UEFA Nations League
UEFA Nations League: A Good Idea Or Not?
The new UEFA Nations League kicks off this week. UEFA have introduced the new tournament to give national teams more competitive games and fewer meaningless friendlies.
The binennial competition will provide a summer tournament in years without a World Cup or European Championships.
It will also provide countries a second chance to qualify for the European Championships in 2020.
How Will It Work?
The new Nations League format is quite complicated. Even some players are struggling to understand how it works.
England defender Harry Maguire has stated that he isn’t quite sure of the format, even after England manager Gareth Southgate explaining it to him. So here goes. The Nations League is made up of four leagues, with the teams in each league decided by their UEFA coefficient.
League A sees the top 12 ranked European Nations split into four groups of three nations. Meanwhile League D sees the lowest ranked European Nations split into four groups of four nations.
Nations will play each other home and away. In League A the winner of each group will move on to what UEFA are calling the ‘final four’.
The semi-finals and final will take place in June next year, with the hosts being one of the final four nations.
With me so far? Now for the more complicated bit.
How Will This Effect Euro 2020?
The winner of the Nations League will automatically qualify for Euro 2020. Qualification for Euro 2020 will still be the same though. There will be ten groups of five or six nations in each group.
The top two from each group will automatically qualify for European Champions. However, nations who didn’t qualify automatically now have a second chance.
If they won their Nations League group they will go into the play-offs. Ties will be played over an one off semi-final and final. The winner from each league will qualify for Euro 2020.
However, if a team tops their Nations League group but has already qualified for Euro 2020 through the Euro 2020 qualifiers, then the next best-ranked team from their Nations League group will take their place.
Countries who finish bottom of their Nations League group will be relegated to a lower division for the next edition which starts in 2021.
Still with me. Good.
Is The New Nations League A Good Idea?
The new UEFA Nations League has been introduced to provide more competitive international games. However, there are a lot of criticisms for the new format.
One of which is that the winner from League D is now guaranteed a place at Euro 2020.
The League includes nations such as Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia and Malta. The highest ranked nation in League D is Macedonia ranked 70th in the FIFA World Rankings.
No disrespect to these nations but do they deserve to be at Euro 2020? Surely the competition should be about having the best countries in it.
Even though the new Nations League format provides these countries with a great opportunity it feels like UEFA are devaluing qualification for Euro 2020.
Also, how seriously will the top nations such as France, Germany, Spain and Portugal take the competition?
In all likelyhood they are going to qualify for Euro 2020 anyway. Even though there is another trophy at stake, it will not hold the same prestige as the European Championships or the World Cup.
Will the new Nations League format be a success? We will just have to wait and see but it does feel it is a tournament and format which is not necessary in a crowded footballing calendar.
Photo credit to Donald Trump via Flickr
