The big boys’ playground
Scots in with the Nations League elite so let’s just enjoy the ride
an entire country is in countdown mode to the Euros in Germany this June.
And while Scotland has Euro fever, today’s Nations League draw in Paris has barely registered a sniffle.
Ah, the good old Nations League. This competition has been good to us over the years – it helped give Steve Clarke’s men a nudge towards the last European Championships.
Incredibly, this is the fourth lap of the competition and yet most folk still seem to struggle to know what the heck is going on with it.
Like most fairground rides, it is perhaps best not to wonder about the hows and whys when getting spun around and sent upside down.
But the 2024 Nations League could be a ton of fun as well. You see, Scotland are no longer mixing it with the waifs and strays of Europe in this tourney.
Oh, no... we’re in among the big boys now.
Thanks to Clarkey’s troops winning Group B1 last time around, the Scots are in the top tier of the competition.
We’re A3 all the way, baby! OK, at this point some people are already starting to scratch their heads. B3, A1, C2 – is this a football tournament or a game of battleships?
Simply put, Scotland have been promoted from the second-tier countries and are now in the 16 at the top.
Those are the ones with a chance to actually win the Nations League. We’ll need to beat the best to do so but anything seems possible with Clarke in charge.
This means we are likely to get a tough group but some genuinely exciting games.
Scotland are in pot four of the A teams – do keep up – and we’ll land one of Spain, Italy, Croatia or the Dutch from the first bowl.
After that, we could get Belgium, Portugal, our old chums Denmark or even Euros group rivals Hungary from the second seeds.
Heavy-hitters France and Germany lurk in the third pot of teams we will be up against, along with Poland and Switzerland – another one of our foes this summer.
At this stage, some folk may be wondering where the Auld
Enemy are. Well, we bypassed Gareth Southgate’s boys on the way up to the A class as England got relegated while Scotland secured promotion.
How will it all work? The same as usual. We’ll be in a group of four, we all play home and away with two games in September, October and November.
The top two teams in the four A groups will meet in the Nations League quarter-finals next year, with a possible semi-final and final for the Tartan Army to look forward to in June 2025. In the past,
Scotland have banked play-offs for the Euros through this competition.
It might be trickier this time, though, given the four best section winners across the tiers who haven’t already qualified for the 2026 World Cup will get a second bite.
But it’s probably best not worrying about that just now. The Nations League has been a buzz so far and this one could be the best yet with glamour games and maybe even a shot at glory down the line.
So just sit back and enjoy the ride.