Football (Soccer) Thread

[The Larch]

Actually Luís Enrique is on record saying repeatedly that he doesn't care about the League of Nations and that he'd use the games to try new players/tactics with a view on next year's Euro.

I guess the Germans cared even less.

Yeah, he has been using a lot of young and/or unproven players at the international level recently, with very few veterans in the squad (I swear that Ramos is there just because of his desire to pad up the number of his international caps). Many of the players that took part in yesterday's game were very young, with plenty of them in their early 20s. Some of them could still be playing for the under 21 team.

[Admiral Yi]

Remind me: is this tournament how Europe picks its qualifiers for the WC?

[Josephus]

It always was meant to "make friendlies more meaningful", but in the end they always remain friendlies.

[celedhring]

Remind me: is this tournament how Europe picks its qualifiers for the WC?

No, there's a WC Qualifier tournament played next year. However, the Nations League awards 2 slots for the "losers round" of that qualifier.

[Admiral Yi]

:bland:

I hope the players are being well compensated for playing in the Nothingburger Tournament.

[The Larch]

:bland:

I hope the players are being well compensated for playing in the Nothingburger Tournament.

It's mandatory for players to attend national team games if called upon.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah no-one really cares about the Nations League - it's the "fetch" of European football

The first version, I think, was more directly linked to Euro 2020 qualification which made it more meaningful. But because that link's a lot weaker for the WC it's kind of irrelevant.

The good thing about it is it sorts nations by sort of strength so generally the big countries play each other rather than, say, Liechtenstein or San Marino. This means the games are more useful than friendlies were before but also means, for example, that I think San Marino won their first international in something crazy like 40 years because they were playing another minnow. But as it is they're being treated as friendlies by all countries, I think, Enrique playing kids - from what I understand by Jonathan Wilson it seems like Southgate is similarly trying different systems/things to solidify England's defence. Both of those are the sort of things you'd normally do in friendlies, not competitive games.

I also just don't think it's necessary or good to have these games (or internationals generally) at the minute given the pandemic. I think every international team has had at least one or two covid outbreaks and it just seems crazy to me that you have various national league procedures on covid which are quite strict but working and then every six weeks you let all of those players from everywhere mingle and send them around the world to play meaningless/non-competitive games.

[celedhring]

Yeah the main thing about the NL is that you have more games between quality opposition instead of random friendlies against Moldova or St Kitts & Nevis. The Spanish FA loved to play friendlies against Latin American minnows for cash (our FA loves cash).

The final round with Spain, Italy, France and Belgium can be really tasty too. It just feels odd that it's not getting played until after the Euro.

[Sheilbh]

The final round with Spain, Italy, France and Belgium can be really tasty too. It just feels odd that it's not getting played until after the Euro.

Yeah. As I say I think the first year struck a really good balance of being new and having some real stakes that made it a bit more meaningful.

But this year it just doesn't work in part because the Euros were delayed so it's not an off-year competition now. It's competing with the real competition.

[Tamas]

I like the NL, it's not like its any more pointless than club leagues. It gives context to friendlies, which is cool.


Also with Hungary qualifying for group A last night, it allows members of government to gloat about the criminally insane amounts of money they spent to build empty stadiums from taxpayers' money, so there's that.

[celedhring]

I kinda want Hungary to be good at football again, despite all the Orban malarkey. Lots of time for the Magical Magyars.

[Duque de Bragança]

Yeah no-one really cares about the Nations League - it's the "fetch" of European football

The first version, I think, was more directly linked to Euro 2020 qualification which made it more meaningful. But because that link's a lot weaker for the WC it's kind of irrelevant.

First version was even tougher with 3-team groups for League A, but for money reasons they broadened to 4, salvaging some wealthy team in the process i.e Germany.

[Josephus]

The only thing I like about it is I get to see Malta doing really, really well. Like drawing the Faroes.

[Tamas]

I kinda want Hungary to be good at football again, despite all the Orban malarkey. Lots of time for the Magical Magyars.

They are having a very successful year, e.g. they just beat Iceland in the EC playoffs with two late goals to secure a place. My theory is that all the empty stadiums are disorienting the other teams but Hungarian players are used to them.

Seriously though as far as I understand, all key players trained abroad or at least outside of the "academy" system developed by Orban and crew as a system to gather tribute from private companies (private company pays grant to academy, gets a tax write-off, academy owners swallow the money). One of the key attackers is some French black guy who was in the French U21 team 2-3 years ago so couldn't even play for Hungary if it wasn't for a recent regulation change. Plus we have Marco Rossi as manager who could not be accused of be a product of the Hungarian school.

I guess one possible influence of Orban is that as far as I can remember, the old guard of Hungarian coaches (slowly dying out to be fair) would always jump like savage dogs on a foreign manager at the first sign of weakness. This did not happen with the non-stellar start of Rossi so he had time to build. I assume this is because football is Orban's lifelong passion (football is to him what painting was for Hitler ) and nobody dares to try and hunt the chosen manager down without getting a pass from him.

The previous manager, some Belgian/Dutch guy seemed instantly aware of this and from the moment he got appointed launched a nauseating charm-offensive to acknowledge Orban as god emperor of all mankind. Too bad he was absolute rubbish, so not even this could save him.

[celedhring]

Yes Liep, we should be playing Braithwaite more.