I RETURN today to the newly-announced UEFA League of Nations (let's hope it doesn't reduce itself to the level of imp0tency of its ill-starred 1920s predecessor of the same name).
I have had a look at the "full explanation" as laid-out on the official UEFA website; the devil is in what is not explained therein. UEFA stresses the new competition will not, unlike the Champions League, be an excuse for the rich to get richer, I don't believe them.
In principle, the idea is a good one, offering more-meaningful non-qualifying internationals, rather than meaningless friendlies, although, these are still on-offer, particularly for the bigger nations. Cannot have a system whereby England, Germany, Spain and Italy cannot fit-in friendlies with the likes of Argentina and Brazil.
Were the new competition to be introduced today, Scotland would be in the second of the four new divisions. Taking the current UEFA international co-efficients as a guide, Division Two would be filled by: Czech Republic, Romania, Israel, Cyprus, Denmark, Croatia, Poland, Belarus, Scotland, Sweden, Bulgaria, Norway, Serbia and Hungary.
Just how these 14 nations, currently ranked 15th to 28th in the UEFA rankings, would be split into their groups within the division, is unclear. These 14 nations will be split into four mini-leagues, with the four mini-league winners then playing-off for the play-off places for Euro2020 and subsequent competitions.
IF the mini-leagues are formed on regional lines, Scotland would be in against Denmark, Sweden and Norway at least; if, however, the initial sorting-out was done by taking the co-efficient order and going, one, two, three, four, we would be in with Czech Republic, Denmark and Serbia. That, however, is simply guesswork, based on my reading of some fairly scanty data.
Either one of my imagined groups would be a tough one to win, but, it wouldn't, I suggest, be beyond us. Certainly, such groupings would offer games which would excite the Tartan Army a bit more than some recent friendlies.
Also, of course, there is the belief that Scotland has never really done friendlies and needs to know a match is meaningful, before our guys give it 100 per cent.
It has taken UEFA from 2011 to get this far, the new competition will not kick-off before 2018, so, there is plenty of time for UEFA to get it right. Let's hope they can.
SO, Black Sabbath didn't turn out to be thus for the long-suffering Hearts support; but, their recent pain continues for the Hibbees across the city. It was always, given Hibs' recent form, a reasonable bet that Hearts might win. They will still be relegated, but, now the calamity for capital football of a double relegation is all too real.
Squeaky bum time in Edinburgh right enough.
And, just to dampen the enthusiasm around Gorgie, the latest news from Lithuania may well cause a few sleepless nights for the faithful.
No comments:
Post a Comment