

Posted by

Sam Gregory ,

March 27, 2014 Email

Sam Gregory

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UEFA has announced that starting in 2018 the confederation will do away with international friendlies and start a UEFA League of Nations. This League of Nations will divide the 53 UEFA member states into four separate 'leagues' in which countries will compete throughout the year on days currently designated as international friendly dates. This is seen as a response to the decreasing quality and interest surrounding international friendlies in Europe.



The idea of UEFA unilaterally making this move away from international friendlies poses a problem for other confederations who rely on European opposition for games. This is especially concerning for three CONCACAF nations: Canada, the United States and Mexico (and to a lesser extent CONMEBOL nations).



Canada, the US and Mexico do not go through qualifying campaigns for their confederation championship as they have automatic entry to the biannual Gold Cup. CONMEBOL nations do not have to qualify for the Copa America either, but their World Cup Qualifying cycle takes three years and is already run like a league so this shouldn't be as challenging for South American nations.



For a country like Canada competitive games are hard to come by so they rely mainly on friendlies to keep the team active. With the majority of Canada's squad based out of Europe many of these friendlies are by necessity in Europe against European opposition.



In the last four years Canada has faced European opposition eight times in international friendlies. Not an astonishingly large number of matches, but still enough to make a significant difference for a team that struggles to find friendly opponents and only played eighteen competitive matches during that timeframe as well.



Assuming CONCACAF doesn't follow UEFA's lead and create a League of Nations of their own (knowing CONCACAF I'd say this is more than a fair assumption). This will have serious implications for Canada.



The first possibility of course is that the CSA does nothing to adjust and just schedules less friendlies. This is the slightly worrying prospect of the League of Nations, but there is also room for the CSA to take the challenge head on.



More and more Canadian players are staying in MLS and making a career in Canada and the United States before moving over to Europe, if the move happens at all. This is obviously a positive for the Canadian club game, but it also might have positive ramifications for the national team.



If European teams are no longer viable friendly opponents the CSA may be forced to do what supporters have long been asking for, schedule more friendlies against CONCACAF opponents. The CSA have already made a first step by scheduling Canada's first away friendly in Central America since 1989 with a match against Panama in November.



This may require more domestic-based national team squads, especially for midweek games where the travel is too much for European players. By 2018 many more Canadians will surely be playing in MLS and this will be less of an imposing restriction than it would be today. This could significantly alter the make-up of Canada's national team, with more players based out of North America with experience playing CONCACAF teams on a regular basis. As an added bonus for Canadian supporters this could also see the team playing more home friendlies since playing in Europe will become much more problematic if not impossible.



On the face of it, losing about a quarter of all potential friendly opponents does not look like a good sign for Canada's national team, but if the team adjusts properly it may actually be a bit of a blessing in disguise whereby the team can gain more experience playing together against the teams they'll actually need to beat to get to a World Cup.