UEFA Nations League

[ss4_goku]

Hey, I'm not sure if this belongs here or in the National Teams folder

Anywayz, what do you guys think about the new UEFA Nations League?? I think it is a very stupid and useless idea. Via EURO Nations Cup and the qualifiers for EURO and World Cup, doesn't the National Teams play each other from the same continent enough? I always felt that the friendlies were a great chance for smaller nations to play the big boys and for the nations to play with different continents and different playing styles. For example, the German national team's past friendlies were all against North or South Americans.

For those that are not sure what it is, more information can be found here: http://www.uefa.org/mediaservices/mediareleases/newsid=2079544.html

 

[gerd]

IMO it's not such a bad idea, but it should include national teams outside Europe too...
There should be a relation with the WC: the WC could be seen as the play-offs of this league.

The combination of both should give a format that would look like the NBA-competition.

Football is a spectacle, and frindlies are useless as a spectacle. I'll take the example of Belgium's last friendly against Ivory Coast. Belgium outplayed Ivory Coast for 75 minutes (i'm exagerating, but they were by far the better team) until our coaches started to sub players. Belgium led 2-0 at that point, Wilmots made 6 substitutions and the match ended in a draw. Can't say Ivory Coast didn't deserve the draw, but as a spectacle the last 15 minutes were dreadfull...

Competitive mtaches are a better spectacle.

There is however one negative point. There are more and more people who are against international football because players don't get enough rest (best example: Fernando Torres was destroyed by both Liverpool and Spain because in 4 season he never had a decent rest period). One could ask questions about the need of international football, but since a WC provides tons of money for FIFA, international football will continue to exist.

All in all i'm not against this new competition, but i prefer my idea in this post...

 

[Rentalkid]

The problem with the inclusion of nations from different continents would be the additional distances the players would then have to travel - the real troublesome aspect in many a player's fitness and form. Once or twice (as it is handled right now with the more "exotic" friendlies during the week and half long breaks during the regular season) might be manageable; but flying your best players over to the Americas, Australia, Asia or Europe for that matter on a regular basis, like every three or four weeks or so ... I don't know if I want to see that happen.

Within the boundaries of our rather small continent I can totally see that working out well, however.
I'm not the biggest fan of the idea in general, but if UEFA manages to come up with a sound and not too ambitious concept for the league(s), then I could see myself get behind this competition.
It does strike me as rather odd that a plan like this can come to fruition right now, though, considering how many officials from the big clubs have lamented the already too demanding schedules of the national teams.

A league like that, a 24 team European Championship and the qualifiers for it ... seems a bit much to me.

 

[Dazzlà]

54 national teams in 4 divisions, each division will be sub-divided into four pools of three or four teams? what is that about? what is the point? players and fans will care about this the same amount they care about international friendlies, very little. UEFA have already messed the euros by expanding it to 24 teams and now they're fucking about with this nations shit?

 

[S-NipE]

Don't get the reason for this crap except for the UEFA to make even more money.

We'll have a EC (2016 with more teams than ever and 2020 with matches all over Europe, two more stupid ideas), a WC and this league for the teams in Europe and that's just for the international squads. Players from top club teams do have to play in the national championships, the national cups and the European club competitions (CL and EL). Additionally they've to play the qualification rounds for the respective following WC, so they'll be more often on the pitch than not. I don't want to imagine, what problems this will bring for the health of the professional players...Apart from that I strongly doubt that this league will change anything about the hierarchy of European football. We'll still have some top teams, some that might be a threat to them on certain days and many that are too far away from that level to compete with them.

We don't get technical advantages like goal cameras or stuff other sports are using for decades, but create more and more stupid contests and rules for these contests. That's UEFA and FIFA.

 

[cfdh_edmundo]

It seems like (on current ranking coefficient) it would be split as follows:
I've done the first bucket up to 12 as if the top divisions groups are made of 3 it needs to be either 12 or 15 in the top division, 12 would be four groups of 3 with the winners then being put into "semi finals". The Draw was random, bold teams will be promoted (for Div 1 they go to the "semi final") italic ones relegated, again the finishing order is random - I am not saying I think Germany or Belgium would finish last in their groups

Division 1
Bosnia ----------- Russia ----------- France ----------- Croatia
Portugal ----------- Ukraine ----------- Spain ----------- Holland
England ----------- Greece ----------- Italy ----------- Germany

Division 2
Turkey ----------- Slovakia ----------- Austria ----------- Romania
Ireland ----------- Denmark ----------- Sweden ----------- Switzerland
Serbia ----------- Sweden ----------- Hungary ----------- Czech Rep
Israel ----------- Slovenia ----------- Poland ----------- Belgium

Division 3
Macedonia ----------- Bulgaria ----------- Latvia ----------- Albania
Scotland ----------- Estonia ----------- Montenegro ----------- Lithuania
Armenia ----------- Iceland ----------- Wales ----------- Northern Ireland
Finland ----------- Azerbaijan ----------- Belarus ----------- Moldova

Division 4
Malta ----------- San Marino ----------- Gibralter
Andorra ----------- Faroes ----------- Kazakhstan
Liechtenstein ----------- Cyprus ----------- Georgia
Luxembourg -----------

For Division 4, I would guess that they could either have Andorra promoted for being 2nd in the 4 team group or have some sort of playoff between all the Div 4 runners up.

 

[gerd]

This format is great for the countries in division 4.
At last they can play matches to win them.
This is good for the development of their players.

If you have to play all the time against teams that are much, much stronger, in the end you don't develop.

 

[cfdh_edmundo]

The major issue I have with it is the abolotion of friendlies. I fear this will hurt the middle ranking teams a lot. Take a team like Bosnia, they have just made it to the WC and have some great players in their team (Dzecko, Begovic, Ibisevic, Spahic) but in the squad as a whole there isnt a lot of strenght in depth. Take the goalkeeper, Begovic is great, but what about the others? Avdukic and Fejdic are very much unproven playing at Borac (Bosnian club) and Aahlen (German lower league club) they have, more or less, never played in the Europa League or CL, nor have they played in the top division of a major league in Europe.

The last few months Bosnia have played friendlies against USA, Argentina, Egypt and (soon) the Ivory Coast. These matches are the perfect chance to test players like Avdukic and Fejzic, they will be facing high quality opponents, playing with probable national teammates but also the result of the matches is not that crucial to Bosnia, so they can risk or experiement. All these chances are gone with the League of Nations competition. Bosnia will have far less friendlies these League matches will be too important (in terms of results/relegation/ranking) to risk trying out fringe players. Even a player like Fraser Forster with England, will he get a chance to break into the national team without friendlies? His only chance to prove his worth at a very high level will be (in all probability) 6 CL group games a year.

Dont forget that, now, a lot of the team training time before League of Nations matches will now go into studying opponents and traing around their weaknesses. Germany had a series of friendlies with Latin American teams in the last few years, yes during training sessions ahead of these games there will have been some time devoted to the opposition, but (as the results were not of paramount importance) Loew could also use the time at the training sessions to experiment with the direction of his team (maybe bring in youth players in sessions or trying 3 at the back or whatever), now he will have to focus far far more on getting the right result in the League of Nations match.

 

[ss4_goku]

I totally agree on the point of squad depth. If these games have to mean something, then it is almost impossible to test with young players as they'd be piled under huge pressure and it'd be worst off for their growth.

UEFA just want money from this...which is not good for the game, the countries nor the players.