A while ago I showed that the number of countries who had at least 1 player starting in the big 5 in a given weekend is now over 80, which shows just how strong the competition has become (and how crazy it is we managed a fifa ranking of 25 without a single big 5 regular)

At least some of that extra competition seems to be coming from many more players from Europe's 2nd teir getting positions in the big leagues. Here is the number of minutes for big 5 clubs leading up to the 2004 euro

greece	7351
portrugal	15120
Russia	3589
croatia	18704
Switzerland	15623
Bulgaria	10527
Denmark	29663
sweden	14046
czech	27150
Netherlands	32688
latvia	584

Average: 15193

Interestingly, our 2006 golden generation got 23232 minutes in the lead up to the world cup, which would make us the 9th best side in europe at the time. Insane how good that generation was by our standards

This is the minutes in the big leagues for the 2024 euro squads

scotland	12877
Switzerland	41545
croatia	24290
Albania	17864
Hungary	10295
Turkey	7153
Georgia	8165
Austria	34386
Romania	3054
Ukraine	19730
Belgium	33405
Slovakia	11918
Denmark	32425
Slovenia	11407
Serbia	29488
Poland	25884
Netherlands	39747
Czechia	11270
Portrugal	38220

Average: 21743. So despite having 8 more teams the average has gone up nearly 50%! It wouldn't surprise me if we see a new world cup winner in the next 20 years

Nearly every country in europe has multiple professional, national level leagues with p and r and plays a modern technical style. The ladder has gotten steeper!

Basically what we already knew which is the big 5 leagues have become more global and contain less local players. All the best players in the world now are plucked by these big 5 leagues wheras previously there was still world class players playing at the big clubs in lesser leagues. Henrik larsson playing at celtic all throughout his prune just 20 yrs ago is a perfect example. Nowadays a club in Scotland would never have a player that calibre in his prime. The Russian and Ukrainian leagues have also drastically declined with their best players and imports all leaving. Even the Greek league had too talent back then and regularly went deep in champions league let alone europa. And 10 yrs before that in the 90s you had clubs like Red star and Ajax winning champions leagues. 

Now that is an interesting stat!

The eu passport probably helps a lot and thats probably why turkey is a little supressed on this list. They still have quality players in turkey like the other euro nations did 20 years ago

I feel the quality and depth in the Euros is different to the World Cup, so it's no surprise to see how competitive its been.

correct, its now really putting it in the big picture of the modern day WC and worse to 48 coming up.
Graz mentioning the GG's standards back then how do we explain '74 with just 16 contesting the WC from 99 who contested qualification.
Yes some will say it was even easier way way back then but lets remember NONE were abroad that I can recall and semi pro.

Interesting the minutes increase for eg Portugal, back in 04 15120 compared to '24 38220.

In theory it might work over time as it gives countries a base level to improve their level, but I agree in the short to medium term we might see some uncompetitive games.

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Switz sure stepped up v's Germany this morning.

Interesting that "2nd tier" seems to be directed towards the performance of actual leagues within a country and not the actual national teams themselves... 

not sure how else you can gauge a NT any other way - sure you can go back from Euro to Euro or WC to WC's but the players picked are from their Club form more than anything else and thats what provides the NTeam its form guide, well yes and no when you consider 3Lions games to date, or even Germany now who came out like a bat out of hell first game to struggle against the Switz.

Sure, Swiss, Croatian, Belgium, Portugal, Dutch and Czech leagues would most certainly be "second tier" but can you say the same about the NTs of these countries?

Hey mono does south’s play lakeside by Australian crawl at their games?

Nope sorry, never heard it at Lakeside... its mainly the Greek national anthem at a really high volume played back to back to back.... hope it comes out clearly in the broadcasts.