Starting from 2018 there will be a new tournament set up and approved by UEFA which will involve the national teams of the 55 countries affiliated to UEFA. We are talking of the new Nations League, a tournament which will see the various teams play for the title of Nations League Champions, and so to win the new trophy.
The new competition has come into being for various reasons, the first of which is to give a chance to national teams to play in a more competitive tournament compared to the usual friendlies. In fact in recent years it has been noted that the level of competitiveness in friendly matches is well below that of games played as part of the various official tournaments. The aim is to give some extra appeal to this type of game, which will thus no longer simply be friendlies, but will be part of a prestigious tournament which will lead to the award of a trophy, which will make it all the more stimulating for both players and public. The tournament has also been designed to simplify the qualification process for EURO 2020 and give teams an extra chance to qualify for the Euro championships. (See below)
HOW THE NEW NATIONS LEAGUE WORKS – To take part in the tournament, the 55 teams affiliated to UEFA will be grouped into 4 Divisions (A, B, C and D), of which Division A will contain the highest ranked teams and Division D the lowest.
To calculate the rankings, only for the initial edition, UEFA will use its own ranking as at 15 November 2017, i.e. at the end of the qualification stage for the FIFA 2018 World Cup.
Division A and Division B will have 12 teams, divided in 4 groups with 3 teams in each. Division C will have one group with 3 teams and 3 groups with 4, while Division D will have 4 groups with 4 teams each.
The group games will take place over 6 match days between September and November 2018, with home and away fixtures. At the end of this stage we will have 4 winners in Division 4, one for each group. The winners (P) of Divisions B, C and D will be promoted into the next higher Division, while the teams finishing at the bottom of the groups (R) in Divisions A, B and C will be relegated to the next lower Division (promotion and relegation will be essential in the composition of the divisions of the subsequent edition of the tournament).
The winners of the groups in Division A (FF) will instead go on to the next stage of the competition, the Final Four (which will be held in June 2019) in which they will compete for the title of UEFA Nations League Champions. For this stage the pairings for the games will be done by drawing lots.
NATIONS LEAGUE AND EURO 2020 – The new UEFA Nations League will be helpful in terms of simplifying qualification for EURO 2020. Let’s see how.
First of all it must be said that the format for EURO 2020 will remain largely unchanged and qualification will be achieved as usual through the qualification groups, in which the Final Four teams from the previous Nations League tournament will have the right to be drawn in the 5-team groups. Another change is the fact that, while 20 teams will qualify through the qualification stage of Euro 2020, the other four will do so through the Play-offs of the UEFA Nations League.
In March 2020 a play-off stage will take place for the winners of the groups of the previous Nations League. For each Division one of the 4 remaining places for EURO 2020 will be at stake. Therefore, the 4 winners of each Division will meet in two semi-finals and final.
For the semi-finals of the Play-offs the teams will not however be drawn, as instead will happen for the semi-finals of the Final Four. The winners of each Division will be classified on the basis of the performance in the most recent Nations League, with the first ranked team being that which won its group with the highest number of points, and the bottom ranked will instead be the team which won with lowest number of points (other criteria will be considered in the case of equal points). On the basis of this classification the teams will then be paired for the games, with the top ranked meeting the bottom ranked and the second facing the third.
The winner of each of the 4 play-off groups (PO) will therefore automatically win the right to one of the 4 places remaining to take part in Euro 2020. (The arrangement of the teams in the following tables is random).
Should one of the winners of any Nations League group have already qualified for Euro 2020 through the qualification groups for the later, its place in the Nations League play-offs will be given to the team with the highest ranking in its Division. In the hypothetical case in which all the other teams in the same Division have already qualified through the Euro qualification system, then the place will pass to the team which has not qualified and which has the highest ranking in the Division with the highest overall ranking globally.