http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/fo...ionary-Uefa-plan-earns-unanimous-backing.html Wondering what people think of this concept? Looks potentially interesting in theory....
I imagine they will use FIFA rankings to determine the initial top 16? Soooooo England, France, Germany, Spain, holland, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, Russia, Portugal, Greece, Bosnia, Denmark, Ukraine, Sweden, Croatia. Right?
I've been proposing this kind of idea for some time as a way to replace the current UEFA qualifying system. Namely the introduction of tiers. The main reason of course being that UEFA qualifying is dull and predictable, but they appear to be sticking with it for the time being. My thoughts were along the lines of 8, 10 or 12 team tiers that would play a round robin over the course of two seasons if necessary, and using promotion and relegation on averages if need be, with the qualifiers for tournaments picked from that. But parallel groups of 4 would be suitable as well. Whatever fits with the current calender as there is certainly no more room for fixtures. Either way I'd say I'm in favour of a little experimentation when it comes to international football outside of the World Cup.
The thing is, if this replaces the friendly calendar, when will European teams ever play non-UEFA countries?
I am pretty sure they will like it. http://www.uefa.com/community/news/newsid=2079553.html So expanding the EURO to 24 teams wasn't enough, they still want to further dilute the quality of the tournament. Maybe now some middle ranked teams actually want to be relegated to the 4th tier, so they can battle it out with the likes of Kazakhstan and Moldova for a place in the finals.
Then they're really dumb that they have accepted this as compensation. It doesn't weigh against the money that the top tier will receive (and lower tiers not), as well as the experience and resistance the top tier will face every next year (and the lower tiers don't).
Yeah plus these smaller countries make how much money when they get to host an England or Germany in a friendly? Now that that's been done away with, and they will be left to compete with fellow minnows, they're basically having one of their main lifelines cut off
How often did these "smaller countries" host England or Germany in a friendly? I can't recall England playing many particularly small nations in friendlies other than occasionally in the build up to a tournament - something that will still happen once this League is introduced.
Since 2010, England have finished top of their UEFA qualifying group, only defeated once, which was four years ago. 82 goals scored and 15 conceded. In head to head friendlies against UEFA teams since 2010. W - Hungary 2-1 L - France 1-2 W - Denmark 2-1 W - Spain 1-0 W - Sweden 1-0 W - Norway 1-0 W - Belgium 1-0 W - Italy 2-1 L - Sweden 2-4 D - Ireland 1-1 W - Scotland 3-2 L - Germany 0-1 W - Denmark 1-0 England would perform better IMO in a league format, the pressure would be off the players that comes with a major tournament.
Yeah England do fine when the other team doesn't give a shit. Still don't see the point in this league thing if it's in addition to the qualifiers instead of it.