Official – Nations League and European qualifying evolve!

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·21 de maio de 2026

Official – Nations League and European qualifying evolve!

The Nations League, a competition launched by UEFA to reduce friendly matches for European countries and make them more meaningful, with World Cup or Euro qualification at stake, is set to change. The European governing body announced it in an official statement. The changes will be introduced after Euro 2028.

“in a similar way to the format of UEFA club competitions.”

“Under the new structure, the UEFA Nations League (UNL) will move, from the 2028/29 edition onward, from the current 4 leagues to 3 leagues of 18 teams. Each league will consist of three groups of six teams playing six matches against five different opponents: at home or away against teams from different pots, and home and away against opponents from the same pot. Since there will be 55 teams involved, League C, which will start earlier than the others, will include one group of seven teams. The quarter-finals, the final four stage, and the promotion and relegation play-offs will complete the format without change. The European Qualifiers will adopt a similar structure: League 1, made up of the 36 teams from UNL Leagues A and B, and League 2, made up of the remaining 18 (or 19) UNL teams. In League 1, there will be 3 groups of 12 teams drawn from 3 pots of 12 teams. Each team will play 6 home or away matches against 6 different opponents, two from each pot, in a similar way to the format of UEFA club competitions. League 2 will be organized exactly like UNL League C, with three groups of six (or one of seven).

“which will also guarantee fair qualification chances for League 2 teams.”

Although directly qualified for the final tournament, the host teams will take part in the European Qualifiers, on which their position in the next edition of the UEFA Nations League will depend. The highest-ranked teams in each League 1 group will qualify directly, while the remaining places will be allocated through a play-off system, which will also guarantee fair qualification chances for League 2 teams.”

The idea, then, is to have matches that are always interesting, drawing inspiration from the Champions League format (with a single match rather than home-and-away ties) while still keeping the separation into leagues, in order to give the smaller national teams a better chance of securing a place in international competitions. Hopefully it will be a success and the various qualification paths will be a little easier to follow than in the current Nations League, which has often caused some confusion.