In Amsterdam, the draw for the second season of the League of Nations on Football took place - the European tournament for national teams, designed to replace friendly matches in the international calendar. The Russian national team after Euro 2020 will fight for access to Division A with the teams of Turkey, Serbia and Hungary in Group B3.
In the 2020/2021 season, the League of Nations will be held in a slightly modified format compared to the previous draw. Now in the first three divisions A, B and C there will be 16 teams divided into four groups. The remaining seven UEFA members - Gibraltar, Faroe Islands, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Andorra, Malta and San Marino - were in the lowest division D.
The Russian national team, like two years ago, ended up in the second strongest division B, but at the same time ended up in the first basket at the draw, avoiding the opportunity to meet with Austria, Wales and the Czech Republic. As a result, rivals of the wards of Stanislav Cherchesov in the main round of the League of Nations were Serbia, Turkey and Hungary - the 23rd, 26th and 31st teams in the draw, respectively.
All six matches of the group stage will be held in the fall of 2020, immediately after the European Championship. The exact dates and venues of the games will be determined later. The new format of the League of Nations allowed to reduce the number of friendly matches - the last time the team for the same period held four official meetings and two control matches. A higher status of matches will, if successful, allow them to occupy more advantageous positions in the FIFA ranking, which will be taken into account during the draw of the World Cup 2022 in Qatar.
By the way, the League of Nations will help get a second chance to teams that can’t directly qualify for the World Cup. In 2019, qualifications will begin in the UEFA zone, following which ten winners of the group stage will immediately receive tickets to Qatar. Ten more teams that took second places will continue to fight in the playoffs with the two best teams in the League of Nations. This time, the situation will not be repeated when teams from Division D will be able to qualify for Euro 2020. In an extreme case, someone from Division B after a failure in the selection for World Cup 2022 will be able to continue the fight for the remaining three quotas for Europe.
The Russian team will once again be tasked to qualify for Division A, so that after two more years they will play with the strongest teams. To do this, in a group with Serbs, Turks and Hungarians, you need to deal only in first place. If the Russians occupy the latter, they will go down to Division C.
Cherchesov’s wards have already met with the Turkish national team in the last League of Nations draw. Then the Russians won victories at home and away, which still did not help to take first place in the group. A friendly match has already been scheduled this year with the Serbs on June 6 in preparation for Euro 2020. Under exactly the same circumstances, the two teams met four years ago, when the Russian team was still led by Leonid Slutsky, and then a draw was recorded. With Hungary, the last match of the Russians was also a control. In 2017, in preparation for the Confederations Cup, the hosts of the tournament won 3-0.
According to Cherchesov, now all the thoughts of the team are related to preparations for Euro 2020, before which meetings will be held with Sweden, Moldova, Poland and Serbia. He noted that he was glad that the League of Nations appeared, since official matches were valued by them higher than friendly matches.
“Before the League of Nations, we will take part in a big tournament - the final part of the European Championship, so for now our thoughts are focused on it. The draw was held today, following which we recognized our rivals. The euro will end, after which we will concentrate on the League of Nations. I positively assess this innovation of UEFA. This is not a test match, but a tournament that brings teams points, there is a competitive process. And the most important thing is that through the League of Nations the national teams have the opportunity to qualify for the largest tournaments - world and European championships, ”Cherchesov told the RFU press service.
In addition to the matches of the Russian national team in the League of Nations, the fans will certainly be interested in the games of the teams of Division A. The Netherlands, Italy, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Poland joined in the first group. In the second quartet, matches are expected in England, Belgium, Denmark and Iceland. The third group included Portugal, France, Sweden and Croatia. Another block of teams were Switzerland, Spain, Ukraine and Germany. The winners of the groups will play among themselves in the final of the League of Nations, the current winner of which is Portugal.