What is this UEFA Nations Leauge??
UEFA Nations League is starting from 6th September, but no one has any clue about what the competition is all about?
According to Wikipedia, it is
a biennial international association football competition to be contested by the senior men’s national teams of the member associations of UEFA

But wait, aren’t there more than 50 teams under UEFA? Yes. There are 55 UEFA recognized national teams. The competition is an effort to revive the international friendlies. It will allow nations of equal ranking to play each other and avoid meaningless matches like France vs Belarus or England vs Macedonia.
The Format
Format is similar to the Champions League. Teams are divided into 4 leagues A,B,C and D, according to their rankings; A have the highest ranked teams and D have the lowest ones. Each league have 4 groups of either 3 or 4 teams each. League A and B have four groups of 3 teams each, League C have one group of 3 teams and three groups of 4 teams each, League D have four groups of 4 teams each. All teams will play others in their group at home and away.

When is the Competition?
Matches will be played in the international breaks in September, October and November. Final will be played in June 2019.
Who will be the winner?
All the group toppers from League A will play the semi finals in June 2019. Winners of each semis will play in final ans one team will emerge as winner of first ever UEFA Nations Leauge. Also, there will be a third place match between losers of semifinals. All these matches will be hosted by one one if the semi finalist nation and the decision will be taken in December.
But Who will be the actual winner?
Many of you already know that EURO is going to be a 24 nations affair from 2020 onward. The qualifications will happen as usual, in June 2019, there will be 5 groups with 5 teams and 5 groups with 6 teams; top two from each will qualify for EURO 2020. So there will be 4 more spots up for grab. These vacancies will be filled by UNL(UEFA Nations League). Each league has four spots to allocate for the play-offs, with group winners given first priority. If they have already qualified for Euro 2020 through the usual means , their place will be handed down to the next highest-ranked team from their league which has not already qualified. And if they cannot find enough teams for the play-offs from a certain league (most likely to happen in League A), then they will go and grab some teams from a lower league to make up the numbers.
The four teams will then play two one-off semi-finals and one final in March 2020 to decide the qualifier from each league.
So the teams like Malta, Faroe islands, Latvia might have a appearance in upcoming EURO competitions. These lower ranked teams will be the actual winner if they are able to qualify through this track.
It is a League, so are there Relegation and Promotions?
Absolutely yes. This way teams will stay motivated in lower leagues and teams in higher league will have a fear of humiliation. The last placed team from each group will be relegated to the lower league and winner of each group will be promoted to higher leagues. This is the best feature which was taken from the domestic league structure by UEFA.
This means that one team from Spain, Croatia, England and one from France, Germany, Netherlands will be relegated from League A to B. This is going to be exciting.
Verdict
Someone might say that format is flawed when it comes to linking UNL with Euro qualifications as it gives much weaker teams a real go at making an appearance at Euro. But if that part is ignored then there are many good things which will come out of this. All the meaningless friendlies will be replaced with high intensity matches like France vs England, Belgium vs Germany ( :D ) and many more. Matches like these were hardly seen in international friendlies earlier. Also UEFA is making sure that bigger teams like Italy and Netherlands don’t miss put on action on highest level of competition. These teams will get second chance to qualify through UCL if they screw up qualification campaign.
If the first edition goes as planned and receive enough support then UEFA might even consider linking UNL with FIFA WC qualification process. At the end UEFA can boast that they have transformed the way international friendlies are played and also make hell lot of money.
PS : Trophy is beautiful.
