Football’s Forgotten Competition

England are unbeaten under Thomas Tuchel. Harry Kane continues to score goals. Young talents are breaking into the squad. And yet, when England play in the Nations League, it somehow feels like fewer people are paying attention. Why?

The UEFA Nations League was introduced in 2018 to replace international friendlies with competitive matches. Instead of playing largely meaningless games, teams compete in divisions with promotion, relegation and a trophy at stake. The matches are often played with high intensity, and the competition has already produced memorable moments, including a recent 7-0 win against Croatia. On paper, it sounds like exactly what football supporters had been asking for.

Yet the competition still struggles to attract the same excitement as the World Cup or European Championships. One of the reasons is history. The World Cup has given us moments such as England’s victory in 1966, while the Euros have produced decades of iconic goals, matches and memories. The Nations League, meanwhile, is only a few years old. It is difficult to compete with nearly a century of football history. Timing also plays a huge role. Major tournaments take place over a few weeks in the summer, becoming the centre of attention. For a month, everyone is talking about football. Nations League matches, however, are squeezed into the middle of the club season.

What makes this particularly strange is that the quality is often exactly the same. When England face teams such as Spain, France or Germany, the players on the pitch are no different from those who would appear at a World Cup. Jude Bellingham, Harry Kane, Lamine Yamal are all still present, the football has not changed, yet our perception of it somehow has.

Perhaps this will change with time. The competition is still young, and every major tournament had to start somewhere. Until then, the Nations League remains football’s oddest competition: featuring some of the best players in the world, watched by millions, but still somehow treated as an afterthought.

I asked some people in my year on their thoughts.

Will – I think it’s because the world cup is played during a shorter period of time making it more exciting for fans to watch

Hermione – It feels less prestigious after a summer of the World cup

Sonny – Well its much newer, it started in 2018 whereas the world cup is much older and more prestigious

Alex – The World cup is a bigger event because if you win that makes you the best team in the entire world

Bea – Perhaps because not as much funding goes into the publicity of the nations league