Das Reboot and the Road to UEFA Nations League & EC2020

Call me football idiot or whatever but I don't see any value of playing Kroos. Not in Germany NT, not in RM in very few times I watched RM. His body language and movement, it looks like he belong to golf or chess rather than football. Is he intelligent? Yes. Does he posses great technique? Sure. On top of that, his passing accuracy always high, not to mention number of pass.

Are those pass related numbers much much more important than other aspect which every CM should have? Like defensive screening, ball fighting, field covering and whatnot. Not to mention for someone with shooting technique as good as he has, he never seems care to help the offense by recycling and scoring from top of the box post corner. Personally I prefer someone like Gundogan, much more mobile and dynamic. But that's just me, who am I compared to Low and Zidane...

 

I agree, with the intensity of Germany's play I think kroos is not suited in his normal position, as he lacks any kind of mobility

 

Thats ok when Kroos were given a Pirlo like role. But in a 2 player DMid it's always going to be a very big risk to take

 

What I noticed with Madrid was teams were rushing in to him and he wasnt comfortable at all

 

Kroos seems like a poor mans Schweini. He has all the passing abilities but none of the workrate or tackling.

 

Basti never ever had his passing skill

 

Germoney might avoid relegation in the NL.

https://www.skysports.com/football/...a-considering-revamp-to-nations-league-format

 

A bit arrogant but can't really fault you as there were similar sentiments when the EUROs and the World Cup were created.

Attendance, including Germany's home games, was much better compared to the friendlies that were replaced but also compared to ECQs and WCQs. Then again matches against France and Holland are far more interesting than trampling a minnow.

The quality of play and the intensity in the groups was really high. Teams in every single league wanted to win, hard to claim otherwise, and the NL produced plenty of exciting games, especially in the final rounds of the group stage. The relegation fight adding extra excitement. IMO the NL will quickly gain popularity. The first edition already exceeded expectations. The expansion of the EUROs diluted the tournament and 2016 was a borefest. It was much better with 16 teams. Let's hope quality over quantity prevails and 16 will be the magic number for the NL's League A.

 

Near the end of September UEFA expects to finalize its World Cup qualifying format. Probably a similar percentage of spots, as in the first edition, will be up for grabs via the NL path. Most likely the best ranked teams from the NL (that didn't qualify directly as group winners in the regular WCQs) will join the runners-up from the WCQ groups in the play-offs. UEFA have 13 spots for Qatar2022 and FIFA isn't that inclusive towards Europe's minnows so it's unlikely these lowly teams will be handed their own path (which is the case in EURO2020 qualifying).

In the second edition of the NL 2 of the 13 Qatar2022 tickets could very well be earned via the League A path (as opposed to 1 of the 24 EURO2020 tickets in the NL's first edtion, where teams from lower leagues are included in League A's play-offs). Germany will be relegated to League B and possibly cannot qualify for Qatar2022 via the NL (if the NL rules remain unchanged). Let's first see what UEFA will decide in September and if they'll change the rules right in the middle of the game.

Apropos, if the preliminary draw for Qatar2022 had gone ahead in July, as first planned, then Germany would have been one of the top seeds. Simply avoid screwing up in EURO2020 and Germany's ranking will probably suffice when the preliminary draw eventually happens.

 

The reason attendance was better was because of the opponents featured not because of the format. A current world champion and an old rival. No one gives a flying rat's ass if it is NL or qualifiers. DFB is currently going through an public image crisis as it has become a marketing instrument no normal family dad can afford to take his family to. The same is true for NL. It's just UEFAs try to squeeze even more money out of the sport.

 

As I said: "...Then again matches against France and Holland are far more interesting than trampling a minnow."

It's the NL's format that put Germany, Holland and France in the same group. Usually these teams aren't drawn into the same groups in the ECQs/WCQs and more often than not they don't face each other in a competitive game until the latter stages of the final event (in that sense expanding the EUROs was a bad idea, same for the World Cup, watered-down). FIFA and UEFA come up with plenty of bad ideas, the NL however I can get behind. It's the NL's format that allows each team to compete against others of a similar level. Already in the League A qualis the top teams have to face each other.

Also, when was Germany not one of the top seeds before their poor finish in League A? Now you get to play Holland again in the ECQs, plus you can still get ecstatic about pummeling a random minnow.

 

In 2003, I watched Germany play Latvia in Nuremburg infront of 20k people. It's pretty much the accepted norm and DFB survived it. Ive seen Germany play Scotland infront of 70k in a qualifier.

Again, the format does not matter. Opponents do. If Germany had played France and the Dutch in 4 friendlies the attendance figures had been the same, the effect from facing a top team had been the same. The only difference is UEFA making more money in tv revenues.

There is no sense in playing equal opponents outside the main event which is an already enlarged Euro.

 

13 years

 

Ideally you want the matches between big nations to be rare and therefore a bit more 'special', as otherwise it dilutes the excitement/prestige of the Euro's and it will end up like the Copa America.

If Germany is drawn against Netherlands next summer, it will be the fifth meeting in less then 2 years. Too much imo.

 

The Copa had problems before. If Brazil took it seriously and always sent their best teams they would have had a lot more wins (the last time they won it they didn't exactly use their best but did it with a team that looked like Qatar's reserve team). Teams are basically warming up for the WCQs and there's more talk about Neymar's case than the Copa itself.

Also, the expansion of the EUROs already diluted that tournament. Adding weaker teams didn't help add excitement/prestige, nor having 16 of the 24 teams advance. It was quite the opposite in 2016, we saw plenty of boring, cagey games. FYI once the World Cup is expanded to 48 teams European teams will be kept apart, a single UEFA team in each of the 16 groups. Like the expanded EUROs it won't add excitement/prestige but it will lower quality, as FIFA's own research showed, with fewer matches between the top teams.

Big nations often scheduled friendlies against each other. The NL doesn't make these encounters much more common, it makes them more interesting, competitive. You can differ from opinion but I very much prefer the NL over the friendlies it replaced and the NL qualis were a lot more exciting than ECQs/WCQs.

Holland have played a lot of friendlies against Germany, also leading to these games being grouped closely together. They've a track record of playing each other anyway even if the NL didn't exist. Hardly faced each other in the qualis but then again the ECQs/WCQs are a tedious affair, unloved by the masses.

Besides it was luck of the draw that placed Holland in Germany's NL group and again Germany could have been drawn into any other ECQ group than Holland's one, there are 10 groups after all. We'll see what happens at the EUROs but we already know they cannot be drawn into the same group (because both are co-hosts and Amsterdam/Munich weren't paired up).

Also, the odds of Holland reaching the EUROs have been slashed because Norn Iron has yet to drop points. Holland will be under pressure. Who knows they could again fail to reach a EURO despite qualifying having become far too easy, 24 teams will be going and there's a backdoor via play-offs, especially after the expansion the ECQs have become a joke. It was quite the achievement, Holland finishing in the bottom of their group with the likes of Latvia in the previous ECQs, let's hope they don't repeat that feat.