Euro 2020 qualifying

Day -736. ‪WorldCup2018‬

Something popped into my head which, as a football fan, I've been trying to ignore thinking about for a while. It's a bit like an exam you had at school in a subject which you hated and you put off studying it forever and when you did think about it you quickly calculated that there were still two more days to go before you had to really start working on it. Maybe it wasn't exactly like that but that thought came into my head which replaced the original issue which I was trying to ignore getting said head around, and I just went with it.

Here it is. A while ago, Michel Platini, in his glory days of president of UEFA announced a innovative new qualifying format for the 2020 Euros which would also have some bearing on the 2022 World Cup qualifying. It sounded very much like the Champions League for countries, but of course UEFA denied the more matches on TV had anything to do with increased revenue. In a nutshell it involves a Nations League split into 4 divisions based on the countries' rankings at the end of the 2018 World Cup qualifying. Then the understanding of it kind of falls apart for me. There are two sets of play-offs, one in June 2019 and another in March 2020, the winners of which somehow join the other teams that will go through the regular group qualifying which is still happening. UEFA's selling point of this is that it eliminates meaningless friendlies (all matches will be competitive) (agreed) and it gives small countries the opportunity to qualify. Apparently the winners of the bottom division will secure a spot at the Euros in 2020. So that's good news for supporters of minnows like Malta and Scotland.

I read through it all again, including on UEFA's website and I have to confess I am none the wiser. I thought writing it out would make it easier for me and I would be able to explain it all for you. But not yet. I've got another two and a half years to go and I'm sure in that time the BBC will have one of their simple "Euro qualifying explained" diagrams. I can’t wait to see how they simplify this. UEFA's diagram has my head spinning.

In other quick news, USA have had enough of these boring 0-0's and 1-0's in their own backyard and have beaten Costa Rica 4-0 in the Copa. There'll be lot of "USA! USA! USA-ing! tonight.
Tomorrow we will know the finalists of the OFC Nations Cup. Will hosts PNG be hosting New Zealand in the final?

Older news but since Kosovo and Gibraltar became members of Fifa in May, they will have to be included in the 2018 World Cup qualifying, the draw for which was made a while ago. There are two groups of 5 (the rest have 6 teams) which they will be drawn into. In the case of Gibraltar it probably won't make much of a difference as they will be the bottom team. But Kosovo could be more tricky opposition, especially if they win what could be a very interesting legal battle to have players born in Kosovo who since played for other countries, because Kosovo wasn't a country, now come back and play for Kosovo.