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Nations League


exile

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1 hour ago, Stockholm 1980 said:

I still don’t think too many folks have grasped that we are basically six matches away against similar or slightly lesser standard teams to ourselves from making Euro 2020.  It is so important to hit the ground running in September.

These four games in the Autumn and a Semi Final and Final against other pool C “mini league” winners in March 2020. This has to be our best chance of qualification, as I can’t see us being 1st or 2nd in our regular qualifiers in 2019. 

If we did secure a Play Off Spot in March 2020 we might even go into the regular qualifiers with a bit less pressure on us knowing we had the Play Off tucked away as back up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Agree totally 

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16 minutes ago, Bobby Russell's Lovechild said:

So I take it then the play off winners don't take part in the qualifiers next year? I've also noticed it seems that the nation league is also played in world cup years. Is that for extra WC places?

The play offs are played after the Euro qualification groups are done. The qualifiers will include all teams but, instead of giving the 3rd placed teams  a play off spot like last time, the top 2 qualify automatically and the nations league winners play the play offs

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Being a top seeded team in our league gives us a great chance of taking the qualification spot if we don't finish top 2 in the main qualification groups. Especially as a few of the stronger teams in our nation's league might qualify through the main groups, taking them out of the playoffs. We really need to win our mini league.

I hope McLeish understands it fully and what a great opportunity we could have via the nation's league.

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36 minutes ago, iainmac1 said:

Being a top seeded team in our league gives us a great chance of taking the qualification spot if we don't finish top 2 in the main qualification groups. Especially as a few of the stronger teams in our nation's league might qualify through the main groups, taking them out of the playoffs. We really need to win our mini league.

I hope McLeish understands it fully and what a great opportunity we could have via the nation's league.

Yes and we would be entering new territory of play-offs to reach a finals.  In these one off games we should not have an inferiority complex nor be complacent. One of the regrets we never got through to knock-out in a major tournament is that I think we'd have such a momentum breaking through into the new level, we would have no fear, we could beat anyone on our day (two leg play offs are more a problem! against bigger sides). But for these play offs we should have every chance.  

Scotland v Albania could be seen as the first shot in the campaign not only to get into Euro 2020 but to go further than we have ever gone. So I hope McLeish can instil that self-belief that this is our chance, starting now.

 

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If I follow correctly (someone correct me if I am wrong), a club version of the Nations League would be something like:

We're the equivalent of Raith Rovers, down in League One, but dreaming of the glory days and European nights. League One is split into mini groups of three and four teams. Raith is a top seeded side, drawn with a mid table side (say, East Fife) and newly promoted Stenhousemuir. So without being complacent, Raith must reasonably fancy their chances to win that mini group.

If they win that mini group they get promoted to play in the next tier up, i.e. Championship football next year.

But also if they win it they also go into play-offs with the other leading teams in the league - say, Dumbarton and Brechin City. If they win those play-offs they get a place in Europe!

In other words rather than having to work their way up through the Championship, then having to win promotion to the Premiership and then get into the top six and then finish in the top 4, they get a direct ticket from League 1. Isn't that an incredible opportunity?

So in this scenario - imagining a suitably enlarged Europa League format - the European qualifiers from Scotland would be (say) Celtic, Aberdeen, Rangers, Hibernian, Dundee United (imagining they win the Championship play-off), Raith Rovers and Peterhead, say. So a great opportunity for Raith, but also, note that they have more chance of more quickly getting into Europe, than Ayr or Alloa, who would be having to fight it out with the likes of Partick and Inverness. It could be easier for Stirling to get into Europe than Alloa, etc.

So the very next game - as it happens, Raith v Stenhousemuir this Saturday - would be the first step on that path to revive the glory days.

And the Scotland equivalent is Scotland v Albania.   

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4 hours ago, iainmac1 said:

Being a top seeded team in our league gives us a great chance of taking the qualification spot if we don't finish top 2 in the main qualification groups. Especially as a few of the stronger teams in our nation's league might qualify through the main groups, taking them out of the playoffs. We really need to win our mini league.

I hope McLeish understands it fully and what a great opportunity we could have via the nation's league.

 

Bang on. This is absolutely vital. Win the mini league and the insurance policy is there for next year. Fail to and we can kiss goodbye to Euro 2020, as we would be in Pot 4 and it's going to take a miracle to qualify from there.

 

Harsh as it sounds, fail to win this mini-league and McLeish should be let go. It's vital that we reach these Euros for the financial and on park good of the game in this country. It has been starved of finances and success for far too long. Time to put it right, no excuses.

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3 hours ago, exile said:

If I follow correctly (someone correct me if I am wrong), a club version of the Nations League would be something like:

We're the equivalent of Raith Rovers, down in League One, but dreaming of the glory days and European nights. League One is split into mini groups of three and four teams. Raith is a top seeded side, drawn with a mid table side (say, East Fife) and newly promoted Stenhousemuir. So without being complacent, Raith must reasonably fancy their chances to win that mini group.

If they win that mini group they get promoted to play in the next tier up, i.e. Championship football next year.

But also if they win it they also go into play-offs with the other leading teams in the league - say, Dumbarton and Brechin City. If they win those play-offs they get a place in Europe!

In other words rather than having to work their way up through the Championship, then having to win promotion to the Premiership and then get into the top six and then finish in the top 4, they get a direct ticket from League 1. Isn't that an incredible opportunity?

So in this scenario - imagining a suitably enlarged Europa League format - the European qualifiers from Scotland would be (say) Celtic, Aberdeen, Rangers, Hibernian, Dundee United (imagining they win the Championship play-off), Raith Rovers and Peterhead, say. So a great opportunity for Raith, but also, note that they have more chance of more quickly getting into Europe, than Ayr or Alloa, who would be having to fight it out with the likes of Partick and Inverness. It could be easier for Stirling to get into Europe than Alloa, etc.

So the very next game - as it happens, Raith v Stenhousemuir this Saturday - would be the first step on that path to revive the glory days.

And the Scotland equivalent is Scotland v Albania.   

Pretty much. 

What could also benefit us is: if the playoffs for our league include say us, Serbia, Greece and Hungary.

If any of those other teams qualify through the main qualification process then they no longer take part in the playoffs and are replaced by the team with the next best record in our league. So a weaker team. There is a good chance of this happening in our group that at least 1 or 2 teams will qualify through the main qualification process thereby taking the stronger teams away from the playoffs. 

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1 hour ago, iainmac1 said:

Pretty much. 

What could also benefit us is: if the playoffs for our league include say us, Serbia, Greece and Hungary.

If any of those other teams qualify through the main qualification process then they no longer take part in the playoffs and are replaced by the team with the next best record in our league. So a weaker team. There is a good chance of this happening in our group that at least 1 or 2 teams will qualify through the main qualification process thereby taking the stronger teams away from the playoffs. 

Can see us not winning our nations league group and after two main qualifiers hoping Albania and Israel qualify automatically

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7 hours ago, ceudmilefailte said:

Can see us not winning our nations league group and after two main qualifiers hoping Albania and Israel qualify automatically

There’s about as much chance of us winning Euro 2020 as there is of that happening. 

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Look at the Nations League as a series of mini competitions. We’re in League C, so that’s our competition. If we win League C, we qualify for the Euros, and we win League C by qualifying from our wee group (Israel and Albania) and then beating another League C group winner in the semis, and another in the final.

Quite simple (I think anyway) in those terms?

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8 minutes ago, wee-toon-red said:

Look at the Nations League as a series of mini competitions. We’re in League C, so that’s our competition. If we win League C, we qualify for the Euros, and we win League C by qualifying from our wee group (Israel and Albania) and then beating another League C group winner in the semis, and another in the final.

Quite simple (I think anyway) in those terms?

So a 12 man competition with only one winner is the way we see it.  Prefer 2 winners in a six team one

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40 minutes ago, ceudmilefailte said:

So a 12 man competition with only one winner is the way we see it.  Prefer 2 winners in a six team one

Aye but in our regular group we’ll likely have two much higher ranked teams than ourselves to contend with.

In the Nations League it’s all against teams of a theoretically similar standard.

Anyway, it’s not one or the other, we get to do both.

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Plus there is a chance that if one of our play off opponents (who should be at our level) turns out to be surprisingly good, they could qualify directly for euro 2012, so we'd face slightly weaker (on paper ) opposition. But that's all too hypothetical. 

The main thing is to win our home games and nick some away points 

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1 hour ago, wee-toon-red said:

Aye but in our regular group we’ll likely have two much higher ranked teams than ourselves to contend with.

In the Nations League it’s all against teams of a theoretically similar standard.

Anyway, it’s not one or the other, we get to do both.

Aye, this time round we get to fail twice.:lol: A double dose of disappointment. 

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6 minutes ago, Orraloon said:

Aye, this time round we get to fail twice.:lol: A double dose of disappointment. 

:lol:  When I first heard of all this Nations League stuff, I was a bit pessimistic, the idea of being in a League at a given level seemed to cement Scotland's status as a third tier side. And the idea that we could find a new way to not qualify while someone from pot D qualified seemed like a possible new low.

However there is also the optimistic view that it gives a new direct chance to qualify by beating teams of roughly our standard. The question is if we are up to that, on the night (or, successive nights)...  

Edited by exile
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Looking back at the Euro 2016 campaign, the closest teams to us were Ireland and Georgia (they are now in League B and League D). 

If we imagine a mini league of us three, the standings were:

Republic of Ireland W2 D1 L1 = 7 points

Scotland W2 D1 L1 = 7 points

Georgia W1 D0 L3 = 1 point

So as long as we could keep beating teams a little worse than Ireland, and stop losing to teams a little better than Georgia, we should have a decent chance.

Edited by exile
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