I tune in every night. And congrats to Gibraltar. First competitive win. Away no less. After Armenia played the Liechtenstein anthem by mistake.
And that very same Armenia trashes group leader by 4-0. LOL. Interesting competition so far. By the way, it is amazing how commentators and press still don't know competition rules. At least in Croatia. And I am shocked with Slovenian fall. They are going to get relegated with two games to play. Shock.
Again, when even the grumpy traditionalist media in England embraces the competition you know you have succeeded. Germany on the verge of relegation after last night.
#CROESP has made me a believer in Nations League. Sensational game. This is what international breaks should be like— Rahul Kalvapalle (@Kalvapalle) November 15, 2018 Congrats @dinamo_zagreb and @Nico777 !
Mesmerizing 45 minutes of football (as first half was awful). I think Croatia will trash England on Sunday, they don't stand a chance now, after that massive morale boost in the 93 minute. Happy for Bosnia and Herzegovina, my homeland, to qualify to League A. Prosinečki is doing amazing job, impenetrable defense, as it seems.
Hot damn, I love this tournament Gave my $0.02 on Twitter on my view of an ideal copycat for the Americas... If the FIFA Global Nations League does not come into existence in the near future (and Softbank-Saudi involvement is definitely a reason to refrain), Concacaf should 💯 talk with Conmebol about setting up a Pan-American Nations League— Paul Calixte (@paulcalixte1) November 13, 2018
I was really impressed by Denzel Dumfries. I have never really seen him play until yesterday. Having him on the right with Memphis on the left can give any team fits.
Regarding the difficulties caused by long-distance travel in any combined competition between South and North/Central/Caribbean, why can they not be resolved by scheduling games at the venues closest to each other? For example, if Canada plays in a qualifying or NL group with Chile and Paraguay, they could schedule Canada's two away games together in order to reduce excessive travelling. UEFA - in the forthcming draw for euro2020 preliminaries - has decided, among other rules, that Winter venues: A maximum of two teams identified as venues with high or medium risk of severe winter conditions will be placed in each group: Belarus, Estonia, Faroe Islands, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Russia, Ukraine This shows how geographical considerations can be accommodated.
I think a combined CONCACAF-CONMEBOL Nations League would only benefit the former, not the latter. Let's get real. People in Argentina, Colombia and Paraguay are not going to show up to see Trinidad and Tobago, Canada and El Salvador. They would much rather see a friendly or even a scrimmage.
If the money's right, everyone wins. They wouldn't have to, either. The first three would be in League A 95% of the time, and the latter three would spend more time in League B and yo-yoing up every once in a while. And where, pray tell, would said friendly take place? If anything, a Nations League helps secure more chances for them to see their own NT in person. Also, Argentina regularly schedules home friendlies against the likes of T&T, Canada, and Haiti already; Costa Rica just got off beating Chile in Chile and are headed to Peru; Bolivia went to Curaçao and got humiliated; etc. We (Conmebol and Concacaf members) already play each other all the time, and Conmebol sides haven't had a problem so far getting people to show up for games against inferior opposition.
1) Yes Money talks hence I am saying there is a slim chance this can happen. 2) I am not saying they would have to at first but eventually in a hypothetical world we could see games like that in the future. 3) The friendlies you mention are either held in the USA or if they are held at home are really not attended that well. Hence I maid my claim. If it all comes down to money which is your primary point then I could see maybe a tournament in the USA that could get a better bang for the buck. Heck the CONCACAF Nations League Semi and FInal Phase is all going to be held in the USA for that reason. So maybe that can be an option. (The Home and Away thing not so much.)
You sure about that? For instance, Peru is going to play Costa Rica in front of a full house on Tuesday, and the attendance for when they've hosted T&T and Panama haven't been significantly worse than their friendlies against higher-caliber opponents like Mexico or Nigeria. It would be unfair to bring up Argentina's friendlies against Haiti and Canada, since they were send-off games before World Cup finals. But since you made the initial claim: what empirical evidence do you have that fans in Conmebol nations thumb their noses at matches against Concacaf sides? (OTOH, if your argument is that they care far more about a friendly against the likes of Spain than a competitive match against Costa Rica: fair enough, but that ship has sailed. Thanks to this UEFA tournament, European NTs are simply not leaving their own continent anymore, outside of World Cup finals and Global Nations League finals if that comes into being.)
I never mentioned Peru. I never mentioned Costa Rica. I did mention Argentina and as I said I don't think they would draw well for the likes of T&T, Canada or El Salvador unless they played in smaller stadiums which could work. You isolate the mini points without focusing on the big picture which is what your first point is. Money Money, Money. And for that reason alone I think it would make more sense (and cents) if the USA hosted most if not all of the games in a possible joint venture.
There's no [R] on this thread, so I'll just say in general: This game (Switzerland-Belgium) is crazy. And this tournament is crazy. And I'm here for it @Nico Limmat
I would like to ask our resident Belgium fan/fans who seem to post a lot around here how the Belgium Media and supporters are taking this crazy loss. Are they seeing it as a travesty? Or is it more like meh, this is just a made up contrived competition to replace friendlies anyway. Very interested in knowing how things are shaping up this morning.
This was one for the ages. I have been a fan of the Swiss national team since 1993. I think that is the best I have ever seen us play against an elite team in a competitive fixture. Sure, we have gotten some results against big teams before. But we never dominated like this. And all that after the sleep-inducing Qatar friendly!