UEFA Nations League
2022-23 campaign begins with a bumper summer schedule
The pandemic fall-out and the disruption caused by the winter World Cup might have given a haphazard feel to this year’s Nations League schedule, but players, managers and fans are coming around to the value of the tournament ahead of its third edition.
The opening stage of the 2022-23 Nations League is scheduled for a busy first fortnight in June at a time when, normally, excitement would be building ahead of the World Cup kick-off. In that context the Nations League may appear something of a damp squib. But it provides important team-building opportunities for both World Cup finalists and Qatar absentees planning and plotting ahead of the Euro 2024 qualifiers. All but one of European federation’s 55 members will be competing in14 groups – including Wales, Ukraine and Scotland, despite their simultaneous tangles over Europe’s last World Cup slot in Qatar. Their schedules have had to be adjusted after the footballing fall-out from Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine.
Almost all the teams will play six matches apiece, four in June and then two in the closing week of September. Promotion and relegation between the groups is factored in to the competitive equation, but only the League A nations can compete for access to the four-team finals in June next year. The venue is still to be confirmed, with Belgium, Poland, Netherlands and Wales – the four nations from Group A4 – declaring an interest in hosting. Unless any rival bids come in by the October 5 deadline, the nation that wins the group will most likely be the venue.
No one can view a return to the drawing board via the Nations League as more important than Italy. The Azzurri crashed from the sublime to the ridiculous on failing to qualify for the World Cup finals only nine months after edging England on penalties in the Euro 2020 final at Wembley.
Italy were so clearly the most outstanding outfit in the Euro finals that their humiliation by North Macedonia in the World Cup play-off semi-final was all the more embarrassing.
Roberto Mancini managed to retain his job as head coach but will be on trial in every single match in a difficult schedule. Italy’s ten-day June tightrope includes home and away clashes against Hansi Flick’s vastly improved old rivals Germany, a home match against Hungary and another meeting with England.
This will be staged at Molineux in Wolverhampton and will carry direct echoes of Wembley since it will be played behind closed doors because of the security failings that marred the Euro final. On a happier note, England’s four-match sequence could see 49-goal Harry Kane close in on Wayne Rooney’s 53-goal national team marksmanship record.
Mancini, in starting to re-set the Italian stage, has appealed for media and fans to refrain from exaggerating the significance of the World Cup exit – as if that were possible, amid the fevered ambience surrounding the Azzurri, win, lose or draw.
“There are important national teams who have not won anything for 60 years. Italy are a little further ahead in this, despite some disappointments”
Roberto Mancini, Italy head coach
Forgotten already is that world record 37-game unbeaten run which came to an end last October with a 2-1 loss against Spain in the last Nations League semi-finals. Mancini said: “There are important national teams who have not won anything for 60 years. Italy are a little further ahead in this, despite some disappointments, and I believe the work in these three years has been appreciated.
“Certainly we have to start over.
We will include younger players in the national team, in the hope that they will have more opportunities in their clubs as well.”
France won the 2020-21 Nations League after beating Spain 2-1 last October, and Group A1 will see them confront their World Cup group rivals in Denmark. Group 2’s outcome may be dictated by the opening clash matching Spain against neighbours Portugal in Seville. Group 4 will be opened by Wales visiting Poland in Wroclaw but with their minds on the World Cup play-off back in Cardiff four days later against Ukraine or Scotland.
Rob Page, in caretaker charge ever since legal priorities sidelined Ryan Giggs, would doubtless have preferred a postponement of the Polish distraction but, of course, the crowded calendar is king. Belgium and Netherlands complete the group.
Further down the Nations League an unhappy coincidence has seen World Cup play-off rivals Ukraine and Scotland drawn together in League B1. One report even suggested that the play-off between the two sides could double up as a Nations League fixture, but their two group clashes will now take place in September.
Meanwhile, Russia are the one aforementioned nation who will not take part in the 2022-23 campaign. They were drawn in League B2 with Albania, Israel and Iceland but, following further UEFA sanctions, have been barred from the competition and will automatically be ranked fourth and thus relegated to League C at the end of the group stage.