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#2 It gives fans something to look forward to in summers without big tournaments
Cast your mind back to the summer of 2017 – if you’re a big fan of the England national team, you were probably glued to the television watching the U-20 team win their version of the World Cup. But for as good as that tournament was, it didn’t really come close to the real World Cup this summer, nor Euro 2016 from the year before. For fans of the international game, every year ending in an odd number means a summer of boredom, basically.
That is, until now. With the advent of the Nations League, each odd-numbered summer will now see a mini-tournament between the winners of the groups in League A – otherwise known as the ‘Final Four’ tournament. This mini-tournament will consist of two semi-finals, a third-place playoff and a final game to decide the overall winner of the Nations League.
Of course, only 4 teams can be involved in this – the teams that don’t win their group will be playing regular qualifiers, either for the European Championship or World Cup – but for fans of the teams that make it, it could turn into a very big deal.
If you’re an England fan, for instance, just imagine a mini-tournament in the summer of 2019 pitting the Three Lions against Belgium, Portugal and France. It’s practically like making the semi-finals of the Euros or the World Cup, right? Well, not quite, but it still sounds like a lot of fun – and adds a lot of intrigue into what used to be a dull part of the football calendar.
