Cheer up .. it’s pretty impossible for us NOT to qualify for Euro20
UEFA NATIONS LEAGUE: HOW IT WORKS Look on the bright side of our World Cup hell – it’s made qualifying for the next Euros easy* thanks to the new UEFA Nations comp
IT’S true .. we’ve done the homework so the Tartan Army don’t need to .. now let us explain why it is harder for Scotland NOT to qualify for Euro 2020
THE summer was a complete washout and we are now facing a winter of discontent after Scotland’s fall in the World Cup race.
There are dark clouds hanging over the nation after the sore one in Slovenia. But if we look hard enough, and squint a wee bit, there is the tiniest hint of a silver lining. Even if it might not feel like it.
Sunday night took Scottish misery to an entirely new level. Even for us – a country who have got the glorious failure T-shirt – this was agony on an industrial level.
Yet the unsuccessful bid to secure a play-off place might just have boosted our chances of reaching the Euros.
Honestly. Stick with me here. Getting papped out before the play-offs, let alone the party in Russia, has seen us hit with the football law of unintended consequences.
By falling on our faces we have actually improved our odds of reaching the next big continental shindig.
International football is going to change in the next cycle, quite drastically as well.
The qualifiers for the Euros don’t kick off until March 2019 – but in the meantime we have the funky new UEFA Nations League to look forward to. We just need to figure out how the heck it works first.
It’s a bad sign when the UEFA website needs diagrams, flow charts and an educational video to spell it out. But we might as well have a bash.
The new tourney starts next September and will be a series of games against countries ranked around us. It’s designed to do away with meaningless friendlies and allow the wee nations to avoid getting horsed all the time.
But the kicker is that there are places at Euro 2020 up for grabs. They are within reach as well. It’s just that it’s murder to explain.
Here goes with the confusing bit. The 55 European countries will be
*When we say say easy we obviously reserve the right to make a typically Scottish a@&e of it
split into four sections –A, B, C and D – with each section featuring groups of three or four teams.
Each winner of those subgroups will go into the play-offs for the Euros – with a place at stake from each section.
We might not even need to win the group to get a play-off spot. If the winners finish in the top two of their Euro qualifying groups then the play-off spot goes to the next best side in the group.
How they work that out will be down to head to heads, goal difference, goals scored, disciplinary records. Then if there’s still no separating the sides it will be down to drawing lots, or maybe their genetic codes. Who knows.
The League A winners play for a shiny new trophy in June 2019 but that has nothing to do with us. That all make sense? Nah of course it doesn’t. Stephen Hawking would have chucked it by now.
But in simple terms it means there’s a safety net in place and UEFA are doing their bit to help the wee nations. It guarantees places for countries from the bottom two groups at the Euros.
There will be a Latvia, Luxembourg or Faroe Islands at 2020 but there could also be a Scotland. Weirdly, by getting launched out at the last hurdle of the World Cup campaign we’ve landed in Group C and it will give us an easier ride.
We’re one of the top-ranked sides and have landed a division with the likes of Finland, Bulgaria and Estonia. Sure, we could get Romania, Hungary or Slovenia again but that will be as hard as it gets.
The sides will square up home and away next September, October and November. Come out on top and we’ve bagged a play-off against similar nations even before qualifying starts. It’s a bit of a dog’s dinner but it’s all clearly explained in these pages. Perhaps the SFA can hand out instruction manuals with the matchday programmes in September.
The main thing is we now have two cracks at an expanded Euros and one of the shots is against fellow middle-ranking diddy nations.
It’s a start. We might be in the heart of darkness right now but keep the faith as there might be a hint of brighter things to come.