They’ve definitely made a mistake by not scrapping it this year with the changed World Cup date. The games have been lower quality because of it being crammed in at the end of the season and it’s clearly devalued it for viewers, as you can see in this thread.
Is anyone enjoying the Nations League?
- Thread starter Pogue Mahone
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This has merit but unfortunately everything that Fifa, Uefa and national leagues like the Prem and the English League do is designed to increase the number of games they themselves control. It's their entire reason for existence and none of them will give up anything unless forced to.
When we lose; it is just a friendly game.
When we win; yes, lets win this.
When we win; yes, lets win this.
I can confidently report that Ireland have been so bad for so long that their current shitness is unlikely to be a source of bias in my opinion on this issue.Yes. I think it is a great competion for other countries than the top-8ish. I never expected biggest teams to play full strength and they probably should rotate a bit more.
How is it complicated?
I think football is far too elitist (as is this forum) and everything is seen through the top 0,1% of players and teams.
UEFA is an absolutely terrible organisation (although pretty much all the best club teams are equally immoral) but nations league and conference league have been great success stories so far.
Maybe you would enjoy it more if Ireland weren't so bad
4 games now is a bit much, but that is only a consequence of the WC and won't happen again.
Also. We crushed Scotland 3-0 in our last match. Something I would have enjoyed a hell of a lot more if it was in a more interesting context, like a WC or Euros qualifier. I just can’t get excited about anything to do with this Nation Leagues nonsense. I genuinely have no idea what anyone is playing for. I think it can help qualification for more meaningful competitions in the future, so that’s the main upside? All a bit too obtuse for me though.
It's a renamed friendly and everybody knows it. I went to the final last year, the tickets were a tenner and still I don't think they sold them all, and the atmosphere was as flat as anything, which takes some doing in the San Siro.
I think everybody hopes it will grow like the European Cup did in the 50s but I see it more like the Intertoto and other random competitions that fell away.
I think everybody hopes it will grow like the European Cup did in the 50s but I see it more like the Intertoto and other random competitions that fell away.
As a dane its enjoyable. We havent played this well since the 80's.
Not really enjoying it tbh. Just watching to see if any good young players are coming through.
You won the Euros in ‘92?
True and winning was fun, but man the football was woeful to watch. Germany played us out of the park in that final.
I have to admit it's growing on me. The format really isn't a bad idea. Short tournament with half the teams moving up or down on the tournament ladder, I can see how that might over time give a sense of where you belong in the European pyramid, in a way that qualifiers won't.
Although admittedly it probably helps that Norway went 3-1-0 (with our first two wins over Sweden in 44 years) in the last round.
Although admittedly it probably helps that Norway went 3-1-0 (with our first two wins over Sweden in 44 years) in the last round.
No?
Am a regular at the Denmark games and love it. The stadium’s always full (which hasn’t always been the case) and the atmosphere is great. And as always, some football is better than no football.
I think it's pointless,just about UEFA selling some more TV rights,its been a long season and the players should be on holiday now,still in our case some of them have been on holiday since March
I've never seen interest on here for an Ireland friendly anywhere near the amount for last weeks game against Scotland. So surely thats the point of it?
Tick box exercise for UEFA. Haven’t seen a ball kicked in what are glorified friendlies
Pointless relative to a summer world Cup, yes, but relative to the tedium of the friendlies we've endured for years?
It's a bit gutting that it's not on Sky Sports anymore because they used to have highlights of all the games on YouTube.
No idea what it's about and no idea where to watch
They've always just basically been the same friendlies they replaced. I've never cared about them.
Nope, it’s a stupid time to be making players play. They should be having a break and getting ready for next season.. they’ve literally just finished a season and they look spent out there.
pointless and boring. I watched our last two games in the bar and we even managed to beat France yesterday for the first time in our history, yet almost nobody seemed to care. no point in pretending these aren't friendly games, regardless of how competition is called.
My son has he went to both Wales games in Cardiff, he said the atmosphere was incredible.
Those were WC qualifiers, right? Not Nations League.
I think that’s more where we are with the whole “project Kenny” thing than any particular interest in the competition. I would be much more interested in friendlies now than I would have been when we were half-arsing our way through the O’ Neill regime.
I'm done with football until August. After that season I can't be arsed with transfers or internationals.
It's shit.
Euros and World Cup are the only times worth watching national teams. AFCON if your bored.
Euros and World Cup are the only times worth watching national teams. AFCON if your bored.
When does it start?
Haven't watched a minute of it. Many of the players have hinted they don't give a shit too.
No the Ukraine game was a world cup qualifier but the games v Holland and Belgium, the 2 he went to, were both Nations league games.
Glorified friendlies
I prefer glorified friendlies over actual friendlies and I prefer football over no football, so yes I do. However I like to see high quality football and I think the quality would be better if there were fewer games in a season. Especially next season will be ridiculous with the WC in November.
Not got the channel to watch most of the games so enjoying it immensely. Been catching up on stuff I have recorded.
England could do with the games to form a strong 11 going into the World cup but it seems we're still shuffling players around and personally I think the players need a break or at least a few less games just off the back of the season, late Euros and cramped season fixtures due to covid. Overall I like the games more than friendlies but just now seems too many matches after everything else that has happened in the last 1-2 years.
That might be true in general but it's 100% not true for me, international friendlies are less interesting than matches in the local park to me.
I didn't miss a home match from 85 to 97 ish and the friendlies were shocking. Nobody decent ever played their good players against us, even when we were good. And we returned the compliment. You learned feck all and usually weren't entertained. You would have had zero chance to monitor 'project Kenny'.
This, as disjointed as people feel it is, still has better structure than random games nobody takes seriously in my opinion.
Edit - that said, I did see two sublime moments in friendlies at Landsdowne. Brady v Brazil and Boban v us.
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Awful and boring
Not remotely interested. If England got into the mini-tournament at the end I might be vaguely into that. But the league bit is just completely uninteresting to me.
That can be debatable. I think it’s fair to say 9 games out of 10 in international football, for any nation, is boring as feck. The only time the players ever seem to try is the World Cup finals. Everything else is meaningless and completely skippable.
I applaud everyone who supports their country and is invested in the Nations league.
Being honest, i haven't watched a full 90 mins of any Nations league game since it's inception.
Being honest, i haven't watched a full 90 mins of any Nations league game since it's inception.
Yeah but the 86 team was better.
Oh, I am absolutely not holding my breath that what I'm describing might actually happen. But I think the current qualification system is ridicilous (as much as it's fun for Gibraltar and Liechtenstein to be able to play everyone else, it doesn't serve any actual purpose). The Nations League provides the tiered system that I think would make much more sense (comparable to how (ice) hockey works), and it would be great if that were put to better use than glorified friendlies.
Continental tournaments/events are organized by the continental federations. So this is a UEFA thing organized by UEFA.