Due to my dislike of the National team and everything involved in it this new tournament has totally slipped past me. What the feck is it all about??? England will be tested by the newly-devised UEFA Nations League which could make international football more meaningful, Gareth Southgate says. England have been drawn to face Spain and Croatia in League A of the inaugural competition, which will get underway in September. The format will see four leagues - A, B, C and D - split into four groups of three or four teams, which will replace the majority of friendlies.
They are replacing these instead of the meaningless friendlies. The idea is that the teams will play against like for like teams. The top 12 rated teams were split into 4 groups of 3. The winners of these play in a mini tournament in 2019. There is also relegation and promotion. In theory it will all fit around the qualifying for the 2020 Euros. How, I have no fecking idea. My head hurts.
Sounds abit of a head wreck that like. Im not sure if its a good thing or a bad thing. I thought the whole point of friendlies against lesser teams was to try and test new players and formations and for the lower ranked teams to try their luck against higher ranked teams and players?
Better to watch. Given the option I would rather watch us play Spain in a semi-meaningful game than a **** friendly. Its all a load of bollocks though.
Yeah me too to be fair. I still hate the whole england setup though so my interest will still remain limited.
Yeah it could have the unintended result of widening the gap between the "elite nations" and the rest like the Premier league has done to our league clubs uefa meddling again
Yes it does seem harsh on the lower ranked countries. What kind of enjoyment and development are they going to get out of this? It sounds like once again football is being dominated by money so all the higher ranked teams get to play eachother more often.
I'm a sad ****er. I support us and England. So anything that makes the England so-called friendlies more interesting is fine by me. On the other hand, I've heard that it's taken a lot of fudging and compromising to get this format in place, so it'll probably be crap and suit nobody!
It seems like an absolute crock of **** to me. Games will be more like England B v Spain B because nobody will give a ****. Daft, but it will make UEFA a few quid of course.
Apparently the competition is based on champions league and the old intertoto cup but open to countries not clubs. It includes 4 leagues of 4 groups of 3 or 4*countries. The format is complicated but does offer meaningful international matches for all nations. Sorry no link but today's i-paper has a good overview of it. So maybe uefa are not meddling in a bad way - we'll see.
Now I have to worry about Sunderland AND England getting relegated! TOP OF THE F**CKING POPS! To be honest I dont give a monkeys about England in the tournies so this means nowt to me except leaving me scratching my head.
As a devious bugger looking at the big picture, I see it this way. All of the big teams sign on at least 100 young players, not to keep but to sell on for profit. This should be reduced to 30 per club, to give an even playing field, but it won't be done. This set up will enable teams to display their talent, and to make a bigger profit margin for the big clubs when they sell them on. We all know that England only picks players from the big clubs. lull us into supporting them - fekk right off, money grabbing ****s.
