The 2022–23 UEFA Nations League A was the top division of the 2022–23 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 third 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 culminated with the Nations League Finals in June 2023 to determine the champions of the competition. Following their win in

2021 Like the year 2020, 2021 was also heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, due to the emergence of multiple Variants of SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19 variants. The major global rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, which began at the end of 2020, continued ...

, defending champions

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

were unable to retain their title in

the finals ''The Finals'' is a free-to-play first-person shooter, developed and published by Embark Studios. The game focuses on team-based matches on maps with a destructible environment, where players (who are divided into a number of distinct classes) ...

after finishing third in their group.

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 ...

won the

final Final, Finals or The Final may refer to: *Final examination or finals, a test given at the end of a course of study or training *Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which d ...

against

Croatia Croatia, officially the Republic of Croatia, is a country in Central Europe, Central and Southeast Europe, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. It borders Slovenia to the northwest, Hungary to the northeast, Serbia to the east, Bosnia and Herze ...

, 5–4 on penalties following a 0–0 draw after

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 ...

, for their first UEFA Nations League title.

Format

League A consisted of the 16 top-ranked UEFA members in the 2022–23 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 in June (four matchdays) and September 2022 (two matchdays). The winners of each group advanced to 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 ...

, and the fourth-placed team from each group was relegated to the 2024–25 UEFA Nations League B. The Nations League Finals took place in June 2023 and was played in a knockout format, consisting of the semi-finals, third place play-off and final. The semi-final pairings were determined by means of an open draw. The host country was selected among the four qualified teams by the UEFA Executive Committee, with the winners of the final crowned as the champions of the UEFA Nations League. The four group winners were drawn into groups of five teams for

UEFA Euro 2024 qualifying The UEFA Euro 2024 qualifying tournament was a football competition that was played from March 2023 to March 2024 to determine the 23 UEFA member men's national teams that would join the automatically qualified host team Germany in the UEFA Eur ...

(in order to accommodate for the Nations League Finals).

Teams

Team changes

The following were the team changes in League A from the 2020–21 season:

Seeding

In the 2022–23 access list, UEFA ranked teams based on the 2020–21 Nations League overall ranking. The seeding pots for the league phase were confirmed on 22 September 2021, and were based on the access list ranking. The draw for the league phase took place 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 on 16 December 2021, 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 17 December 2021, the day following the draw. The fixture list for

Group 4 Group 4 may refer to: *Group 4 element Group 4 is the second group of transition metals in the periodic table. It contains only the four elements titanium (Ti), zirconium (Zr), hafnium (Hf), and rutherfordium (Rf). The group is also called the t ...

was amended due to the postponement of Path A of UEFA qualifying for the World Cup. 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 (local times, if different, are in parentheses).

Group 1

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Group 2

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Group 3

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Group 4

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Nations League Finals

The four nations from

Group A4 A group is a number of persons or things that are located, gathered, or classed together. Groups of people * Cultural group, a group whose members share the same cultural identity * Ethnic group, a group whose members share the same ethnic iden ...

(

Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...

, the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

and

Wales Wales ( ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by the Irish Sea to the north and west, England to the England–Wales border, east, the Bristol Channel to the south, and the Celtic ...

) bid to host the Nations League Finals. As the nation that qualified for the finals, the Netherlands was granted hosting rights. The semi-final pairings were determined by means of an open draw on 25 January 2023, 11:00

, at the UEFA headquarters in

, Switzerland. For scheduling purposes, the host team was allocated to semi-final 1 as the administrative home team. Times are CEST (

), as listed by UEFA.

Bracket

Semi-finals

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Third-place play-off

Final

Goalscorers

Overall ranking

The 16 League A teams were ranked 1st to 16th overall in the 2022–23 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. *The teams finishing fourth in the groups were ranked 13th to 16th according to the results of the league phase.

Euro 2024 qualifying play-offs

The four best teams in League A according to the overall ranking that failed to qualify for

UEFA Euro 2024 The 2024 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as UEFA Euro 2024 (stylised as UEFA EURO 2024) or simply Euro 2024, was the 17th UEFA European Championship, the quadrennial international Association football, football champ ...

through the qualifying group stage were set to compete against each other to win one extra qualification spot through the path A play-offs. As

and

were the only unqualified teams from League A, the first available slot for the teams participating in the Path A play-off was allocated to the best-ranked group winner of League D,

Estonia Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Ru ...

, as they had not already qualified in the qualifying group stage. The remaining available slot was allocated to the best ranked un-qualified team from league B (excluding group winners of league B and teams previously chosen to participate in the path B play-offs),

Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...

. Key *^GW Group winner from Nations League A * Team qualified directly to final tournament * Team in bold advanced to play-offs * UEFA Euro 2024 host, qualified automatically The path A play-offs were previously held similarly to decide one extra qualification spot for UEFA Euro 2020.

Notes

References

External links

* {{2022–23 in European football (UEFA) League A