England under Roy Hodgson increasingly resemble an expensive engine to which the chief mechanic keeps applying the wrong oil. They have failed to beat Ecuador, Honduras and Costa Rica this year. The bookies make them outsiders for their first Euro 2016 qualifier against Switzerland on Monday night. Yet, however much they splutter in Basel, it is unlikely to alter the direction of their journey. The expansion of the finals from 16 to 24 teams, combined with a chronically underpowered group, almost ensures passage to France in two years’ time.

Under Uefa’s baggier new rules for Euro 2016, the top two in each of the nine groups, plus the best third-placed side, qualify automatically, while the eight remaining third-placed countries enter the play-offs. In this soft-centred new world, two or three teams will qualify from every group. A scan at Group F, which contains Greece, Hungary, Romania, Finland, Northern Ireland and the Faroe Islands, gives an indication of the likely outcome.

Given that sport is – at its blood-and-mud-splattered essence – about competition, winners and losers, such tinkering makes me uneasy. Uefa’s decision allows the stoic mid-ranks, teams such as Scotland and Slovakia, a far higher chance of making the finals, but it has two unfortunate consequences. First, the big countries get not only a safety net but hard hat, harness and steel-tipped boots. Second, as the 268-qualifying-match slog reaches its denouement there is bound to be less tension because more of these sides will already be in the finals.

Not that Uefa’s president, Michel Platini, agrees. He believes expanding the European Championship and adopting a “week of football”, an indulgent spread of matches over six days from Thursday to Tuesday, will revive the international game. Judging by Platini’s record as Uefa president, it may well do the opposite.

The Frenchman, so subtle and graceful as a player, has a Sunday league touch as an administrator. Among his many errors he proposed the bloated, fan-unfriendly jaunt across the continent for Euro 2020 and backed Qatar for the 2022 World Cup. It was also no surprise that his unconvincing financial fair play regulations were given a sharp poke in the eye by Europe’s biggest clubs last week.

And now this. Platini says expansion could “enhance the quality of the competition”. But big is not always better. Look at the Europa League: mocked, derided and mostly ignored until the first sighs of spring. In last year’s competition there were 481 matches – 276 of which came before the group stages. Twenty years ago the 1993-94 Uefa Cup had 126 matches from beginning to end and was much the better for it.

Sixteen teams at a European Championship hit a perfect sweet spot. Qualifying was often more precarious – remember England’s Euro 2008 campaign? – and the finals were stacked with far more muscle than flab. At the same time teams such as Slovenia (2000) and Latvia (2004) were sometimes able to sneak in too.

As a result Euro 2000 was arguably the greatest international tournament in the past 25 years and Euro 2008 and 2012 hit plenty of high notes too. Even the desperate, defensive Euro 2004 had a shock winner in Greece. Over the same period World Cups have been less good and often burned themselves out.

In England’s group for Euro 2016 Switzerland, ranked ninth in Fifa’s rankings, are decent. But after England there are Slovenia – who lost to Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Albania in their last qualifying campaign and are now 39th in the world – then Estonia and Lithuania, who are ranked 93rd and 103rd respectively, and won five games in 2014 World Cup qualifying between them.

Then there are San Marino, the final team in Group E. The next time someone insists there are no easy games in international football, frogmarch them to the Stadio Olimpico in Serravalle. San Marino’s record in their past three World Cup and European Championship qualifying campaigns is won 0, drawn 0, lost 30. Goals scored two, goals conceded 154.

But it’s not only San Marino. Andorra have also not gained a point since the Germany 2006 qualifying campaign. Gibraltar are Europe’s newest whipping boys judging by Sunday’s 7-0 defeat by Poland. Liechtenstein won two points in World Cup qualifying; the Faroe Islands just one. Why not have a pre-qualifying play-off with only the winners getting through to face the bigger teams?

Uefa’s defenders claim that Europe needs a bigger tournament because, with the break-up of the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, it swelled larger than before. That is partly true. When the decision was taken to expand the tournament to 16 teams in the early 90s, there were 34 nations in Uefa, while for France 2016 there will be 53 nations competing for the 23 places alongside the hosts.

But so many of those new members are the Krispy Kremes of international football, initially alluring but nutritionally largely empty. And remember – during qualifying for Brazil 2014, 16 European teams failed to win more than two matches. Realistically, then, we are talking around 36 teams with some chances of making Euro 2016.

Of course there will be still be the occasional shock and gasp in the 14 months ahead. There always is. But it won’t change this essential truth: the Euros are now flabbier than before, and all the poorer for it.