The 2018–19 UEFA Nations League B was the second division of the 2018–19 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 inaugural 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 ...

Format

League B consisted of 12 UEFA members ranked from 13 to 24, split into four groups of three. The winners of each group were promoted to the

2020–21 UEFA Nations League A The 2020–21 UEFA Nations League A was the top 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. Le ...

. The third-placed team of each group was initially to be relegated to the 2020–21 UEFA Nations League C, but remained in League B following UEFA's reformatting of the next edition's groups. In addition, League B was allocated one of the four remaining

UEFA Euro 2020 The 2020 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as UEFA Euro 2020 or simply Euro 2020, was the 16th UEFA European Championship, the Anniversary#Latin-derived numerical names, quadrennial international men's association footb ...

places. Four teams from League B which had not already qualified for the European Championship finals competed in the play-offs for each division, 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 division, etc. If there were fewer than four teams in League B which had not already qualified for the European Championship finals, the play-off berths would be allocated via one of two methods: * If League B had a group winner selected for the play-offs, the next best team in the overall ranking from a lower league would be selected. * If League B had no group winner available, the best team in the overall ranking would be selected. The playoffs consisted of two "one-off" semi-finals (best-ranked team hosts the lowest-ranked team and second best-ranked team hosts the third best-ranked team 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 B according to their

UEFA national team coefficient In European football, the UEFA coefficients are statistics based in weighted arithmetic means used for ranking and Single-elimination tournament#Seeding, seeding teams in club and international competitions. Introduced in 1979 for men's football ...

s after the conclusion of the 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifying 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

Lausanne Lausanne ( , ; ; ) is the capital and largest List of towns in Switzerland, city of the Swiss French-speaking Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Vaud, in Switzerland. It is a hilly city situated on the shores of Lake Geneva, about halfway bet ...

, Switzerland on 24 January 2018, 12:00

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 ...

. For political reasons, Russia and Ukraine could not be drawn into the same group (due to the Russian military intervention in Ukraine).

Groups

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

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

Group 1

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

Group 2

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

Group 3

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

Group 4

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

Goalscorers

Overall ranking

The 12 League B teams were ranked 13th to 24th overall in the 2018–19 UEFA Nations League according to the following rules: *The teams finishing first in the groups were ranked 13th to 16th according to the results of the league phase. *The teams finishing second in the groups were ranked 17th to 20th according to the results of the league phase. *The teams finishing third in the groups were ranked 21st to 24th 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 B received a solidarity fee of €1 million. In addition, the four group winners received double this amount with a €1M bonus fee. This meant that the maximum amount of solidarity and bonus fees for a team from League B was €2M.

Euro 2020 qualifying play-offs

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

through the qualifying group stage competed in the play-offs, with the winners qualifying for the final tournament. If there had been fewer than four teams in League B that had not qualified, the remaining slots would have been allocated to teams from another league, according to the overall ranking.

Notes

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:2018-19 UEFA Nations League B League B