Little-known UEFA rule prevented England from facing rival in Nations League
The UEFA Nations League has thrown up an interesting draw for England, who have home and away ties with the Republic of Ireland to look forward to, but the competition's travel rules restricted their options.
Gareth Southgate's side dropped down to League B after suffereing relegation last time out, picking up just three points from a group containing Italy, Hungary and Germany. This time, Ireland, Finland and Greece will be their opponents, with the group winners returning to League A for the next edition of the tournament.
Kazakhstan were another of the teams in the mix, having made strides since suffering heavy defeats to the Three Lions on their only previous meetings in 2008 and 2009. However, after being drawn with Ireland, they couldn't also face Kazakhstan.
This is due to rules on long-distance travel, laid out by UEFA ahead of Thursday's draw. Kazakhstan would have been permitted one long trip, but not two.
"Out of the 20 country pairs identified as excessive, only four pairs in League B applied [under the 'excessive travel conditions' rule]," UEFA explained before the draw. "A group could include a maximum of one such pair, meaning Kazakhstan could be drawn into the same group as only one of England, Iceland, Republic of Ireland or Wales."
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As it happens, Kazakhstan will face none of those nations. They have instead been handed a draw against Austria, Norway and Slovenia.
The remaining League B groups will see Wales take on Iceland, Montenegro and Turkiye, with Czechia up against Ukraine, Albania and Georgia. Scotland, who were promoted to League A last time out, will take on Croatia, Portugal and Poland.
Did you know about the excessive travel conditions rule? Let us know in the comments section
Gareth Southgate's England were relegated from the Nations League last time out (Getty Images)“Obviously there is still a bit of a hangover for us from being in this league so that is the first thing because we have to try to get ourselves back up into League A," England boss Gareth Southgate said. “In terms of the games, there are some good quality games and of course a couple of teams that we haven't played for quite a while, and there have been some memorable games against some of those teams as well in the past.”
“We have had some really varied experiences in the Nations League," the manager added. “The first time we finished third, the second time was complicated for us and in all three versions, we've used it to look at players, where, of course, you have to balance seeing players with winning games, and we didn't manage to do that last time.
“So, the competition pairs the best with the best and my impressions of it [as a competition] have been really good. Unfortunately, the second one reminds me of Covid a lot of the time and the third one, we didn't play well, and it was the build up to a World Cup, so that was complicated for us.”
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