It emerged recently that a suggestion made at
UEFA’s latest summit meeting was to replace international friendly dates with a
European Nations’ League, perhaps made up of nine division of six, with
promotion and relegation.
This seems great for the top nations, with a
regular supply of enticing fixtures, but seems rather less alluring to the
middle ranked nations. Playing the other
mid ranked teams for the prospect of climbing from Division 6 to Division 5
isn’t the stuff of dreams.
But what about the minnows? Imagine a Division 9 made up of
Liechtenstein, Faroe Islands, Malta, Andorra, San Marino and Gibraltar. Regular matches between these teams would
surely provide a chance of gradual improvement, more so than being thrashed by
even mid-ranking teams as happens to San Marino in particular.
That would still happen of course as the
World Cup and European Championships qualifying groups would still be there,
but a league like this would at last allow San Marino and the others to try and
play a more attacking style.
I dare say San Marino would still be
outclassed in this division. After all,
Liechtenstein and the others suffer less devastating defeats on the whole with
the odd draw or even win thrown in for good measure.
My feeling is that this is unlikely to
happen and is nothing more than UEFA bigwigs starting some political ball
rolling for some other purpose, but were it to come to pass, the chance for
regular winnable fixtures is surely more beneficial to the development of
football in the minnow nations than and endless string of World Cup beastings.
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