What is the uefa nations league
UEFA Champions League

What is the uefa nations league?

The UEFA Nations League is a fresh competition organized for National teams under UEFA. This competition has been in the works since October 2013 but kicked off officially five years later in September 2018. The 2019 UEFA Nations League Finals was won by Portugal after they came out victorious against The Netherlands. The finals held in Portugal.

The UEFA Nations League was created to reduce the number of meaningless friendly games played by member nations and replacing them with competitive matches that would mean more money for the European Sports body and for Nations competing.

One of the major benefits of the tournament is that it would help smaller nations organize matches that would develop their football without having to pay exorbitant fees to do so.

Another huge advantage to the smaller Nations is that the League would benefit them financially as the TV rights contract will be centralized. Making smaller teams make huge profits.

How Does The UEFA Nations League Work?

UEFA Nations League

It is quite straight-forward to know how the UEFA Nations League work. The League is contested by all 55 Nations under UEFA and is divided into four different leagues.

The original format had 12 teams in league A, 12 Teams in League B, 15 teams in League C and 16 teams in League D. These leagues were further divided to make each of them have four groups.

Nations that end up Top in all groups in Leagues B-D will get promotions to higher leagues. At the same time, the top placed Nations in League A groups will compete in a playoff to crown the UEFA Nations League Champions. Portugal won the 2019 UEFA Nations League final to become the first crowned champions.

Changes To The Original Format

After the first UEFA Nations League, some adjustments were made to the format to make the League better. Due to these adjustments, all teams that were supposed to be relegated were spared as more teams were added to the higher Leagues.

The four group leaders from League B were promoted to League A. The four group leaders and the runner-up in League C were promoted to League B. Both group winners and runner-up were also promoted from League D to League C.

Relegations were suspended after this first season to make Leagues A, B and C all contain 16 teams divided into four groups each with only league D comprising of seven nations divided into two groups.

2019 UEFA Nations League Finals

In this new format, the rule of relegations and promotions from each League remain with the only change being that only two Nations are relegated from League C. The two Nations are gotten from a playoff amongst the four bottom teams in league C.

A playoff will still be played to determine the overall champions.

The UEFA Nations league also provide teams with another route to qualify for the UEFA European Championship and also the World Cup qualifying playoff.

The UEFA Nations League has received a lot of widespread appraisals, many have lauded UEFA for coming up with the initiative of eliminating unnecessary friendly matches with a competition that will not only improve European teams but will also generate funds for all teams. people have backed other continents to come up with something similar.