Everyone looked at the scorelines from the last two rounds of the "standard" WWC/EURO qualifying formats and said "nope". The WoSo world now is not the same as it was even five years ago. Everyone is just acknowledging that change.
That's because they got rid of the preliminary qualifying rounds which was a mistake. It's still a stupid change to have a Nations League AND then have a qualifying campaign that is exactly the same as the Nations League.
The draw will take place on Tuesday 2 May 2023 at 1300 CET. National associations receive 25,000 € to take part. UEFA Nations League phase • UNL league stage o Matchdays 1-2: 20 – 26 September 2023 o Matchdays 3-4: 25 – 31 October 2023 o Matchdays 5-6: 29 November – 5 December 2023 • UNL finals o 2024 dates tbc (UEFA decides on the match dates, in cooperation with the host national associations) • UNL promotion and relegation matches o 2024 dates tbc o 2024 dates tbc
I know all of this, I'm just questioning the relevance of having 2 Nation Leagues ahead of the Euros to determine who will and won't qualify just because UEFA weren't smart enough to reintroduce preliminary qualifying rounds precisely to avoid 8-0, 10-0 and 20-0 scorelines.
If you think the preliminary round is the answer, you weren't paying attention. The Pot 1 teams were regularly blowing out Pot 5 and even some Pot 4 teams, so eliminating the bottom six or nine with the historical preliminary round wouldn't cut it. You'd have to divide UEFA into an A league and a full B league based on just the scores we've been seeing over the past four or five years.
Not having preliminary rounds made it significantly worse, most of the blowouts happened with teams that would have been knocked out in a preliminary round. Now having teams all compete only with teams of similar strength in a league format won't do anything to improve women's football as a whole, it will only ensure that everyone stays deeply within their own comfort zone without making any significant progress and testing themselves against the bigger teams. In the World Cup 2023 qualifers, we had situations where Pot 3 teams beat Pot 1 or Pot 2 teams. Most of the blowout results happened with teams from Pot 5 and Pot 6, a lot of which would have been knocked out early on had there been a preliminary round.
Reminder of the qualification system: Direct qualification for UEFA Women's EURO 2025 The final European Qualifiers league ranking will reward the eight top teams in League A with direct qualification for UEFA Women's EURO 2025. If hosts Switzerland have not qualified automatically, they will be guaranteed a slot. European Qualifiers play-offs for UEFA Women's EURO 2025 The remaining slots will be contested over two rounds of home-and-away European Qualifiers play-offs. The play-off path illustrated below may be adjusted to take into account the performance of the team(s) of the host association(s). In the first round, the teams finishing third and fourth in League A will play the winners and three best-ranked runners-up in League C. The eight winners progress to the second round. The four group winners and two best-ranked runners-up in League B will be drawn into six ties against the remaining two runners-up and four third-placed teams in League B. The six winners progress to the second round. In the second round, the teams will be drawn into seven ties, with the seven winners progressing to the final tournament.
More information about the 2025 Euros: The 16-team tournament will take place in eight venues across Switzerland and there will be more than 720,000 tickets available for the final tournament. Host venues: St. Jakob-Park, Basel Stadion Wankdorf, Bern Stade de Genève, Geneva Stadion Letzigrund, Zürich Stadion St. Gallen, St. Gallen Stadion Luzern, Lucerne Arena Thun, Thun Stade de Tourbillon, Sion How does Women's EURO 2025 qualifying work? Teams are split into three leagues: League A with 16 teams, League B with 16 teams and League C with the remaining teams. Each team's starting league position is determined based on the results of the 2023/24 UEFA Women's Nations League. Teams will compete in groups of four or three teams (League C) and over six matchdays, with each team playing one home match and one away match against all the other teams in their group. The final European Qualifiers league ranking will reward the eight top teams in League A with direct qualification for UEFA Women's EURO 2025. If hosts Switzerland have not qualified automatically, they will be guaranteed a slot. The remaining slots will be contested over two rounds of home-and-away European Qualifiers play-offs. In the first round, the teams finishing third and fourth in League A will play the winners and three best-ranked runners-up in League C. The eight winners progress to the second round. The four group winners and two best-ranked runners-up in League B will be drawn into six ties against the remaining two runners-up and four third-placed teams in League B. The six winners progress to the second round. In the second round, the teams will be drawn into seven ties, with the seven winners progressing to the final tournament.
These Euro qualifiers will be a major idiocy, it's basically a total repeat of the Nations League instead of being regular qualifiers in groups of 5 to 6 teams like the men's qualifiers where teams from every pot compete with one another and not just among themselves.
It IS Nations League and works as qualifiers. I like it because it will have a lot more even games while still giving all teams a chance to qualify.
The Nations League actually allow teams in League B and C a chance to qualify via the play-offs, while under the previous regime, it would have been a lot harder for them to qualify and for League C teams simply not a chance at all.
They shouldn't be allowed to qualify through the play-offs, they should be allowed to qualify directly AND through the play-offs.
Tv rights sold for the French market for about 20 M€ to TF1. Doubling what was paid for the WWC 2023.
WAY too much time is spent QUALIFYING for the major tournaments in pro soccer. Too many qualifying games that drag on too long. The qualifying process should be simplified and shortened--UEFA and FIFA should figure it out. This notion that everybody has to play one or two /prolonged/ tournaments to see who qualifies for Olympics and then the Euros is insanity. Several, if not most teams should qualify automatically based on their world rankings, and then let everybody else play a bunch of matches for the last few Euro spots. Every coach has been complaining that the schedule is too crowded, too many matches--Jonker of The Netherlands didn't even want to play in the Olympics---and it is all this endless qualifying that, to me, is the obvious problem. Hell, once all these Nations League qualifying games are done, or even before, the long process of qualifying for the next World Cup will begin! Essentially, there is no break in the treadmill that is qualifying--and meantime, all of the players on the all of the top league teams are involved in the bloated and very lengthy Champions League tournament as well---which also drags on for months because UEFA keeps adding teams. It's insane.
What should the best teams be doing to kill time before tournaments if they are already automatically qualified based on FIFA-ranking? Vacation? Two years of low intensity friendlies? Training sessions behind closed doors? Shut down the national team until pre-camp?
By limiting each competition - NL and European Qualifiers - to a maximum of 12 months, UEFA has shortened each competition's duration and in doing so has given every team a new objective at the start of every year, just like it has done for the men's teams.
I am very confused about something, maybe someone can help me clarify this. What impact does getting promoted/relegated from League B to League A or from League C to League B and vice versa have on the Euro qualifiers and does it make it easier to qualify? In other words, do you ever get rewarded for climbing up a league besides getting to play in that league with stronger teams for the next Women's Nations League edition? In men's Nations League, if you get promoted from instance from League B to League A you are guaranteed a playoff spot for the Euros. You can utterly suck in Euro qualifying, finish in 4th place in a group with 5 or 6 teams and you will still have a guaranteed playoff spot based solely on performances in the Nations League from a year ago or so. How will this work in women's football once the Euro 2025 qualifiers begin next year?? It's especially confusing because as opposed to men's Euro qualifiers, the women will be using a league system again instead of a qualifying group with drawing of pots from 1 to 5.
The final European Qualifiers league ranking will reward the eight top teams in League A with direct qualification for UEFA Women's Euro 2025. If host Switzerland have not qualified automatically, they will be guaranteed a slot. The remaining slots will be contested over two rounds of home-and-away European Qualifiers play-offs. The play-off path may be adjusted to take into account the performance of host Switzerland. In the first round, the teams finishing third and fourth in League A will play the winners and three best-ranked runners-up in League C. The eight winners progress to the second round. The four group winners and two best-ranked runners-up in League B will be drawn into six ties against the remaining two runners-up and four third-placed teams in League B. The six winners progress to the second round. In the second round, the teams will be drawn into seven ties, with the seven winners progressing to the final tournament.
Using current standing of this years Nations League as example we would have: Qualified: Switzerland(host), Netherlands, Belgium, France, Austria, Denmark, Germany, Spain, Sweden Play-off first round: England, Scotland, Portugal, Norway, Iceland, Wales, Italy, Republic of Ireland(added as best team from League B for Switzerland) vs Malta, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Kosovo, Bulgaria, Latvia, Luxembourg and Finland, Poland, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovakia, Serbia, Czech Republic vs Hungary, Northern Ireland, Croatia, Ukraine, Slovenia, Greece (added as best fourth placed team from League B) All other teams would be already eliminated (Albania, Romania, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Cyprus, Andorra, Moldova, Lithuania, Georgia, Montenegro, Faroe Islands, Israel, Armenia, North Macedonia) Play-off second round: The 14 play-off winners from round 1 and the 7 winners are qualified for EURO.
I think the TL;DR is that climbing up a league means more EURO qualification opportunities (and easier playoffs) from the next NL, as @Lohmann detailed. There's no direct EURO reward for the promotion itself because the women aren't juggling two separate competitions that both need to be rewarded like the men are.
Basically, it is a lot easier to qualify from League A. You do it in six games, while going through the play-offs means 10 games and the 4 final games are tougher for League B&C teams.
I want it to be a lot easier to qualify from League B too, not just League A who to be fair qualify mostly by default.
Ok thank you, this helps put things into perspective. It's still a bit weird that teams like England, Scotland, Portugal, Norway, Iceland, Wales, Italy, Republic of Ireland would play against teams like Malta, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Kosovo, Bulgaria, Latvia, Luxembourg in a playoff.
Why? the best teams qualifying directly is normal, the less quality teams going through a play-off is normal too.