UEFA Nations League

[EKACCIES]

I think the idea of semi finals and final at a neutral venue is only for the Finals of the top Division in June 2019 to find an overall winner. This doesn't apply to the other three lower Leagues. Winning a group in B, C or D gets promotion in the next cycle and guarantees a playoff place if you don't qualify for 2020. The strange aspect is when is the draw for the 2020 finals when the playoffs are in March and the finals in June doesn't leave much time for the logistics to sort training bases , flights , accommodation for the teams and the fans considering the finals will be played all over Europe. In addition the teams who compete in the Finals competition in June 2019 will also be playing Euro 2020 qualifiers in the same month so a busy time for players from 4 of the top 12 countries.

 

[forameus]

13 minutes ago, EKACCIES said:

I think the idea of semi finals and final at a neutral venue is only for the Finals of the top Division in June 2019 to find an overall winner. This doesn't apply to the other three lower Leagues. Winning a group in B, C or D gets promotion in the next cycle and guarantees a playoff place if you don't qualify for 2020. The strange aspect is when is the draw for the 2020 finals when the playoffs are in March and the finals in June doesn't leave much time for the logistics to sort training bases , flights , accommodation for the teams and the fans considering the finals will be played all over Europe. In addition the teams who compete in the Finals competition in June 2019 will also be playing Euro 2020 qualifiers in the same month so a busy time for players from 4 of the top 12 countries.

 

It's not going to make a huge amount of difference I don't think.  The teams playing in that competition I believe will be put into the 5 team qualification groups (although do these even exist nowadays given we've added several nations into qualifying?) meaning they'll always have free weeks during qualifying.  They'll just take their 2 free weeks in the summer when they'll play these games and resume qualifying in the Autumn.

[Bully Wee Villa]

There are 55 teams now, so the main qualifying campaign will be five groups of five and five groups of six.

[HibeeJibee]

Of course that's down to there being 10 groups instead of 9.

It also seems to be that the "Finals Tournament" will actually just be SFs & Final, not a round-robin group (with or without a final), which is a disappointment... Assuming it's played on the June qualifier dates it won't actually fill any of the 'empty June' every 4yrs, either.

[EKACCIES]

The likelihood is that the most of the 20 qualifiers from the 2020 qualifiers will come from Leagues A or B.meaning possibly only 4 left yet there are 4 playoff places for League A and 4 for League B. This means League C will have 4 playoff places plus another 4 dropping down from the leagues above unless some countries in League C qualify automatically. Overall of the 39 countries in Leagues A,B and C , 20 will qualify and 12 will get playoff places. This should mean Scotland have a good chance of getting at least a playoff place. The League D have 4 playoff places with a guaranteed qualifier. I wonder how many countries will try to get relegated from League C in a World Cup cycle to get this easier playoff spot in the Euro cycle.

[HibeeJibee]

I'm not convinced that will happen: you're effectively forfeiting the chance of a Division C playoff spot now, in the hopes of a Division D playoff spot next time. Perhaps if someone opens with a couple of bad results.

Last time around 16/20 would've been taken by Division A & B nations, meaning no-one uplifted from Division C into Division B playoff.

[Pie Of The Month]

You might get the odd team doing it but once we get into the Nations League being a regular feature I can't see too many teams tanking to go from one division to another. It givesyou a better chance of qualifying via the Nations League route but intentionally tanking will wreck the ranking used for the Euro and World Cup qualifier draws.  You're essentially gambling your chance of qualifying for tournaments for years to come by obliterating your ranking on being confident that you will definitely win your Nations League group and then 2 one off games which isn't exactly a given based on recent results of the likes of Scotland and Ireland against Lithuania and Georgia.

[Pie Of The Month]

https://uefa.app.box.com/v/UNL/file/226762295443

 

UEFA's media briefing for the Nations League although a bit long is pretty useful in showing how different scenarios work.

[HibeeJibee]

Something under 89 pages would be useful, tbh.


EDIT: I've tried to work my way through it and it's mind-numbingly complex. Does appear to clarify that spare slots get distributed by a ranking across a full division, not to the next team down in the section; that there is an element of random drawing for that, not ranking between sections; that playoffs aren't at neutral venues.

However the system for back-filling the playoff slots is just bizarre. In the example they give Division A (where everyone has qualified) ends-up with its playoff involving Bosnia (who finished 2nd in a Division B section), Eire (who finished bottom of a Division B section), Norway & Serbia (who both finished 2nd in Division C sections)... By the same token Wales (who finished 2nd in a Division B section i.e. equal to Bosnia + better than the other 3 teams) get kept in the Division B playoff, with Netherlands (who won a Division B section), Northern Ireland & Turkey (who both finished bottom of Division B sections).

That's terrible for Wales, who have to beat a fellow Division B, then probably the Netherlands; but a boon for Eire, who just have to beat a Division C team, then Bosnia! Even though Eire did worse.

There's absolutely no way 90% fans are going to be able to follow the variables and permutations, either.


Incidentally fans, transport bodies and police will love the playoff final venues not being known until 3 days prior.


EDIT AGAIN: Also since there's not enough confusion already, there is some special arrangement for relegation in Division C - which as you'll recall has 1 group of 3 and 3 groups of 4. Instead of the 4 bottom places getting relegated, only the bottom (i.e. 4th) teams in sections C2-C4 are relegated... there is then a ranking of the 3rd-place teams from all 4 sections, worst going down.

It means that Scotland could end-up in a 4-team section then finish 2nd bottom, but be relegated to Division D while the team which has finished bottom of C1 stays up.

Weirdly they could have avoided it by having 4 teams in all the Division C sections... or as I said before, by making all sections 4 with a single 6-team pool as Division D.

[forameus]

This is going to be absurdly brilliant.

[LinkinFighter]

Jeff and the boys will love this. I can picture Merson now [emoji38]

[Dindeleux]

A new low, and for you, that's saying something.
Like others have rightly said, England didn't bid.  Turkey were the unopposed party, but given they got the Olympics, UEFA were reluctant to give them both.  So they came up with the whole of Europe idea.  And clearly they hated England so damn much that they decided to give them the most important games just to spite them.  Poor England.

Didn’t realise UEFA were in charge of deciding who gets the Olympics. You learn something new every day.

[Blootoon87]

I got to about page four of that briefing and even though I was still reading it, the words lost all meaning. Felt like I'd forgotten how to read.

 

Right, I've read it again. So all the 16 group winners of the Nations league end up in a play off for four spaces in the Euros, one per pot?

The playoffs are decided after the Euro qualifiers as teams that have already qualified through the traditional qualifiers don't play in the Nations league playoffs? So who takes their place in the Nations league playoffs?

The top two in the ten groups of Euro qualifiers go through to the Euros, so 20 from there and 4 from the Nations league?

Also there are relegations and promotions for all winners and losers of the Nations league groups which determine which pot they're in for the next time?

 

Or am I miles off with that?

 

[charger29]

Just got more confusing. I don't like the draws and I don't like the C relegation system.

As was pointed out above, 16 teams in League D would have solved the relegation problem. Given how complex this is, I presume somebody much smarter than me has came up with a reason for this setup.

[ham89]

It's hillariously complex, but....

I like the idea that we can qualify for the Euros, if we win our group and then beat 2 other teams of similar level.

That's realistically our target.

[HibeeJibee]

3 hours ago, Blootoon87 said:

I got to about page four of that briefing and even though I was still reading it, the words lost all meaning. Felt like I'd forgotten how to read.

Right, I've read it again. So all the 16 group winners of the Nations league end up in a play off for four spaces in the Euros, one per pot?

The playoffs are decided after the Euro qualifiers as teams that have already qualified through the traditional qualifiers don't play in the Nations league playoffs? So who takes their place in the Nations league playoffs?

The top two in the ten groups of Euro qualifiers go through to the Euros, so 20 from there and 4 from the Nations league?

Also there are relegations and promotions for all winners and losers of the Nations league groups which determine which pot they're in for the next time?

Or am I miles off with that?

You're correct except:

* chances are lots of the section winners will have qualified through regular Euro 2020 qualifying, meaning the gaps will be back-filled through a series of divisional and overall rankings - plus, in some cases, random draws - sufficiently complicated to baffle anyone bar a maths professor

* there is a "special arrangement" for relegation in Division C, where bottom in the first section (which only has 3 teams) may not be relegated, but 2nd bottom in the other 3 sections could be

* remember that there is also a "Finals Tournament" for the winners of Division A sections, to decide the overall Nations League champions... as a result those teams will be drawn into 5-team sections for Euro 2020 qualifying, so they can be odd team on matchdays 3 & 4


EDIT: Those who make it to p89 will also observe a number of new tie-break criteria being introduced, no doubt in fear that with only 4 games being played in the upper divisions, teams within sections (or rankings between sections) could end-up in a dead heat. New criteria - in order - are away goals; wins; away wins; yellow + red cards; and coefficient (for edition #1 - thereafter previous edition).

[Donathan]

They should just go 16-16-16-7. Divisions A to C are 4 groups of 4 playing 6 games each. Division D, they all play each other once, playing 3 home games and 3 away games each.

 

Division winners promoted and last placed teams relegated (Top 4 in division D promoted). Bin the playoff spots for division three because this is going to lead to some absolute minnow qualifying. So then in future European championships, it will work out nicely having 20 spots to come from the main qualifying groups (top 10 from each of the 10 groups), one playoff spot for each UNL division, and then the hosts. For Euro 2020 as we don't have a host then you maybe give division D a spot as a one off.

 

 

[HibeeJibee]

Agreed, with the exception that I'd have the bottom in Division C play-off and only promote the top 2 in Division D... 4 from 7 = excessive, IMO.

[Broken Algorithms]

On 9/26/2017 at 19:22, HibeeJibee said:

Something under 89 pages would be useful, tbh.


EDIT: I've tried to work my way through it and it's mind-numbingly complex. Does appear to clarify that spare slots get distributed by a ranking across a full division, not to the next team down in the section; that there is an element of random drawing for that, not ranking between sections; that playoffs aren't at neutral venues.

However the system for back-filling the playoff slots is just bizarre. In the example they give Division A (where everyone has qualified) ends-up with its playoff involving Bosnia (who finished 2nd in a Division B section), Eire (who finished bottom of a Division B section), Norway & Serbia (who both finished 2nd in Division C sections)... By the same token Wales (who finished 2nd in a Division B section i.e. equal to Bosnia + better than the other 3 teams) get kept in the Division B playoff, with Netherlands (who won a Division B section), Northern Ireland & Turkey (who both finished bottom of Division B sections).

That's terrible for Wales, who have to beat a fellow Division B, then probably the Netherlands; but a boon for Eire, who just have to beat a Division C team, then Bosnia! Even though Eire did worse.

There's absolutely no way 90% fans are going to be able to follow the variables and permutations, either.


Incidentally fans, transport bodies and police will love the playoff final venues not being known until 3 days prior.


EDIT AGAIN: Also since there's not enough confusion already, there is some special arrangement for relegation in Division C - which as you'll recall has 1 group of 3 and 3 groups of 4. Instead of the 4 bottom places getting relegated, only the bottom (i.e. 4th) teams in sections C2-C4 are relegated... there is then a ranking of the 3rd-place teams from all 4 sections, worst going down.

It means that Scotland could end-up in a 4-team section then finish 2nd bottom, but be relegated to Division D while the team which has finished bottom of C1 stays up.

Weirdly they could have avoided it by having 4 teams in all the Division C sections... or as I said before, by making all sections 4 with a single 6-team pool as Division D.

 

 

 

 

 

[Poet of the Macabre]

90% of fans don't even know this is going to take place, never mind understand how it fucking works.