Impact of Nations Leagues (UEFA original, Concacaf) on World Football? [Multiple R]

I think he's bs on that. Unless you as a player arenot interested in playing for the national team at all, doing shit in it means another player kindly will take your place.

 

I think Nations League was created primarily to help the mid to lower national teams develop by playing more consistently in a competitive environment matched up against evenly-matched teams. That was something that needed improvement. On the other hand, UEFA probably realized that the top teams would've preferred autonomy to schedule games and there wasn't as much incentive for them to play, which is why UEFA actually pitched the idea of a Global Nations League to FIFA. That was supposed to replace the Confederations Cup with an expanded version to include national teams at all levels: the best teams playing each other from the start to qualify for an 8 team final in the top league (League 1 would've included three teams from UEFA, 2x from CONMEBOL, 1x each from AFC, CAF, CONMEBOL), with a tiered system all the way down to League 7 for the weakest teams. So imagine Gibraltar having just qualified to play an 8 team tournament against African/Asian/OFC/CONCACAF teams in League 7, and Faroe Islands in League 6. In CONCACAF, the group of Mexico, U.S., Honduras, and CR would've been the starting point for a spot in the League 1 Global NL, not the end result. The promotion/relegation battles in UEFA and CONCACAF seem to work fine without the added incentive of the GNL, but in my view it waters down the competition for the top teams (the four bottom teams in League A combined for 1 win from 23 matches played) and diminishes interest from a fan perspective on who wins the League A groups. The potential is there for Nations League to become much better than it is, but it would take a coordinated effort.

I disagree that Liechtenstein would be any better if FC Vaduz played in a lower Swiss league because the teams that they typically beat up on in the Liechtenstein Cup play in lower Swiss leagues with Liechtenstein players, and these players form the majority of the NT. The value of playing in the Swiss Super League doesn't help the NT when the GK is the only Liechtenstein starter. I think a better strategy to develop and improve the NT is having a domestic league so they could qualify more teams in European club competitions and get more players scouted. Even San Marino and Gibraltar get three teams in European competitions (1x Champions League, 2x Europa League). Liechtenstein can only qualify one team in the Europa League. Based on UEFA club coefficients, Liechtenstein is ranked 32nd solely on FC Vaduz's results, so perhaps the FA and the locals take more pride in their achievements than they do the NT. It's sort of like how Monaco prefers to preserve AS Monaco FC's status in France's Ligue 1 over creating its own NT. Personally, I would take greater pride in having a NT and a functioning domestic league over a club representative with foreign players in a foreign league, but that's just my opinion.

 

Sorry Luka, but the fans' preferences should come first.

Not even sure why a guy that is no longer an automatic starter is complaining. Especially after they just had a 4 month break, played about 10 matches and then had another 1 month break.

 

They have been playing champions league leagues and nations leagues in few weeks.

The guy has no right to talk cause he plays less than before?

Alright

 

It's only the autumn which is problmatic because they had to play the UCL and UEL group stages over two months instead of three. After the group stages end, the season returns to its usual schedule with the exception that three WCQs have to be played in the March and September int'l breaks.

 

My first thought is whether he regrets becoming a professional footballer due to all this hard work he has to endure. Maybe he would've preferred a desk job.
But I'm impressed that there are fans that are concerned about the workload of famous, rich athletes. I thought there were players' unions and agents for that sort of thing.

First, there's no context to this quote. Looking at his stats, his club to country appearance ratio is 3:1. Since he plays many more games for his club, he's probably referring to club competitions, which has some merit. There are now preseason cups, league cups, Supercups, and the Club World Cup. I don't agree with adding more club competitions, and an expanded CWC will probably be less appealing than FIFA expects it to be.

Secondly, let's put this in perspective. NBA and NHL players play 82 games just to eliminate less than half the teams for the postseason. MLB plays 162 games before the playoffs. And the only advantage between the top seed and the bottom seed is an extra home playoff game. Even MLS has a drawn out regular season, and the preseason tournament winner (Portland) and the top two teams in the points standings (Philadelphia and Toronto) have already been knocked out after the first playoff round, which highlights how little significance all those previous games really had. Comparatively, European soccer players are a privileged bunch. Every game they play for their clubs, whether domestic or international competition, has much more relevance since they play in a league format. Knockout rounds are home and away, not best of 5 or best of 7. They get to represent their countries in prestigious international competitions. The NL replacing friendlies now gives every international game meaning. If you're going to be exhausted as an athlete, might as well do it as a soccer player in a European league, where every game truly matters and your effort isn't wasted.

Third, Nations League isn't adding games. Those dates would've been filled with friendlies in which many of the top players would've been expected to play. I'm assuming that if a player is going to be called up, they'd want the game to matter. And if a competitive game requires a higher intensity than a friendly, there's nothing that prohibits confederations from making adjustments as necessary. They can make the five substitution rule permanent. UEFA can reduce games by combining Nations Cup with WC or Euro qualifying so that some teams automatically qualify, like AFC does with Asian Cup and WC qualifying. CONCACAF can move the Gold Cup to a quadrennial schedule.

 

The best way to relieve workload pressure is to limit national premier leagues to 18 clubs, giving a 34 game season.

Divisions of 20 clubs - where they play 38 eague games - is fitting a 10 month season into only 9 months, hence the need for midweek league games.

18 clubs playing 34 league games means only weekend league football over 9 months, including a winter break.

 

Nope. In Europe those have no influence whatsoever on schedules. It's not like in the communist USA where unions have power. On top of that Europe consists of independant states, so only EU regulations could impose EU wide rulings.

 

This is ironic because the EU actually has Communist roots, which was the point of Brexit. How independent are these countries when they have to conform to the laws of a regional organization? Europe more closely resembles the post-Soviet Commonwealth of Independent States than the United States.

 

Nope, they donot have to conform to the laws of a regional organization, because they first have to agree about those rules to be put in EU laws, so if they donot want it it doesnot get into action. EU laws arenot imposed, they're the will of the countries themselves. It's not like a group of people on their own decide what's good for the EU countries.

Anyway, the EU communist roots arenot there at all and linking Brexit with that notion is hilarious. I invite you togo to the Brexit thread and post that overthere. They can use a good laugh.

 

But teams are still behind on their fixtures and these will need to be made up in the period January to April. For e.g. last season 18 rounds of La liga were played before X-mas. This year only 15. And some teams will have only played 13 or 14 games due to their extra late start to the campaign.

Add to that no winter break which compounds the whole fatigue issue.

 

He can talk but let's not act like its the end of the discussion or even an important input to the discussion.

You are only forwarding the viewpoints of (old) Real Madrid and Germany NT guys. That's 5% of the picture. What about the smaller teams, younger players, fans, etc.?

 

The guy talking from Real Madrid represents a 4 million people country that doesn't have really the depth to challenge the likes of France Spain England etc from January to December especially with most of the players in the squad involved in European cups and playing every 3 days.

This competition gives advantage to the powerhouses that have 30-40 players of quality to turnover and the average teams that have fresh best players that don't have much serious competition over the year... The teams in between are ********ed so they they just play it with different goals like not being relegated at least.

 

If they decided to stop euro qualifiers and euro to give more breathe to players then uefa nations league could become the main continental option and become way more worthy.
But having both is too much.

 

I could go along with that idea. The NL isn't really designed for qualifying because it pits strong teams against other strong teams and weak v weak, but I guess you could set-up something like 9, 3 and 1 teams qualify for the WC from League A, B and C, respectively.

 

Wikipedia doesn't have exit polls from this year, but exit polls from the 2016 presidential election showed only 18 percent of Americans in Unions. Unions can be powerful, including having the power to prevent firing employees who deserve to be fired, but it's not like a high percent of Americans are in unions. A lot of what unions do is unrelated to salary, benefits, and other things that "Communist" could refer to. Furthermore, when you factors in kids, retired people, and others who are unwilling or unable to work, the percent of the population who work and are in a union is much smaller than that. The USA has more economic inequality than most of Europe. I don't want to make a political tangent, but I want to correct something that is inaccurate.