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Post by rangers15 on Sept 22, 2022 6:50:16 GMT
We need to win one of the games which I can't see happening personally. Back to League B, which I think is more our level. Odd thing to say. 16 in league A. We reached the last 16 of the last euros, and one of 13 UEFA teams to qualify for the wc. I’d say that league A is very much our level. I think we've shown we can compete at that level - but its always going to be tough for a team coming up from group B to stay in group A (Hungary have been fantastic). You could argue we had a favourable draw with having Poland in our group. As much as I would have liked to stay in group A (and can still happen of course) I wouldn't be too disheartened to go down to group B... especially when you throw in the impact of the play off had on the summer schedule. |
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Post by Dubai Reds on Sept 22, 2022 7:04:57 GMT
I can see us becoming the Yo-Yo nation between League A and B over the next decade, even with some of the older guard moving into retirement.
The 3 Nations League campaigns have been great for us. It has seen us develop a stronger squad depth and we are no longer heavily reliant on our "First XI" or experienced players for performances and results.
It would be great to stay in League A, but at the same time dropping into League B is not the end of the world as we are almost guaranteed playoffs and better seeding for Euro and World Cup campaigns.
Who would of thought we would maintain a top 2 seeding for almost 6 years?
We have broken the hoodoo of getting positive results against 2nd/3rd seeds i.e draws were a good result, and now has become the standard.
The next step is breaking the hoodoo of getting results against the top seeds, which is a lot tougher, as seen in this League A campaign.
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Post by underwood on Sept 22, 2022 8:33:49 GMT
We’ll never know how successful we could have been had circumstances been different fixture-wise.
We arguably shouldn’t have lost any of our matches, but we’ll probably end up not winning any.
The key is that we’ve been competitive in all the games, something that would not have happened 10 years ago, when we were losing to our peers, let alone the top-ranked nations.
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Post by allezlesrouges on Sept 22, 2022 15:40:27 GMT
We’ll never know how successful we could have been had circumstances been different fixture-wise. We arguably shouldn’t have lost any of our matches, but we’ll probably end up not winning any. The key is that we’ve been competitive in all the games, something that would not have happened 10 years ago, when we were losing to our peers, let alone the top-ranked nations. If it weren't for the playoff, and perhaps a bit of bad fortune, then we could be top of this group. It's not even absurd to say given how the games went |
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Post by underwood on Sept 23, 2022 21:12:36 GMT
I’ve always subscribed to the fact that, at major tournaments, whenever England meet anyone that’s at least on a par with them, they don’t win.
That’s been borne out in their Nations League performances, where their record is P 17 W 5 - & two of those victories were over Iceland.
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Post by jbt95 on Sept 23, 2022 21:28:32 GMT
At least we can’t play them in Euro qualifying or the next Nations League!!
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Post by allezlesrouges on Sept 23, 2022 21:31:08 GMT
At least we can’t play them in Euro qualifying or the next Nations League!! We can... |
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Post by allezlesrouges on Sept 23, 2022 22:13:19 GMT
Dream draw so far looks like it would be Hungary, Armenia, Luxembourg, Gibraltar, San Marino. Nightmare draw would be Belgium, Sweden, Turkey, Estonia
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Post by jbt95 on Sept 24, 2022 7:51:35 GMT
At least we can’t play them in Euro qualifying or the next Nations League!! We can... How? Assuming the same format is retained*, either we are in different leagues or will be in the same pot if we go down, just like Austria, Hungary and Czech Rep this time that were all promoted along side us two years ago. * - if the South American teams come into it then it will probably go like the Champions League where we are all in one big league and play a mix of teams home and away, rather than double round robin groups. |
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Post by manulike on Sept 24, 2022 22:00:16 GMT
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Post by insertname on Sept 25, 2022 0:00:29 GMT
Israel in nations league A?! They’ve been fairly gash for years from what I remember. Seems like it doesn’t take a lot these days for teams to come from nowhere and get in amongst the top seeds.
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Post by bale-droed on Sept 25, 2022 2:50:49 GMT
Israel in nations league A?! They’ve been fairly gash for years from what I remember. Seems like it doesn’t take a lot these days for teams to come from nowhere and get in amongst the top seeds. That’s the beauty of this tournament. Teams don’t have to be punished or live off what previous players did 5 years ago via coefficient points. International football finally had a tournament the rewards the here and now group and it’s fantastic. Most fans don’t realise how good and fair this tournament is yet but they’ll get there. Side note: Would love to see Northern Ireland relegated |
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Post by morg on Sept 25, 2022 5:30:41 GMT
Israel in nations league A?! They’ve been fairly gash for years from what I remember. Seems like it doesn’t take a lot these days for teams to come from nowhere and get in amongst the top seeds. Benefitted from being in a group with Russia (disqualified) and Iceland (declining). Strikes me that if we do stay up, it'll be potentially easier to stay up in the next tournament as we'd be 3rd seeds in the draw? |
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Post by jbt95 on Sept 25, 2022 6:52:08 GMT
Israel in nations league A?! They’ve been fairly gash for years from what I remember. Seems like it doesn’t take a lot these days for teams to come from nowhere and get in amongst the top seeds. That’s the beauty of this tournament. Teams don’t have to be punished or live off what previous players did 5 years ago via coefficient points. International football finally had a tournament the rewards the here and now group and it’s fantastic. Most fans don’t realise how good and fair this tournament is yet but they’ll get there. Side note: Would love to see Northern Ireland relegated Was going to like this post until you said you wanted to see NI relegated. Can’t see they happening anyway. Greece already up and Cyprus would have to beat Kosovo away and they are pretty decent, and even if they did finish bottom it’s only a play-out place. |
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Post by allezlesrouges on Sept 25, 2022 9:04:55 GMT
Israel in nations league A?! They’ve been fairly gash for years from what I remember. Seems like it doesn’t take a lot these days for teams to come from nowhere and get in amongst the top seeds. Benefitted from being in a group with Russia (disqualified) and Iceland (declining). Strikes me that if we do stay up, it'll be potentially easier to stay up in the next tournament as we'd be 3rd seeds in the draw? yeah Russia DQ and drawing Iceland/Albania for a place in League A. Doesn't get any easier than that |
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Post by cymro on Sept 25, 2022 9:17:40 GMT
So just for clarity as I've not seen it confirmed anywhere...
Do we stay up with any sort of win tonight? I know the first tie breaker is head to head points, but then is it goal difference in matches played between wales and poland, or goal difference over the whole campaign? Or does goals scored in the wales vs poland games come into it?
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Post by allezlesrouges on Sept 25, 2022 9:31:37 GMT
So just for clarity as I've not seen it confirmed anywhere... Do we stay up with any sort of win tonight? I know the first tie breaker is head to head points, but then is it goal difference in matches played between wales and poland, or goal difference over the whole campaign? Or does goals scored in the wales vs poland games come into it? Any sort of win keeps us up, it's been confirmed |
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Post by cymro on Sept 25, 2022 9:44:45 GMT
So just for clarity as I've not seen it confirmed anywhere... Do we stay up with any sort of win tonight? I know the first tie breaker is head to head points, but then is it goal difference in matches played between wales and poland, or goal difference over the whole campaign? Or does goals scored in the wales vs poland games come into it? Any sort of win keeps us up, it's been confirmed Thanks - figured thatblnwas the case, I just couldn't find it printed anywhere! And wikipedia/uefa website is as clear as mud when talking about goal difference between the teams in question/overall goal difference. |
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Post by allezlesrouges on Sept 25, 2022 9:59:43 GMT
Any sort of win keeps us up, it's been confirmed Thanks - figured thatblnwas the case, I just couldn't find it printed anywhere! And wikipedia/uefa website is as clear as mud when talking about goal difference between the teams in question/overall goal difference. Yeah the UEFA explanation is worded awfully |
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Post by turkpower on Sept 25, 2022 10:20:47 GMT
Talksport saying we have to win by 2 clear goals
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Post by jbt95 on Sept 25, 2022 10:37:20 GMT
Talksport saying we have to win by 2 clear goals Talksh1te! |
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Post by insertname on Sept 25, 2022 10:53:49 GMT
Talksport saying we have to win by 2 clear goals Yeah I think they’re on a wind up again 😉 |
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Post by turkpower on Sept 25, 2022 11:06:27 GMT
Lazy journalism as it's only Wales
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Post by insertname on Sept 25, 2022 11:12:30 GMT
Israel in nations league A?! They’ve been fairly gash for years from what I remember. Seems like it doesn’t take a lot these days for teams to come from nowhere and get in amongst the top seeds. That’s the beauty of this tournament. Teams don’t have to be punished or live off what previous players did 5 years ago via coefficient points. International football finally had a tournament the rewards the here and now group and it’s fantastic. Most fans don’t realise how good and fair this tournament is yet but they’ll get there. Side note: Would love to see Northern Ireland relegated I think it’s a good format, the promotion/relegation aspect makes it interesting and looks like it’s shaking up the previously well entrenched order, England in league B, possibly Sweden in league C, Israel and maybe Norway in league A…the only possible drawback is maybe it’s too volatile? It certainly keeps things freshened up! |
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Post by iot on Sept 25, 2022 13:07:29 GMT
That’s the beauty of this tournament. Teams don’t have to be punished or live off what previous players did 5 years ago via coefficient points. International football finally had a tournament the rewards the here and now group and it’s fantastic. Most fans don’t realise how good and fair this tournament is yet but they’ll get there. Side note: Would love to see Northern Ireland relegated I think it’s a good format, the promotion/relegation aspect makes it interesting and looks like it’s shaking up the previously well entrenched order, England in league B, possibly Sweden in league C, Israel and maybe Norway in league A…the only possible drawback is maybe it’s too volatile? It certainly keeps things freshened up! Yeah good point, maybe they should halve the numbers promoted / relegated by having playoffs for the losers of League A groups and the winners of League B groups. Not sure how you would fit it into the international window, but I'm sure there would be a way of doing it |
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Post by insertname on Sept 25, 2022 13:28:02 GMT
I think it’s a good format, the promotion/relegation aspect makes it interesting and looks like it’s shaking up the previously well entrenched order, England in league B, possibly Sweden in league C, Israel and maybe Norway in league A…the only possible drawback is maybe it’s too volatile? It certainly keeps things freshened up! Yeah good point, maybe they should halve the numbers promoted / relegated by having playoffs for the losers of League A groups and the winners of League B groups. Not sure how you would fit it into the international window, but I'm sure there would be a way of doing it I think something like that might be worth looking at. I don’t know the complete ins and outs because they seem to have made this format as dense as possible but on the face of it, to borrow a gaming phrase, promotion/relegation feels a bit ‘OP’ in the sense that it has a significant effect on the groups and the play off spots just for winning a nations league group. But then to have some big name teams capable of falling off their perch based on a small number of bad games (ie England) is probably healthy overall as before they were quite entrenched. A couple of defeats to Hungary between campaigns wouldn’t have hurt them whereas now it means they go into the next campaign in the second pot and could easily have a nightmare draw for the first time since what, 2008? So actually maybe volatility is bad for us in an individual sense but overall probably gives a nice edge to the smaller teams to help compensate for the fact that the big names tend to routinely qualify. There is also the SA teams to take into account when they join the nations league. We could see some real “snakes-n-ladders” action amongst the European teams when Argentina and Brazil create more competition in league A. |
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Post by conwy10 on Sept 25, 2022 18:30:12 GMT
Have you seen Andorra? They're flying!... well they got 7 points. But fair play to them.
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Post by insertname on Sept 25, 2022 23:48:55 GMT
Some real stories in the nations league:
Georgia pretty much promoted to league B
Kazakhstan steam rolling Azerbaijan and Slovakia.
It’s been a really good invention for some of the smaller teams who have decent ability but don’t get to compete amongst teams at their level often.
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Post by bale-droed on Sept 26, 2022 0:43:52 GMT
Some real stories in the nations league: Georgia pretty much promoted to league B Kazakhstan steam rolling Azerbaijan and Slovakia. It’s been a really good invention for some of the smaller teams who have decent ability but don’t get to compete amongst teams at their level often. Also the last round of games still has to decide the following Portugal v Spain for who wins the group Northern Ireland v Cyprus both level on points the loser goes into the relegation play offs Norway v Serbia for who wins the group Hungary v Italy for who finishes top Switzerland v Czech for who gets relegated Scotland v Ukraine for Promotion Ireland V Armenia for relegation Slovenia v Sweden relegation decider There are very few fixtures in this last round that mean nothing. Absolutely fantastic. I love it. This will overtake the Euros in terms of popularity |
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Post by bale-droed on Sept 26, 2022 8:58:32 GMT
That’s the beauty of this tournament. Teams don’t have to be punished or live off what previous players did 5 years ago via coefficient points. International football finally had a tournament the rewards the here and now group and it’s fantastic. Most fans don’t realise how good and fair this tournament is yet but they’ll get there. Side note: Would love to see Northern Ireland relegated Was going to like this post until you said you wanted to see NI relegated. Can’t see they happening anyway. Greece already up and Cyprus would have to beat Kosovo away and they are pretty decent, and even if they did finish bottom it’s only a play-out place. To be fair to Northern Ireland I watched the two games in that group after the Wales game. I thought Cyprus vGreece would be a fiery passionate match but the stadium was nowhere near full I found it confusing. Then I loaded up N Ire v Kosovo and much to my surprise it’s a sell out. Fair play to them |
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