A reality check: Our standing in Europe

[ClydeTon]

I never understand how UEFA ruin competitions and still make more money off the back of them.

The NL (and Europa Conference League on the club side of things) have been really good additions with good formats (ok- the UECL is a copy of the UEL and UCL, but none the less,) and yet UEFA choose to f**k with them.

The NL format is pretty good as it is - a separate competition with the chance of a WC/Euros Play-off spot; 6 games to play.

But naw, now it's just some convoluted bullsh*t format.

Doesn't matter, I suppose. We'll win it all anyway.

[Pie Of The Month]

When they announced the qualifier changes it was mentioned by Dale Johnson from ESPN who reports on all this kind of stuff that they'll draw some teams into the qualifying groups as 'winning QF1' and 'losing QF1' since the draw will be before March 2025. In order for that to work they'll need to be planning to use the Nations League rankings for the World Cup qualifying draw this time rather than FIFA rankings as the winners and losers of the QFs would need to be in the same pot. 

[Donathan]

30 minutes ago, Pie Of The Month said:

When they announced the qualifier changes it was mentioned by Dale Johnson from ESPN who reports on all this kind of stuff that they'll draw some teams into the qualifying groups as 'winning QF1' and 'losing QF1' since the draw will be before March 2025. In order for that to work they'll need to be planning to use the Nations League rankings for the World Cup qualifying draw this time rather than FIFA rankings as the winners and losers of the QFs would need to be in the same pot. 

Unless fifa are willing to change their own rules then this isn’t allowed. The only 2 options that confederations are allowed to use for seeding in qualifiers are:

 

1) Fifa world ranking 

2) The results of a previous round of qualifying (e.g., Scotland had a home playoff SF last time due to being one of the better ranked runners up)

 

I’m not sure UEFA would get away with blagging the nations league as an “earlier round” of World Cup qualifying. 
 

I expect UEFA to wing it in the knowledge that most QF teams will be in pot 1 naturally. The only outlier last time was Hungary and you can easily just force them + their QF opponent into the smaller groups. 

[Gordopolis]

3 hours ago, velo army said:

Aye I'm needing a wee time out in a sensory room after reading that post. 

Hope it hits the ceiling for you.

[Donathan]

If we think the World Cup qualifiers are going to be complicated, wait until Euro 2028

 

Format complicated by uncertain number of hosts + more groups 

 

If Türkiye’s bid wins, it’ll have to be something like:

 

1 host + 12 group winners + 6 runners up + 5 playoffs 

 

If you only have 4 playoff paths you potentially have the (albeit highly unlikely) risk of having to find playoff spots for five group runners up and 12 UNL A-C group winners. 17 doesn’t go into only 4 paths.

 

So we’ll probably end up with playoff paths consisting of:

 

- 6 worst group runners up 

 

- Any remaining league A-C group winner who hasn’t didn’t finish top 2 of their qualifying group 

 

- The best league D winner 

 

- The best remaining team in the UNL rankings, plus any others to make up a total of 20 teams. 

[craigkillie]

3 hours ago, Donathan said:

Don’t think the playoffs will be any different to the 2022 World Cup tbh. 12 group winners will go straight to the WC and the 12 runners up + 4 others* will form four playoff paths with SFs and F to find the last four teams.

* - I assume the 4 “others” will be the best UNL group winners that haven’t already qualified, but could be the best four 3rd place teams. 

I'm not convinced they'll have play-offs - that would mean the final sides wouldn't be confirmed as qualifying until March. I know they're doing that for the Euros, but I am not sure if FIFA will be as happy with having a World Cup draw with ifs, buts and maybes in it again. It was forced on them last time by covid and the Ukraine situation, plus the tournament being in December, but that very much felt like a one-off situation.

[Donathan]

42 minutes ago, craigkillie said:

I'm not convinced they'll have play-offs - that would mean the final sides wouldn't be confirmed as qualifying until March. I know they're doing that for the Euros, but I am not sure if FIFA will be as happy with having a World Cup draw with ifs, buts and maybes in it again. It was forced on them last time by covid and the Ukraine situation, plus the tournament being in December, but that very much felt like a one-off situation.

There’s a 6 team inter continental playoff in the March 2026 window to decide the last 2 places (2 North Americans, 1 from each other continent apart from Europe), so unless the draw is held very late (almost certainly won’t happen) then “either/or” situations are guaranteed anyway. I don’t see why they’d mind having some European permutations too.

 

I’m fairly certain the European format will be 12 group winners qualify automatically and then four playoff paths formed by the 12 runners up and then either the 4 best third places or the 4 best UNL teams 

[craigkillie]

Fair point, I forgot about that. Would expect it will almost certainly be based on the Nations League again then.

[Barry Ferguson's Hat]

UEFA Numberwang League

#amarite

[V.Aye.R]

Reality check: we're immense. 

[Gordon EF]

It's the rest of Europe that needs a fucking reality check.

[El Gringo Jag]

Stop the negative ramblings.

 

4 wins out of 4 against 2 big teams and 1 tricky customer. Best scotla d "team" ive seen in a long time as they play in competative leagues not 4 competative games a year.

 

We are going to Germany, not saying going to win every gane in the group but draws against spain or norway will mean the favourites got 1 from 6 gainst us and thats just as important as us getting the 4 against them.

 

Writing this has annoyed me, im going to cheer myself up by booking some flights

[Donathan]

When I wrote this post just over a year ago, all the evidence (Euro 2020, World Cup qualifying and the nations league) proved that we were hovering around 20th-24th place in terms of our ranking amongst UEFA peers.

 

 

Since then we’ve broken into the top 20 of the nations league and we’re absolutely ripping through our Euro qualifying group. At an absolute minimum I think we’re around 17th/18th best team in Europe now but I think even that might be conservative. 
 

I find the fifa rankings to be quite out of date at this point. For example, Belgium are the second highest ranked team in UEFA despite their shocker at the World Cup. I still put them as one of the nine gold standard UEFA teams alongside England, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Croatia and the Netherlands.

 

The next two teams outside of that tier are Switzerland and Denmark. I consider them as the sort of dark horse teams that could genuinely compete to win the tournament in Germany next summer if they hit top form and some of the top nine have an off day.

 

The next tier after that is where we belong, IMO. Our peers in that group are Poland, Serbia, Ukraine, Austria, Czech Republic and Hungary. The rankings suggest Wales and Sweden also belong in this group, but my personal view is that both of them have regressed significantly following the retirements of key players and the rankings have just been slow to adjust.

 

Russia are a complete unknown at the minute. On talent they belong in our tier or even the Denmark/Switzerland tier but of course it will take them time to start playing together as a team again even when their ban is lifted, which probably isn’t happening any time soon, and in any case there are rumours that for geopolitical reasons they may choose to leave UEFA altogether and join the AFC instead.

I think we have a really good chance to establish ourselves in the 12-16 range going forward. 

 

[bleedingums]

1 hour ago, Donathan said:

When I wrote this post just over a year ago, all the evidence (Euro 2020, World Cup qualifying and the nations league) proved that we were hovering around 20th-24th place in terms of our ranking amongst UEFA peers.

 

 

Since then we’ve broken into the top 20 of the nations league and we’re absolutely ripping through our Euro qualifying group. At an absolute minimum I think we’re around 17th/18th best team in Europe now but I think even that might be conservative. 
 

I find the fifa rankings to be quite out of date at this point. For example, Belgium are the second highest ranked team in UEFA despite their shocker at the World Cup. I still put them as one of the nine gold standard UEFA teams alongside England, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Croatia and the Netherlands.

 

The next two teams outside of that tier are Switzerland and Denmark. I consider them as the sort of dark horse teams that could genuinely compete to win the tournament in Germany next summer if they hit top form and some of the top nine have an off day.

 

The next tier after that is where we belong, IMO. Our peers in that group are Poland, Serbia, Ukraine, Austria, Czech Republic and Hungary. The rankings suggest Wales and Sweden also belong in this group, but my personal view is that both of them have regressed significantly following the retirements of key players and the rankings have just been slow to adjust.

 

Russia are a complete unknown at the minute. On talent they belong in our tier or even the Denmark/Switzerland tier but of course it will take them time to start playing together as a team again even when their ban is lifted, which probably isn’t happening any time soon, and in any case there are rumours that for geopolitical reasons they may choose to leave UEFA altogether and join the AFC instead.

I think we have a really good chance to establish ourselves in the 12-16 range going forward. 

 

Agree with pretty much all of this except I think that with the current squad, plus hopefully adding a couple of the more promising youngsters, we should be aiming to be in that group with the Swiss and Denmark for a good while.
 

Over the past few years, each young player coming in has been an improvement on what we had before. If we can continue that trend in a couple of key positions (ie centre back and striker/attacker - thinking Liam Morrison, Rory Wilson and Ben Doak off the top of my head) I think it’d be doable.
 

Still a few years until we’d see that, but I think it should be the target and is starting to seem more realistic.

[Gordon EF]

Exactly. We're not there yet but we absolutely should be aiming to become a Denmark / Switzerland type team. A good few sides ahead of us are aging squads coming to the end of good generations. The Belgians will likely drop off markedly over the next 4/5 years. Denmark and Switzerland aren't exactly young squads and might be starting to show signs of creaking a bit. We'll see how Croatia do when Modric and Perisic are gone but I fancy them to stay at the top for a while yet. Poland look like a team on the slide.

Meanwhile, we're not going to be losing many key players to retirement or age-related dropping off over the next couple of tournament cycles so as long as we keep Stevie Clarke, I'm confident we'll improve through that time frame.

Exciting times.

[PSJ.84]

Absolutely loving this new era of optimism. Long may it continue. 

[Self-raising Lazarus]

2 hours ago, PSJ.84 said:

Absolutely loving this new era of optimism. Long may it continue. 

Here here.

Too often we've fallen after a good stand along result, 4 on the bounce should banish the naysayers.

[V.Aye.R]

9 hours ago, bleedingums said:

Agree with pretty much all of this except I think that with the current squad, plus hopefully adding a couple of the more promising youngsters, we should be aiming to be in that group with the Swiss and Denmark for a good while.
 

Over the past few years, each young player coming in has been an improvement on what we had before. If we can continue that trend in a couple of key positions (ie centre back and striker/attacker - thinking Liam Morrison, Rory Wilson and Ben Doak off the top of my head) I think it’d be doable.
 

Still a few years until we’d see that, but I think it should be the target and is starting to seem more realistic.

Respectfully disagree, Switzerland are absolute powerhouses in qualification. Probably my first pot 2 "avoid" team. 

 

We're nowhere near that unfortunately. 

Edited June 24, 2023 by V.Aye.R

[El Gringo Jag]

Bring them all on, if you run scared of big names you get no where.

 

bring on the big teams and there under estimating your f everyone as usual.

 

get stuck in and give whoever stands up n front of us a pasting. Certainly no shiteing myself over tepid Switzerland. 

[TheScarf]

On 24/06/2023 at 18:21, Self-raising Lazarus said:

Here here.

Too often we've fallen after a good stand along result, 4 on the bounce should banish the naysayers.

We don't have a squad full of bang average, pea-hearted shitebags for once, which helps.