Too much information?

Avoiding EURO 2016: A self-experiment — Day Thirteen

Oh dear, now I’ve done it.

First, in my afternoon coffee break — which was not even a planned one as I hardly ever take these — I heard a male German colleague enthusiastically explaining to a non-male non-German colleague that only one of (what he considered) the four big teams: Germany, Spain, France and Italy can now reach the final. Which must mean that they are playing in such constellation in the knock-out phase that they will play each other no later than in one of the semi-finals.

However, this does not necessarily mean that there will be a small(er) team in the final. For even if I keep hearing hints about Cristiano Ronaldo being pissed off at Portugal’s performance, I do not believe that they will not actually go through to the knock-out phase. For with this system of 24 teams, two thirds will. And no way Portugal will end up last in their group, or as one of the two number threes with the fewest points.

Second, what I just wrote was confirmed later. It was naïve of me to think that I could go to kicker.de just to check out if there were any news about my team (players bought, players sold, who they are playing in the first round of the cup), without seeing anything I shouldn’t see about EURO 2016.

For I did. And got a lot of information even if I only got a glimpse of one single heading. Compact with information, too much information, I believe it read something like: ‘CR7 saves Portugal. Iceland celebrates. Austria mourns.’

Still, despite the first bit of information in that single heading, I have not heard any honking cars here in Little Portugal. Perhaps the dear fado people save it for the final where they will have to play either Germany or Spain or France or Italy.

Part of me hopes not, as I support the small teams, like this time Iceland and Albania. Part of me does hope so as I will not watch it…