The UEFA Nations League
- Thread starter nailsy
- Start date
If you could see what saw after the Croatia match you would have noticed a very disappointed group of players also a few tears from Croations .If you think this was meaningless then thats your right.Well I take the view that it was great to see England play games that meant something and in the future this competition will mean even more.Also it was great to see teams that were fairly evenly matched in there groups and bot sides giving their all.I don't want to see games where you know we are going to win and its just a case of by how many goals.Fantastic start to a competition that gives meaning to matches
Wig
Well-Known Member
- May 23, 2018
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Whilst I agree to a point that the cup itself is of lower value than the world cup or Euros, the best thing about this nations league is that England get much more regular competitive games against top opposition. Previously England used to play meaningless friendlies and thrash the likes of San Marino in the qualification lead-up to the big cups, whereas now we are much better prepared to face the big sides when it comes to the knockout stages.
Lilbaz
Just call me Baz
- Apr 1, 2005
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Does it matter? If people are interested and get excited watching a game that's all that matters. Rugby and cricket have had meaningless cups for ages, people still like them and cheer when their team wins.
If we'd have lost nobody would have cared really, but we won and they do.
Saoirse
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- Aug 20, 2013
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I have a feeling that especially with it having gone so well, we'll see a lot more Nations League games and fewer qualifiers in the future. I think everyone's quickly reached the conclusion that San Marino vs England is boring and pointless for all involved - even the postmen who get to be tonked 10-0 or whatever. So I could very much see e.g. the bottom three of League D groups and the 4th-placed teams in League C not taking part in qualifying any more - which would mean only 40 teams in qualifying fighting for 20 spots which can be done in 6 games rather than 8-10, leaving room for the top end of the Nations League to have groups of four rather than three, and letting the worst teams continue playing each other instead in a bid to improve. It would also mean you could safely admit more teams who are considering trying to join UEFA such as Guernsey, Jersey, Monaco or Northern Cyprus without adding to the length of qualifying for everyone else.
'O Zio
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- Dec 27, 2014
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This is the main benefit for me. I don't really care about winning it or not, it is a meaningless trophy, but at least it means we're playing interesting opposition more regularly instead of endless friendlies against teams that we should be beating without breaking a sweat and so the players just go through the motions because they can't be bothered to play Jamaica either.
To the people criticising it, would you rather we just scrapped it and went back to playing even more meaningless friendlies? Given the choice tbh I'd rather just not have the games at all and just stick to qualifiers and tournaments, with maybe a few friendlies as warm-ups before tournaments, but given that that's never going to happen, it's a direct choice between the Nations League or some extra friendlies, so I'd pick the NL all day long.
cider spurs
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- Jul 5, 2016
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Any opportunity to piss on Lovren's parade must surely only be seen as a positive.
Hooray for the Nations league for providing the platform.
Worlds best didn't you know.
Hooray for the Nations league for providing the platform.
Worlds best didn't you know.
werty
Well-Known Member
- Aug 8, 2005
- 25,101
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Can someone explain to me how the draw for the Euro Qualifiers works now. Do all the teams that qualified for the finals not get drawn anymore and how many are in a group? Scotland are guaranteed at least a playoff spot for topping their league. Will a team finishing second above Scotland still get a play-off spot?
Marty
Audere est farce
- Mar 10, 2005
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The Euro qualifiers are actually the most simple they've been in ages. 10 groups of 5 or 6 teams where the top two in each go through to the Euros. 20 of the 24 teams in the Euros will qualify via this route.
What Scotland and the other group winners in the Nations League have done is guaranteed themselves a second chance playoff against sides from their own level in March 2020 should they not be one of the top two in their qualifying group. The last four of the 24 who will reach the Euros qualify through this route.
You won't be saying that if we go on to win the final. Highly unlikely, but not impossible & if it were to happen I'm sure there would be a lot of celebrating going on.
Saoirse
Well-Known Member
- Aug 20, 2013
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Teams are divided into pots based on their performances in the Nations League. The first five of these have ten teams each, and the sixth then has the remaining five worst teams in Europe. So for instance, Pot 1 will be the four teams who finished 1st in their groups in League A, the four who finished 2nd, and the best two who finished 3rd (Croatia, with 4 points, and Poland, with 2 and a -2 GD). Pot 2 then contains the other two who finished 3rd (Germany, with 2 and a -4 GD, and Iceland, with 0), as well as the teams finished 1st or 2nd in League B groups, and so on.
Because qualifying matches take place at the same time as the Nations League semis and final, the four semi-finalists (England, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Portugal) will be placed automatically in groups with only five teams, who don't have anybody from the smaller Pot 6. Therefore they'll play only 8 qualifying games (against everybody else in the group twice) rather than 10, with the 2 spare games being used for the Nations League semis and final.
In each of the ten groups, the top 2 teams will then qualify for Euro 2020, taking up 20 of the 24 slots. Performance in qualifying has no impact on whether you get a playoff place - finishing 3rd is no different to finishing bottom, it's Top 2 or nothing. If you do qualify though, performance in the qualifiers WILL be used for seeding in the final tournament: so the six group winners with the best record will be Pot 1, the four other group winners and the two best runners-up will be in Pot 2 and so on. Therefore unlike previous years there's an incentive for the big teams to do as well as possible even if they have an easy group or qualify with a few games to spare, in order to get a better draw for the final tournament.
The final four places are then determined by the Nations League playoffs (which are different and seperate to the finals tournament mentioned earlier). For this, they start in League D and work up. League D is the simplest since it's unlikely anybody from there will get through the normal qualifiers - so the four group winners (Georgia, Belarus, Kosovo and Macedonia) will play each other in the semi-finals and then a final, with the winner getting a Euro 2020 place. The teams with the better record in the Nations League - in this case, Georgia (16 points) and Macedonia (15) - will be at home in the semi-final and the two with worse records (Kosovo and Belarus, both 14) will be away - it's 1st vs 4th and 2nd vs 3rd. The host for the final will then be drawn randomly.
It starts getting more complicated when teams who've won their Nations League group qualify normally. So in League C, let's follow your example and suggest Scotland qualify automatically as well as Serbia, but the other group winners - Norway and Finland - don't. Those two winners then go into the League C playoffs as normal, while instead of Serbia and Scotland the next two best teams in League C go into what's best described as a "playoff pool", which I'll come back to in a moment. That ISN'T necessarily the teams who finished below Serbia and Scotland (which'd be Romania and Israel), but rather the two second-placed teams with the best record (which are Bulgaria and Israel in this case).
The same is done in Leagues B and A. For simplicity's sake, we'll assume in League B, eight of the teams have qualified normally including all the group winners, and the other four haven't. Therefore, those four who haven't qualified are added to the playoff pool (if one of them had won their Nations League group, that team would instead be automatically in the League B playoffs). In League A however, perhaps EVERYBODY has already qualified except Poland and Iceland. Therefore Poland and Iceland are automatically added to the Playoff Pool - but League A needs to add four teams to that, and the other ten are already qualified. To solve this, it then looks in the next league down - but in League B, we already have eight teams qualified, and another four already in the playoffs or playoff pool. It has to look all the way down to League C, where it finds nine teams who aren't qualified and aren't in the playoffs. The best two of these based on record - Hungary and Romania - are therefore added to the Playoff Pool on behalf of League A despite playing in League C.
Following this, we fill the remaining spaces in the playoffs with teams from the pool. However, it's important to be fair to the group winners - for instance, if you remember that we have Norway and Finland in the League C playoffs as a reward for them winning their groups, it'd be unfair to make them play against League A sides like Poland and Iceland. Therefore, if a league's playoffs contains group winners, it can only fill its spaces with teams from the same league or below.
So, in the playoff pool, we have four teams from League C (the two who took League C playoff places because other group winners had already qualified, and the two who took League A spaces because there weren't enough League A teams to make them up), plus four teams from League B and two teams from League A. League C has two spare places, and because the League C playoffs have group winners in them, they have to be taken by teams from League C or below. So two of the four Playoff Pool teams from League C are randomly drawn into the League C playoffs alongside Norway and Finland. This leaves us with two League C teams, four League B teams, and two League A teams in the pool.
Next, we try to fill the League B playoffs. Because all the group winners have already qualified, nobody's in here yet - and this means that anybody still in the pool can be randomly drawn into them! So you might see the four League B teams go here, or the League C and League A teams - it's entirely random. The same applies to the League A playoffs - there's nobody in them yet so they're filled by the four remaining pool teams after League B draws its four.
Just like in League D, the teams in each league's playoffs are then ranked 1st to 4th based on their Nations League performance. So if League B gets Poland, Iceland, and a couple of League C sides, Poland will play at home to the worse of those two League C sides, and Iceland at home to the other one. The final host is then drawn randomly between the winners of these semi-finals. And the winners of each league's playoffs qualify for Euro 2020, as well as a bonus spot in next year's European Maths Championships for actually figuring this shit out.
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SpaggyBoy
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- Sep 22, 2003
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Pretty sure I will. It will mean that rather than have a well deserved summer break in 2019, Harry Kane & Co will have to risk injury and exhaustion playing in the international equivalent of the ZDS Cup.
Marty
Audere est farce
- Mar 10, 2005
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It's been stated several times on here before, but if England hadn't won the group they would've played two Euro qualifiers in June instead of two games in the NL finals. They won't get any less rest than they would have otherwise.
Shadydan
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- Jul 7, 2012
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Yeah but why ruin the narrative though? There's nothing to moan about otherwise ?
'O Zio
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- Dec 27, 2014
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But the point is they're not playing an extra games, they play these instead of 2 of the ordinary qualifiers so it really makes no difference in terms of games played/tiredness etc.
teok
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- Aug 11, 2011
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The players and fans love it. I haven't felt this excited for england for years. Enjoy it while things are good.
SpaggyBoy
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- Sep 22, 2003
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So in other words they will have to make up those two qualifying games another time during the regular season then. Great.
I don't think we're going to agree. Some people like it, good for them. Personally I think International footbal is shit, has always been shit and always will be shit. In fact I'd have killed the England National Team years ago. I support Spurs and Spurs only. I'd actually prefer it if Poch refused to release any of our players for International duty ever. Spurs pay their wages, not Gareth Southgate.
'O Zio
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- Dec 27, 2014
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No, these games are instead of the two qualifying games. The number of games we will play is exactly the same. If we weren't playing this we'd just be playing 2 qualifying games against some shite team like Macedonia or something instead, so we may as well be in this.
Marty
Audere est farce
- Mar 10, 2005
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England will be drawn into a group of 5 teams instead of 6 in the qualifying draw next weekend precisely so they won't have to play extra games.
But no, I know we won't agree on this. International football was the absolute pinnacle before money flooded the game and I like the fact that UEFA are at least trying to create buzz around it again. And this autumn's games have certainly been a success.
