Nations League. Yes, that again.

Day -994 WorldCup2022

The European qualifying journey to 2022 starts tomorrow, kind of. The draw for UEFA's 2020/21 Nations League will happen and there is an indirect route to Qatar possible.

If you never understood the first edition of the Nations League and who qualified for Euro 2020 and who didn't, and who made it to the playoffs for the Euros, and who didn't win their Nations League group or qualify for the Euros through their Euro qualifying group but still made it the Euro qualifying play-offs at a different level than the league they were originally in, well then it's a lot easier this time. Easier in a way that University undergraduate level Physics is easier than Ph.d Physics.

There are no guaranteed World Cup spots at the end of all the matches that will happen between September and November of this year. The top 4 teams in Division A of the Nations League will play in the Nations League finals in June, the same thing as what Portugal won last year. The top teams of Divisions B, C and D will be promoted and the bottom teams relegated, except of course for Division D. There are 4 groups in each of the top 3 divisions but only 2 in D, so the 4 bottom teams of division C will play off to determine two relegated teams.

The top 10 teams of the World Cup qualifying groups will be in the Qatar. The 10 runners up will be in the play-offs, along with the top two group winners from the Nations League who didn't win a World Cup qualifying group or finish 2nd. That means 12 teams will be in the play-offs and 3 teams will end up qualifying for Qatar.

Got it? Yes, back to that Ph.D. Someone may have figured this out by the time you're done.

Or UEFA will have tinkered with their new competition, again. Because here's the fun part, the bit where you read the very serious description of the new format and laugh at how predictable it was that this was going to happen. Cast your mind back to the last Nations League and remember this bombshell: Germany relegated. How could that ever happen, we wondered? How could UEFA dream up a competition where Germany get relegated? As we looked forward to the prospect of German playing in Division B, how many of you thought: either Germany will just refuse to play or UEFA will move the goalposts to stop this humiliation happening. And that's what they did. UEFA decided Divisions A, B and C will now have 16 teams each, rather than 12 and so, lo and behold, any country relegated last time will not actually be relegated. Problem solved.