asked about whether it’s wise to allow two teams who may not have qualified to automatically take two out of just sixteen available spots.

Not just because it means less spots for arguably better equipped teams (can you tell I’m a bitter England fan?) but because one of the joys of international tournaments is seeing the host nation get excited. The buzz in Germany caused by their run to the semis in 2006 gave the atmosphere at the whole tournament a boost.

So now it’s all on Austria. The current team has made leaps and bounds recently and put in a respectable performance against Croatia. But they still lost.

Austria face Poland in Vienna at 20:45 CET tonight. And if they lose then any local excitement or optimism in the host nations will be extinguished just six days into Euro 2008. No pressure Austria.