The 2018–19 UEFA Nations League A was the top division of the 2018–19 edition of the

UEFA Nations League The UEFA Nations League is a biennial international football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the member associations of UEFA, the sport's European governing body. The first tournament began in September 2018. The ...

, the inaugural season of the international football competition involving the men's national teams of the 55 member associations of

UEFA Union of European Football Associations (UEFA ; french: Union des associations européennes de football; german: Union der europäischen Fußballverbände) is one of six continental bodies of governance in association football. It governs f ...

. League A culminated with the Nations League Finals in June 2019, which crowned

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

as the inaugural champions of the UEFA Nations League.

Format

League A consisted of the top 12 ranked UEFA members, split into four groups of three. The winners of each group advanced to the UEFA Nations League Finals. The third-placed team of each group was initially to be relegated to the

2020–21 UEFA Nations League B The 2020–21 UEFA Nations League B was the second division of the 2020–21 edition of the UEFA Nations League, the second season of the international football competition involving the men's national teams of the 55 member associations of UEFA ...

, but remained in League A following UEFA's reformatting of the next edition's groups. The Nations League Finals took place in June 2019 and was played in a knockout format, consisting of the semi-finals, third place play-off, and final. The semi-final pairings, along with the administrative home teams for the third place play-off and final, were determined by means of an open draw on 3 December 2018. Host country Portugal was selected among the four qualified teams on 3 December 2018 by the UEFA Executive Committee, with the winners of the final crowned as the inaugural champions of the UEFA Nations League. The four group winners were drawn into groups of five teams for the

UEFA Euro 2020 qualifying The UEFA Euro 2020 qualifying tournament was a football competition that was played from March 2019 to November 2020 to determine the 24 UEFA member men's national teams that advanced to the UEFA Euro 2020 final tournament, played across Europ ...

competition (in order to accommodate for the Nations League Finals). In addition, League A was allocated one of the four remaining

UEFA Euro 2020 The 2020 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as UEFA Euro 2020 (stylised as UEFA EURO 2020) or simply Euro 2020, was the 16th UEFA European Championship, the quadrennial international men's football championship of Europe ...

places. Four teams from League A which had not already qualified for the European Championship finals competed in the play-offs, which were played in October and November 2020. The play-off berths were first allocated to the group winners, and if any of the group winners had already qualified for the European Championship finals, then to the next best ranked team of the league, etc. If there were fewer than four teams in League A which had not already qualified for the European Championship finals, the play-off berths would be allocated to the next best ranked team of the following league, etc. The play-offs consisted of two "one-off" semi-finals (best-ranked team vs. fourth best-ranked team and second best-ranked team vs. third best-ranked team, played at home of higher-ranked teams) and one "one-off" final between the two semi-final winners (venue drawn in advance between semi-final 1 and 2).

Seeding

Teams were allocated to League A according to their

UEFA national team coefficient In European football, the UEFA coefficients are statistics based in weighted arithmetic means used for ranking and seeding teams in club and international competitions. Introduced in 1979 for men's football tournaments, and after applied in w ...

s after the conclusion of the

2018 FIFA World Cup qualifying The 2018 FIFA World Cup qualification process was a series of tournaments organised by the six FIFA confederations to decide 31 of the 32 teams which would play in the 2018 FIFA World Cup, with Russia qualifying automatically as hosts. All 210 ...

group stage on 11 October 2017. Teams were split into three pots of four teams, ordered based on their UEFA national team coefficient. The seeding pots for the draw were announced on 7 December 2017. The group draw took place at the SwissTech Convention Center in

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, Switzerland on 24 January 2018, 12:00

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Groups

The fixture list was confirmed by UEFA on 24 January 2018 following the draw. Times are

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, as listed by UEFA (local times, if different, are in parentheses).

Group 1

---- ---- ---- ---- ----

Group 2

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Group 3

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Group 4

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Nations League Finals

The host of the Nations League Finals, Portugal, was selected from the four qualified teams. The semi-finals pairings were determined by means of an open draw, along with the administrative home teams for the third place play-off and final. The draw took place on 3 December 2018, 14:30

(13:30

local time Local time is the time observed in a specific locality. There is no canonical definition. Originally it was mean solar time, but since the introduction of time zones it is generally the time as determined by the time zone in effect, with daylight s ...

), at the

Shelbourne Hotel The Shelbourne Hotel is a historic hotel in Dublin, Ireland, situated in a landmark building on the north side of St Stephen's Green. Currently owned by Kennedy Wilson and operated by Marriott International, the hotel has 265 rooms in total an ...

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ...

, Republic of Ireland. For scheduling purposes, the semi-final pairing involving the host team was considered to be semi-final 1. Times are

(

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), as listed by UEFA (local times are in parentheses).

Bracket

Semi-finals

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Third-place play-off

Final

Goalscorers

Overall ranking

The 12 League A teams were ranked 1st to 12th overall in the 2018–19 UEFA Nations League according to the following rules: *The teams finishing first in the groups were ranked 1st to 4th according to the results of the Nations League Finals. *The teams finishing second in the groups were ranked 5th to 8th according to the results of the league phase. *The teams finishing third in the groups were ranked 9th to 12th according to the results of the league phase.

Prize money

The prize money to be distributed was announced in March 2018. Each team in League A received a solidarity fee of €1.5 million. In addition, the four group winners received double this amount via a €1.5M bonus fee. The four group winners of League A, which participated in the Nations League Finals, also received the following fees based on performance: * Winners: €4.5M * Runners-up: €3.5M * Third place: €2.5M * Fourth place: €1.5M This meant that the maximum amount of solidarity and bonus fees for a team from League A was €7.5M.

Euro 2020 qualifying play-offs

The four best teams in League A according to the overall ranking that did not qualify for

through the qualifying group stage were set to compete in the play-offs, with the winners qualifying for the final tournament. As

Iceland Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its s ...

were the only team in League A that did not qualify, the remaining three slots were allocated to teams identified according to the path formation rules to be the three best-ranked un-qualified non-group winners from League C not drawn to Path C.

Notes

References

External links

* {{2018–19 in European football (UEFA) League A