Letter from the Euros: Is Jarlath Burns a fan of Snollebollekes?

Chalk that one down as the last question you expected the group stages of Euro 2024 to throw up. But hey, this is a tournament that loves to confound as it did here Tuesday evening.

The GAA President may not be up to speed with the Netherlands’ favourite carnival musician or his party smash ‘Links Rechts’ — literally ‘Left Right’.

It’s a Europop, après-ski banger which has been around a while but this month is the soundtrack to Dutch invasions of German cities as tens of thousands make up an Oranje ocean, swaying left then right in unison to the beat.

As the lunchtime sun poured down and soaked Berlin’s Hammarskjöldplatz, Dutch fans gathered to stay hydrated and follow an open-top bus up to the Olympiastadion. The moment Snollebollekes blared out from speakers was the highlight which would again go viral in a heartbeat.

But even for one of the most consistently loud and vibrant fanbases in the international game, the atmosphere was just a little too positive, carefree. Which got us wondering about Jarlath Burns.

The Uachtarán addressed concerns about the absolute horlicks that has been made of the All Ireland football championship a couple of weeks ago by holding his hand up, a rare and welcome move from a sports administrator. The issue, Burns admitted, is “the lack of jeopardy”.

Not even the current pillow-soft iteration of the European Championships is as forgiving as the All-Ireland SFC, which burns through 24 games just to eliminate four teams, crowds seemingly plummeting every step of the way.

By comparison, the Euros takes 36 games to get rid of eight teams, sell-out crowds guaranteed come what may. Nonetheless, that lack of jeopardy hung in the warm Berlin air even as Dutch and Austria voices tried to pierce through with Group D reaching a decision day of sorts.

Too much had already been decided. The parachute landing for four of the six third-placed teams meant that Austria arrived knowing they could lose 3-0 and progress and the Dutch even more assured of progress.

They still served up an absolute barnstormer of a contest which carried certain weight with it. Austria’s 3-2 victory, coupled with another Didier Deschamps dampener in Dortmund, meant Ralf Ragnick’s truly terrific team topped the group and caused aftershocks to the knockout bracket which will shudder on through to Wednesday night’s conclusion of the group stages.

But just imagine…if we’d had true jeopardy. In the 45 minutes when both games were in the second-half, all three of France, the Netherlands and Austria cycled through top spot in Group D.

On two occasions Austria dropped from top to third. Had this been a traditional four-team group where just two progress, this would have been a Tuesday evening with its own Wikipedia page, a Netflix 90-minuter and, because it’s 2024, a flock of online truthers suggesting it was a fix.

“If that goal yesterday hadn’t been scored in the Italy game in the last minute, we would have started with a different lineup,” Ragnick, rapidly becoming one of the central characters of this tournament, said in his post-match press conference.

“Because then we would not have been fully qualified and [after that goal] we were basically 99.9% qualified.”

So, the Euros has a format problem. The GAA’s existential organisational naval-gazing over the SFC format has run so deep for so long that ‘problem’ doesn’t nearly cover it. But neither body or competition are outliers.

UEFA’s Champions League will return this autumn with a contorted new shape, rugby’s version of a European Cup is an unholy mess, FIFA will take 48 teams to the 2026 World Cup and reach for more third-place parachute packs.

Even a behemoth like the NBA and NFL are not content with what they have, introducing added weeks, playoff tweaks, in the NBA’s case an in-season tournament.

There is an obsession with tweaking and its root is almost always financial. More teams means more games means more money. But it’s at the expense of the fans whose impression of importance or even how it all bloody works is distorted.

The prestige of the product can be diluted too. That hasn’t quite happened with this competition which makes you think it can afford to do what sports organizations so rarely do: the obvious thing.

The highest-jeopardy model remains the one which has been done away with, a 32-team, eight groups of four, format which Qatar 2022 again proved works so damn well. UEFA could figure a way to consolidate qualification and Nations League and take the big show up to 32. We might even qualify!

Then again we might not. Ronald Koeman’s Netherlands finished a whopping 12 points clear of Ireland in qualifying yet look the most unbalanced, flawed team to make it through to the last 16 here.

The co-ordination of the dancing Oranje masses on the streets was dreadfully lacking on the pitch as defensive frailties joined a malfunctioning midfield and an attack which only clicks with Wout Weghorst as major issues.

If Koeman was Dutch enemy No.1 afterwards, captain Virgil van Dijk was hardly heralded either, the Liverpool defender brutally culpable for the fifth and decisive goal as Marcel Sabitzer stole in to spear a fitting winner.

The Dutch had twice found rare fluency to haul Austria back, Cody Gakpo and Memphis Depay offsetting an early Donyell Malen own goal and Romano Schmid’s header.

But back Ragnick’s side came. Arguably that was their most alluring appeal in the Tuesday heat — they simply kept on coming. With the Dutch unable to tell their links from their rechts, it is Austria who are now a team on the march.

There’s jeopardy for anyone who underestimates them.

Netherlands (4-3-3): Verbruggen 7; Geertruida 4, De Vrij 5, Van Dijk 6, Ake 5 (Van de Ven 66); Reijnders 6 (Wijnaldum 66), Schouten 5, Veerman 4; Malen 4 (Weghorst 72), Depay 6, Gakpo 5.

Goals: Gakpo (47); Depay (76).

Austria (4-2-3-1): Pentz 7; Posch 6, Wober 6, Lienhart 6 (Baumgartner 63), Prass 7; Seiwald 6, Grillitsch 7 (Querfeld 63); Wimmer 6 (Laimer 63), Sabitzer 7, Schmid 6, Arnautovic 5 (Gregoritsch 78).

Goals: Malen OG (5), Schmid (59), Sabitzer (81).

Booked: Posch, Wimmer

Referee: Ivan Kruzliak (SVK) 7.