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The UEFA Nations League gets under way this week - yet one strange loophole in the new tournament's layout could see teams needing to lose a game in order to keep their Euro 2020 qualification hopes alive.

Teams' performance in the Nations League could well influence whether they have a chance to go to Euro 2020 or not depending on how they perform in qualifying for the tournament.

UEFA have simplified the actual qualifying process for Euro 2020, with the top two teams from 10 groups automatically qualifying for the tournament.

That means 20 teams will be able to qualify for Euro 2020 through the qualifiers, with the remaining four teams making it to the tournament based on how they did in the Nations League.

Sixteen teams from the Nations League will go into a play-off system, where they will be divided into four paths, with one team from each path qualifying for the final.

So, how are the 16 teams decided?

With each "League" in the Nations League being divided into four groups, then the winners from each group will have first dibs on play-off spots.

However, in many cases, those teams will have already qualified for the tournament - League A, for example, contains the best-ranked teams in Europe, so it is difficult to foresee them missing out on already securing a place at Euro 2020.

That means teams who have already qualified will be replaced by the next "best" ranked team from each league, with places eventually filtering down to the next league should there not be enough teams available to fill the four spots.

Yet this creates a scenario where a team could be left needing to lose a Euro 2020 qualifying match in order to boost their hopes of gaining entry to the play-off system.

Why teams may benefit from losing a qualifying game

This is quite a complicated scenario to explain, but one that could quite feasibly happen.

Let's use League B as an example.

There are 12 teams in League B - let's say that seven of these teams have managed to secure a top-two place in their qualifying group, so are assured of Euro 2020 qualification, and four teams have no chance of finishing in the top two. The one remaining team in League B are still in with a chance of finishing in the top two of their qualifying group with one game to play.

To make the example easier to understand, we'll label the team still in with a chance of qualifying Sweden.

Let's say, of the four teams with no chance of qualifying, Wales are one of them, and they finished rock bottom of League B in 12th position. If all four play-off spots from League A have been used up, then their hopes of getting one of the four League B play-off spots rest solely on Sweden qualifying automatically for the tournament.

But what if Wales and Sweden are in the same qualifying group and play each other in the final round of matches? It could well happen - with 12 teams in League B, there is going to be an overlap over the 10 qualifying groups.

In that case Wales would need to lose in order to allow Sweden to finish in the top two of the qualifying group and let the fourth play-off spot go to the 12th-placed League B team.

Obviously that is a very specific turn of events to happen, and UEFA may well decide to ban teams from the same Nations League league from playing each other in a final qualifying group game.

Yet it is still not difficult to imagine scenarios where teams' play-off chances are improved with a loss.

For example, a League A team could be playing a League B or League C team needing to win to secure a top-two place in qualifying - a win for the League A team, then, would also increase the chances of a League A play-off spot being filtered through to a lower league.

Whilst the scenario of a team needing to lose to qualify for a tournament is a remote one, it does suggest that using two different processes to qualify for Euro 2020 could well muddy the waters a little.