What A CONCACAF Nations League Would Look Like?

The UEFA Nations League is a newly formed tournament that will have Its inaugural competition in the 2018-19 season. The tournament will occur every two years within the existing international match calendar. The tourney is aimed to provide competitive soccer.

Photo by Harold Cunningham - UEFA/UEFA via Getty Images

All 55 UEFA associations will be distributed between 4 leagues (League A, B, C, D) in the UEFA Nations League. Nations will compete against similarly ranked teams. Within each group, teams will compete against each other home and away between September, October and November 2018. The group winners gain promotion and the last placed teams get relegated.

In the A-League, group winners will qualify for the finals in June 2019. There will be a semi-finals match, a 3rd place match, and finals.

A CONCACAF Nations League reaps rewards on the continental soccer stage. The competition can make the game of soccer more enjoyable to watch for many. There is a promotion/relegation or playoff spot at stake, which makes the game more compelling as opposed to a meaningless friendly. It also creates meaningful and competitive matches. Since lower ranked teams will play against each other, there will be meaningful football to watch for the minnows as opposed to a 5-0 drubbing.

For simplicity sake, we will distribute the CONCACAF Nations into the three leagues based on their world ranking.

35 CONCACAF associations will be evenly dispersed through Leagues A, B & C. Leagues A (Teams ranked 1-12 in the CONCACAF) & B (Teams ranked 13-24) will have 12 teams while League C (Teams ranked 25-35) will have 11 teams.

In each league, teams will be reseeded based on their rank in their division. For example, the 25th ranked team will be the 1st seeded team in League C for being ranked the highest in the League.

To formulate the groups of each division, each team will be placed in pots based on their respective rank.

In League-A Teams ranked 1-4 will be in pot 1, teams ranked 5-8 will make up pot 2 and teams ranked 9-12 will be in pot 3. Teams would be randomly distributed among the 3 groups. Each group requires one team from all 3 pots. The same rules apply to Leagues B & C.

In the third division, there will be two groups consisting of 4 teams to balance out the groups.

Here’s a version of the groups in the CONCACAF Nations League.

(Every set of groups would be different based on where the 2nd and 3rd placed teams were distributed)

1st Division:

Group A: Mexico (1), Curacao (8), Haiti (9)

Group B: USA (2), Trinidad (7), El Salvador (10)

Group C: Costa Rica (3), Jamaica (5), St. Kitts and Nevis (12)

Group D: Panama (4), Honduras (6), Canada (11)

2nd Division:

Group A: Nicaragua (13), Grenada (17), Belize (23)

Group B: Guatemala (14), Guyana (20), Dominica (22)

Group C: Antigua (15), Dominican Republic (19), Puerto Rico (21)

Group D: Barbados (16), Suriname (18), St. Vincent Grenadines (24)

3rd Division:

Group A: St. Lucia (25), Bermuda (28), Turk and Caicos (31), Anguilla (34)

Group B: Aruba (26), US Virgin Islands (29), Cayman Islands (32), Bahamas (35)

Group C: Cuba (27), Montserrat (30), British Virgin Islands (33)