UEFA’s plans to spruce up international football comes to fruition Wednesday, when the draw for the newly created Nations League takes place in Lausanne, Switzerland.
An idea conceived in 2011 following complaints over the number of perceived meaningless friendlies, the Nations League is expected to up the ante with more competitive fixtures between similarly ranked teams.
Each of UEFA’s 55 member nations will be divided into four leagues based on their coefficient rankings, with two-legged series set to begin in September. The winners of each group will be promoted and the last-place finishers relegated. For the group winners in League A, a final showdown – complete with one-off semi-finals, a third-place match, and a winner-take-all showpiece – awaits in June 2019.
The objective is to fill years without major competitions like the European Championships and the World Cup with more fare for the football-loving public.
Teams ranked 1-12 will be placed in League A, 13-24 in League B, 25-39 in League C, and 40-55 in League D.
In Leagues A and B, four groups of three will be formed by picking countries at random from separate pots. League C will feature one group of three and three groups of four. Finally, League D will be divided into four groups of three.
Here’s how that looks at the moment:
League A
Pot 1: Germany, Portugal, Belgium, Spain
Pot 2: France, England, Switzerland, Italy
Pot 3: Poland, Iceland, Croatia, Netherlands
League B
Pot 1: Austria, Wales, Russia, Slovakia
Pot 2: Sweden, Ukraine, Republic of Ireland, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Pot 3: Northern Ireland, Denmark, Czech Republic, Turkey
League C
Pot 1: Hungary, Romania, Scotland, Slovenia
Pot 2: Greece, Serbia, Albania, Norway
Pot 3: Montenegro, Israel, Bulgaria, Finland
Pot 4: Cyprus, Estonia, Lithuania
League D
Pot 1: Azerbaijan, FYR Macedonia, Belarus, Georgia
Pot 2: Armenia, Latvia, Faroe Islands, Luxembourg
Pot 3: Kazakhstan, Moldova, Liechtenstein, Malta
Pot 4: Andorra, Kosovo, San Marino, Gibraltar
For political reasons, neither Ukraine and Russia, nor Armenia and Azerbaijan, can be drawn together.
In essence, UEFA has adopted the promotion-relegation model followed by most domestic leagues to drum up interest in matches that FIFA will continue to regard as friendlies. But for certain minnows of European football, the new format will provide them with a back-door opportunity to reach the 2020 European Championship.
The usual qualifying cycle for the 2020 Euro will run from March 2019 to November 2019, with the top two sides from each of the 10 main qualifying groups booking automatic berths. However, unlike previous years, third-place finishers won’t enter a play-off to determine the final four teams. Instead, the Nations League’s 16 group winners – four from each tier – will fight amongst each other for that right.
Each tier will host its own semi-finals and final in March 2020 to award the last four tickets. Teams that have already qualified for the Euros will be replaced by those with the next-best coefficient ranking.
If a league cannot provide four teams, those slots will be allocated to non-group winners from another league. Teams will be parachuted in based on a complicated formula that factors in their points total, goal difference, goals scored, away goals scored, wins, away wins, red and yellow cards, and their coefficient ranking.
For example, because each nation from League A is strong enough to qualify for Euro 2020 on its own, teams could be promoted from League B to fill League A’s quota.
Europe’s lesser lights will also feel empowered. League D’s Pot 1 entrant Georgia has a chance to reach the quadrennial tournament for the first time in its history as one of the stronger sides in that tier. And bottom-feeders Andorra and San Marino would do well to avoid loftier opposition – and the thumpings that come with it.
MOBILE, Ala. — Former Wyoming QB Josh Allen knows that Senior Bowl week is a big one for his NFL draft stock, and he didn’t shy away from any topics in a wide-ranging media session Monday night.
Unlike UCLA QB Josh Rosen, who has previously stated that he would like to avoid being drafted by the Cleveland Browns, Allen made no such claims about his draft position.
“It’s not about going as high as possible,” he said. “It’s about the right fit.”
Allen made it clear that he wants to prove he belongs and put to rest any concerns about his 56.1 career completion percentage at Wyoming, noting that he has been working this offseason on his footwork and “I’m way more accurate than that [number] shows.”
Admitting that he wasn’t playing “the greatest competition week in and week out” at Wyoming, Allen recognizes that this week is important to show he belongs. As to what NFL teams should know about him: “I want them to understand I have a high football IQ and that I love the game.”
Denver Broncos general manager John Elway scouted Allen at the 2017 Potato Bowl, in which Allen threw for three TDs in a 37-14 win. Allen didn’t meet Elway at that game, but he confirmed Monday that he had spoken with the Broncos and said that Elway’s being there “spoke volumes” about what Denver is trying to accomplish this offseason.
Baker Mayfield, the 2017 Heisman Trophy winner, will also be competing at the Senior Bowl, which gives the event a rare opportunity to showcase potential first-round QBs. Mayfield is clearly the more accomplished college QB, but Allen is looking forward to the challenge, saying, “It’s going to be fun competing with Baker.”
Allen went No. 1 overall in Mel Kiper’s first 2018 NFL mock draft and is Todd McShay’s third-ranked QB behind Sam Darnold and Rosen. The Senior Bowl game will take place at 1:30 p.m. ET Jan. 27.
A FIFA executive claims video assistant referees (VAR) will be introduced for the first time at the World Cup when the quadrennial contest kicks off in Russia in June.
Chief commercial officer Philippe Le Floc’h confirmed plans to use the video review technology in discussion with The Associated Press, saying, “definitely VAR will happen. I think it’s great to have technology in football because this is also a fair(ness) thing.”
Le Floc’h adds that talks have begun between FIFA and potential sponsors over branding the use of VAR technology.
“We are talking to various technological companies who are very interested with what we are doing on the technology side of things,” Floc’h added.
The International Football Association Board (IFAB), a body formed by FIFA in 1904 to govern the rules of the sport, has been conducting trials on VAR technology for a two-year period dating back to the 130th Annual General Meeting in Cardiff in March 2016.
VAR has since been employed in top-flight domestic leagues in Germany, Italy, and in Major League Soccer, with plans to introduce it next season in top-tier French and Spanish football. VAR has also been trialled in England during domestic cups.
The technology allows the match official to review contentious incidents involving goals, penalty decisions, direct red cards, and cases of mistaken identity.
A final decision will be made by IFAB on March 2 when its annual meeting is held.
PHILADELPHIA — Things were already going very well for the Philadelphia Eagles on this mild January night, but when the call came in — “FLEA FLICKER!” — from the sideline with 10 minutes, 13 seconds to go in the third quarter and the ball at the Minnesota 41-yard line, the huddle had to work to keep it together.
“I think you just try not to smile,” Eagles quarterback Nick Foles said a couple of hours later, long after he and his teammates had all stopped trying. “I don’t know if I’ve ever run a flea flicker, so it was my first time, so I just tried not to smile. Because anytime you’re a quarterback and you can do a little play like that, it’s pretty exciting, and sometimes they can go really bad.”
But nothing went bad for Foles or the Eagles in this one. This was a 38-7 thumping of the Minnesota Vikings that crowned Philadelphia the 2017 NFC champions and tacked another head-scratching chapter on to the odd story of Foles’ career. Coach and white-hot playcaller Doug Pederson sent in a flea flicker, the Eagles ran a flea flicker and Foles just dropped a dime of a 41-yard touchdown pass to a fairly well-covered Torrey Smith. The second of three touchdown passes on the night for Foles against the league’s No. 1 defense, just the way everybody thought it would go.
“I haven’t even had time to really comprehend what is going on, to be honest,” Foles said after the game. “I don’t know if I ever will. When I was up on that stage, that’s something you dream about as a kid.”
It’s Eagles vs. Patriots in the Super Bowl, and ESPN.com has you covered for the 2017 NFL playoffs.
There are so many places to go with the Nick Foles story, but let’s start there on that makeshift stage. A team wins the NFC Championship Game, and it hops up on a hastily assembled stage in the middle of the field to get the trophy and does interviews with Terry Bradshaw the whole stadium can hear. Pederson was up there with team owner Jeffrey Lurie and a handful of other players in their gray, NFC championship T-shirts and hats, filming it all with their phones.
Somebody in charge of staging those postgame festivities spotted Eagles backup quarterback Nate Sudfeld and started shouting, “Hey! You need to be up on that stage! Nick! You need to be up on that stage!” Sudfeld shook his head and informed the earnest individual — as he had informed fans screaming, “Nick!” at him during pregame warmups — that he was not Foles, and that Foles was already up there.
Foles got a kick out of the story when Sudfeld relayed it to him at the lockers a while later. He knows how crazy all of this is. He knows he wasn’t supposed to be here — that but for Carson Wentz tearing his ACL in a Week 14 game in Los Angeles, Foles would have spent this game with an earpiece in, watching from the sideline as Wentz went 26-for-33 for 352 yards and three touchdown passes.
Foles has the perspective to appreciate the texture of his career path. He probably had the greatest statistical season any Eagles quarterback has ever had — his 27-touchdown, two-interception season for the Chip Kelly-coached Eagles back in 2013. But a year after that, he was gone from Philly. He spent 2015 with the Rams, helping turn out the lights on the NFL in St. Louis. Later cut by the Rams in camp in 2016, he pondered retirement before former Eagles coach Andy Reid hired him as Alex Smith’s backup in Kansas City. Then he signed up with Pederson, another of his former Eagles coaches, to back up Wentz in Philly this year.
Thrust into the spotlight again after Wentz’s injury, Foles flung four touchdown passes in an encouraging Week 15 victory over the miserable Giants, but then he laid a huge egg in the regular-season finale against the Cowboys. The Eagles entered the playoffs as the NFC’s No. 1 seed, thanks mainly to the MVP-caliber work Wentz did before his injury, but as recently as 10 days ago, their fans were chewing their fingernails down to the nubs at the thought of Foles having to make one of those third-down pickups in a big spot in the playoffs.
“In sports, everything’s a process, and you can’t give up,” Foles said. “Everyone, when it’s a bad outing, wants to be really critical. But no one in the locker room doubted me.”
They really didn’t. Talking to the Eagles’ players in late December, you heard a lot about that 2013 season as proof that Foles could start and succeed in NFL games. The Eagles believed in their coaching staff and the depth of their impressive roster. Having lost left tackle Jason Peters, middle linebacker Jordan Hicks and running back Darren Sproles already to season-ending injuries, they convinced themselves they were strong enough to overcome the loss of Wentz, as well.
“Most teams, when they lose their starting quarterback, the season’s over,” center Jason Kelce said. “Not this team. It’s a credit to our front office for putting a guy back there who can get it done.”
Foles is what he is. The story of his career has been one of ultra-high highs and deep, deep lows. He’s as liable to play poorly in the Super Bowl as he is to repeat Sunday’s triumph. His volatility and his unpredictability are what make him a backup, and by this point, he and those around him have more or less made peace with that.
But right now? Right now, he’s not a backup. Right now, Nick Foles is a starting quarterback in Super Bowl LII against Tom Brady and the New England Patriots. And in the wake of Sunday’s victory, he moved around like a man quite comfortable in that impossibly lofty spot.
After the stage, his next stop was the X-ray room, where his team wanted him to have his ribs checked out following a night of hard hits from the Vikings’ front. They checked out fine, and he strode back into the locker room in that gray T-shirt with his uniform pants and cleats still on. At this locker, a well-worn Bible sat on a top shelf with a white piece of paper marking a passage somewhere in the middle. (“I’d rather not share which one, but I appreciate you asking,” he said.) For a full minute, he sat in his chair alone with his head in his hands, quietly pondering it all. Then he got up and, in his low-key way, joined the party.
He laughed with Sudfield at the stories of people confusing the two. He posed for a photo with the children of general manager Howie Roseman. He accepted quiet handshakes and congratulations from teammates and locker-room personnel. After his shower, he sat for a while and talked with Wentz, who was walking with the help of a cane in his right hand and a heavy brace under his left pants leg. He slipped on a black T-shirt with green lettering and a message about Jesus, and over that he slipped that gray NFC-champions shirt again. A pair of clear-framed glasses and a cap that matched the shirt, and he was on his way to his news conference, where he talked openly about just how crazy this all is.
“Right now,” he said, “we’re headed to the Super Bowl, and it’s pretty unreal.”
Yeah, there’s no way Nick Foles woke up on Dec. 1, 2017,and imagined himself starting in the NFC Championship Game and then the Super Bowl. After the way he and the Eagles finished the season, it’s hard to believe any of the revelers who howled their way back up Broad Street from Lincoln Financial Field imagined it, either. But Foles isn’t one to bog down in all of that. He’s basically all about the work.
“You just have to keep working,” he said. “You’re not going to always have a great day. You should never get down. You should always learn from those experiences and look forward to working through them. Because that’s the beautiful thing, when you look back at the journey and you realize that it wasn’t always great. There were bumps in the road, but you were able to overcome them with the help of the people around you, the people that believe in you and love you. That’s a special thing, and that’s what’s so special about a moment like this, because you have an opportunity to reflect and be grateful.”
Sometimes, as the man said, you have to try not to smile.
