They introduced a 16 team top league and a 16 team second tier here in Norway a few years ago.
Lately our youth international teams have improved greatly, and in my view this is due to the league format giving more opportunities to young homegrown players. Our U21's recently managed to qualify for a major tournament for the first time in ages, knocking out France in the process.
Unfortunately, we also have people at the top calling for smaller leagues - citing the same w**k arguments like "too many meaningless games" etc with media people jumping on the bandwagon.