UEFA Nations League

Righto, what this means is that if the 4 B group winners qualify automatically, Bos, UKR, Den, Swe - then the next highest ranked 4 not qualifying automatically take their spots in league B. Those would be the next 4 highest ranked teams. 

If all of 9 B teams qualified automatically, the remaining place would be taken by a C team. (although that is probably still mathematically possible, it nearly certainly can't happen in B)

What it doesn't account for there (but is covered in Flaghunters link) is where more than 4 teams are left in a league (with spare/available spots in a higher league) that is where the draw for who stays in B comes into place. 

Very simply, if 4 A teams didn't qualify- there would be no spots in league A free, so only the 4 highest ranked non qualified B teams would go into the playoff - you can't be drawn into a lower league. Ya have to remember the rules were written before the draw.  If the draw had ended up in a way that the entire top 20 could qualify automatically, and then did just that, then teams 21-24 would have ended up in the B playoff, with the A playoff being decided between the next highest ranked 4 C teams not already in a playoff.

You can pretty much ignore most of the the teams named in them, but just look at Bulgaria & Israel. They are the next 2 C teams, and because there is currently one vacant playoff slot in each of C and A left, if it stayed exactly like it is now, only one of them would be drawn into the vacant C slot (not the higher ranked team- Bulgaria- going into C playoff automatically) and the other one would be drawn in A. 

In short, if there are more than 4 playoff teams in B, and there are vacant spots left in A (nearly certainly will be)- then there will be a draw among B teams as to who stays in B and who goes to A. 

Only A can get us a home SF draw, so A is better. 

Edit- if we are in A, the likeliest outcome is a home draw V North or one of the C teams, probably Israel or Hungary. Not 100% sure Hungary and ourselves can be in the same playoff path though- probably not if we are the only 2 host nations left in playoffs. That might mean we have to be drawn in B if Hungary and no other host make playoffs, or there could be some form of process already in place, but I haven't found it if there is. 

 

If all league A qualify automatically then the A & B playoffs will be combined with countries seeded.

Say

Bosnia, Sweden, Wales, Czech,  Turkey, Us, NI

one to come up say Bulgaria

then it would be seeded

Pot 1 Bosnia, Sweden, (both have home SF)

Pot 2 Wales, Czech  (both have home SF)

Pot 3 Turkey, Us

Pot 4 NI, Bulgaria

League A Bosnia, Czech, Turkey, Bulgaria

League B Sweden, Wales, Us, NI

They will manage with 4 hosts but 5 will cause a significant re-draw. 

Soon the science will not only be able to slow down the ageing of the cells, soon the science will fix the cells to the state and so we will become eternal.

Only accidents, crimes, wars will still kill us but, unfortunately, crimes, wars will multiply. I love football. Thank you.
 

 

We could lose our next 3 games and it has no bearing on whether we end up in a playoff or not - it depends on exactly how many teams qualify automatically ahead of us. Finishing 3rd has nothing to do with it- in Croatias group, they could finish 4th and still be guaranteed a playoff.

 

We aren't in it at the moment because firstly, we are in an automatic spot at the moment and secondly, so are others like the North who are also in there instead of teams that probably qualify automatically in the end.  Uefa's website is an ''as it stands'' table isn't particularly useful at this point other than to gain some info on how the playoffs work.

 

 

The short answer to this is that if we finish anywhere other than first or second in the group we are almost certainly going to get into the playoffs. I would say the likelihood of a playoff if we don't qualify automatically is greater than 95%. Not 100% as there is a very small possibility that an unlikely set of results in matches not involving Ireland could result in us not getting a playoff, but it's only a very small chance that that would happen.

Most of the other chat on this thread relates to what playoff group we might end up in and who we might play, but really we just need to let things pan out in that regard. Or just go and win some group games and qualify automatically.