5
by SJG99
It reduces the number of friendlies, but the structure of the competition alone means that anyone who qualifies directly for the Euros from the groups will have non-competitive games when others are playing in the play-offs, and those not in the play-offs won't have competitive matches then either.
As a bit of a geek for these things (I like messing about with competition structures in Football Manager for a start), I have to say that even with the colourful videos from UEFA it's hardly the easiest thing to follow, and working out who qualifies for the Euros is going to be an absolute nightmare compared to even the tricky "play-off qualifier" conundrums from previous qualification tournaments.