UEFA Nations League: 5 countries that shone and 5 countries that flopped
The UEFA Nations League is an initiative introduced by UEFA in a bid to improve competition among its member states and reduce the number of dead rubber friendlies, keeping nations’ competitive streak on ahead of the assault on qualifiers for major tournaments.
The format saw all 52 member countries grouped into four leagues by virtue of their FIFA ranking, with the strongest 12 nations making up League A, while the weakest 16 nations made up League D.
Each League was then further divided into groups, with each member of the various groups playing each other on a home and away basis, with points accrued normally for a win or draw as obtainable elsewhere.
To increase the stakes, UEFA introduced a relegation and promotion incentive, whereby the bottom-placed team in each group of the four leagues suffers relegation to the lower league when the next season starts, while the top placed teams in each group gain promotion, as well as got a shot at qualification to EURO 2020 through a play-off to decide the representative of all four leagues..
Another incentive was also the prospect of being crowned the first ever UEFA Nations League Champion, as all four group winners in League A advanced to a semi-final to be staged in June next year where they would be drawn in a knockout match to decide the finalists and concordantly the winner of the UEFA Nations League.
Even though a lot of people expressed scepticism at first, the seriousness exhibited by the teams and players gradually won the fans over, and on the conclusion of the Nations League, there were more supporters than sceptics, and the initiative has been widely praised as being a wonderful initiative.
As with any other tournament, there were favourites in every league who were expected to do well, as well as minnows that were expected to complete the numbers, but true to form, the Nations League offered us numerous shocks as unexpected teams topped their standings while favoured teams struggled to impress. In this piece, we take a look at three teams who flopped and those who starred.
FLOPS
Dishonourable mentions – Poland, Republic of Ireland, Albania, Slovenia,
Flop #5 Northern Ireland
The Green and White Army have made extremely tremendous progress in recent years, and achieved qualification to EURO 2016, making it to the second round where they were narrowly defeated by Wales due to an own goal.
They followed that up with a second place finish in their 2018 World Cup qualification group behind Germany and saw their hopes for a first World Cup appearance in almost three decades quashed by Switzerland in the UEFA play-offs.
They entered the Nations League draws as one of the highest ranked teams in League B, and were expected to challenge Bosnia-Herzegovina for the top spot in their group.
However, what followed was an utter disaster, as Northern Ireland finished rock bottom of their group, scoring just one goal, and finishing on zero points thereby suffering relegation to League C.
Manager Michael O’Neill was visibly disappointed upon completion of their last group match, as distraughtly told his Northern Irish compatriots to forget the Nations League was ever invented.
Northern Ireland came into the Nations League with a burgeoning reputation, and even though they largely matched their group opponents, their results left a lot to be desired from a team which is very much on the rise.