The 2024–25 UEFA Nations League A is the top division of the 2024–25 edition of the

UEFA Nations League The UEFA Nations League is an international European football competition played by the senior men's national teams of the member associations of UEFA, the sport's European governing body. The competition was devised to minimise friendlies a ...

, the fourth season of the international

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

competition involving the men's national teams of the 55 member associations of

UEFA The Union of European Football Associations (UEFA ; ; ) is one of six continental bodies of governance in association football. It governs football, futsal and beach soccer, beach football in Europe and the List of transcontinental countries#A ...

. League A began with the league phase in September 2024, and will culminate with the Nations League Finals in June 2025 to determine the champions of the competition. For the first time, a quarter-final round was contested in League A by the group winners and runners-up, with the winners advancing to the Nations League Finals.

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

were the defending champions, having won the 2023 finals.

Format

League A consists of the 16 top-ranked UEFA members in the 2024–25 UEFA Nations League access list, split into four groups of four. Each team played six matches within their group, using the home-and-away round-robin format on double matchdays in September, October and November 2024. On 25 January 2023, the UEFA Executive Committee approved a modified format for the Nations League after the league phase, with the following changes being implemented in League A: *A new quarter-final round to be played in March 2025 was introduced, thus creating continuity between the league phase ending in November 2024 and the Nations League Finals in June 2025. *The winners and runners-up of each group advanced to the quarter-finals, unlike previous editions where only the group winners advanced to the finals. *The four third-placed teams of League A faced the four runners-up of League B in the

relegation play-offs Promotion and relegation is used by sports leagues as a process where teams can move up and down among divisions in a league system, based on their performance over a season. Leagues that use promotion and relegation systems are sometimes call ...

, which were also introduced starting this season. The last-placed teams of each group continued to be relegated directly to League B, while the third-placed teams competed against the runners-up of League B to determine their permanence in League A for the next season or their relegation to 2026–27 UEFA Nations League B. The relegation play-offs were played home-and-away over two legs in March 2025, with the League A third-placed teams hosting the second leg. The quarter-finals were also played home and away over two legs. In each tie, group winners faced a runner-up from a different group, with the group winner hosting the second leg. The four quarter-final winners advanced to the Finals. The Nations League Finals retain its previous format, which is played in a knockout format in June 2025, consisting of the semi-finals, third place play-off, and final. The semi-final pairings were determined using an open draw. The host country was selected by the UEFA Executive Committee, preferably hosted by one of the participating teams, with the winners of the final crowned as the champions of the UEFA Nations League. In all two-legged ties, the team that scored more goals on aggregate was the winner. If the aggregate score was level,

extra time Overtime (OT) or extra time (ET) is an additional period of play to bring a game to a decision and avoid declaring the match a tie or draw where the scores are the same. In some sports, this extra period is played only if the game is required t ...

was played without the

away goals rule The away goals rule is a method of tiebreaking in association football and other sports when teams play each other twice, once at each team's home ground. Under the away goals rule, if the total goals scored by each team are equal, the team that ...

. If the score remained level after extra time, a

penalty shoot-out The penalty shootout is a method of determining a winner in sports matches that would have otherwise been drawn or tied. The rules for penalty shootouts vary between sports and even different competitions; however, the usual form is similar to pe ...

was used to decide the winner.

Teams

The 16 League A teams includes the top 12 teams from the 2022–23 League A overall ranking and four promoted teams from the 2022–23 League B.

Team changes

The following were the team changes in League A from the 2022–23 season:

Bosnia and Herzegovina Bosnia and Herzegovina, sometimes known as Bosnia-Herzegovina and informally as Bosnia, is a country in Southeast Europe. Situated on the Balkans, Balkan Peninsula, it borders Serbia to the east, Montenegro to the southeast, and Croatia to th ...

returned to League A, after a one-season absence, by securing first place in their 2022–23 League B group with a 1–0 victory over

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on 23 September 2022.

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

and

Serbia , image_flag = Flag of Serbia.svg , national_motto = , image_coat = Coat of arms of Serbia.svg , national_anthem = () , image_map = , map_caption = Location of Serbia (gree ...

reached the top flight of the UEFA Nations League for the first time, all three following similar paths, starting in League C in the inaugural edition and spending two seasons in League B before their promotion to League A.

Seeding

In the 2024–25 access list, UEFA ranked teams based on the 2022–23 Nations League overall ranking, considering promotion and relegation between the leagues and the results of the

2023 UEFA Nations League Finals The 2023 UEFA Nations League Finals was the final tournament of the 2022–23 UEFA Nations League, 2022–23 edition of the UEFA Nations League, the third season of the international Association football, football competition involving the men's ...

. The seeding pots for the league phase were confirmed on 2 December 2023, and were based on the access list ranking. The draw for the league phase took place at the

Maison de la Mutualité The Maison de la Mutualité (; often shortened to la Mutualité) is a conference center at 24 Rue Saint-Victor, 5th arrondissement of Paris, France. The closest métro station is Maubert-Mutualité. It is the headquarters of the federation of ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

, France, on 8 February 2024, 18:00

CET CET or cet may refer to: Places * Cet, Albania * Cet, standard astronomical abbreviation for the constellation Cetus * Colchester Town railway station (National Rail code CET), in Colchester, England Arts, entertainment, and media * Comcast En ...

. Each group contained one team from each pot.

Groups

The fixture list was confirmed by UEFA on 9 February 2024, the day following the draw. Times are

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

Group 1

----

Group 2

----

Group 3

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Group 4

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Knockout stage

Bracket

Quarter-finals

The draw for the quarter-finals was held on 22 November 2024, 12:00

, at the UEFA headquarters in

Nyon Nyon (; historically German language, German: or and Italian language, Italian: , ) is a Municipalities of Switzerland, municipality in Nyon District in the Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Vaud in Switzerland. It is located some 25 kilometer ...

, Switzerland, along with the draw for the

semi-finals A single-elimination knockout, or sudden-death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of a match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final match-up, ...

and promotion/relegation play-offs. In the draw, teams from the same group could not be drawn against each other.

First, the group runners-up were drawn into a quarter-final pairing (1 to 4), after which group winners were drawn and allocated to the first available quarter-final (in numerical order).

Seeding

The group winners were seeded in the draw, while the runners-up were unseeded. The Nations League interim overall ranking of November 2024 is shown below in brackets.

Summary

The first legs were played on 20 March, and the second legs were played on 23 March 2025.

Matches

Times are

(

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

''5–5 on aggregate; Spain won 5–4 on penalties.'' ----

''2–2 on aggregate; France won 5–4 on penalties.'' ----

''Portugal won 5–3 on aggregate.'' ----

''Germany won 5–4 on aggregate.''

Nations League Finals

UEFA appointed the winner of the quarter-final tie between

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

and

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

, which Germany ultimately won, as the host for the final tournament. The semi-finals pairings were determined by means of an open draw on 22 November 2024, 12:00

, at the UEFA headquarters in

, Switzerland, along with the draw for the League A quarter-finals and promotion/relegation play-offs. For scheduling purposes, the host team was allocated to semi-final 1 as the administrative home team. Times are CEST (

UTC+2 UTC+02:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +02:00. In ISO 8601, the associated time would be written as 2020-11-08T23:41:45+02:00. As standard time (year-round) Principal cities: Pretoria, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Durban, Por ...

), as listed by UEFA.

Semi-finals

----

Third place play-off

Final

Goalscorers

Overall ranking

Following the league phase, the 16 League A teams were ordered 1st to 16th in an interim overall ranking for the 2024–25 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 league phase. *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. *The teams finishing fourth in the groups were ranked 13th to 16th according to the results of the league phase. A final overall ranking will also be compiled, though this is only used to rank teams within their new leagues for the following edition of the competition.

Notes

References

External links

* {{2024–25 in European football (UEFA) League A