The 2022–23 UEFA Nations League C was the third 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 ...
.
Format
League C consisted of 16 UEFA members ranked from 33–48 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 (quadruple matchdays) and September 2022 (double matchdays). The winners of each group were promoted to the
2024–25 UEFA Nations League B, and the two worst-ranked fourth-placed teams of each group advanced to the relegation play-outs.
As League C had four groups while League D had only two, the League C team that was to be relegated to the
2024–25 UEFA Nations League D was determined by play-outs in March 2024.
Originally, all four of the fourth-placed teams would have participated in the play-outs. Based on the
Nations League overall ranking, the best-ranked team would have faced the fourth-ranked team, and the second-ranked team would have faced the third-ranked team. The two losing teams would have been relegated to League D, while the winners would have remained in League C.
However, due to the ongoing suspension of
Russia
Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...
from all UEFA competitions and to ensure that League C would still consist of 16 teams,
the league allocation for the
2024–25 UEFA Nations League was changed so that only one team would be relegated to League D. Based on the
Nations League overall ranking, the two lowest-ranked teams participated in the play-outs, while the other two fourth-placed teams remained in League C.
The play-out tie was played over
two legs, with the higher-ranked team hosting the second leg. The team that scored more goals on aggregate over the two legs remained in League C while the loser was relegated to League D. 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 applying 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 still tied 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
Team changes
The following were the team changes in League C 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. Each group contained one team from each pot. Due to restrictions of excessive travel, each group could contain a maximum of one of the following pairs: Northern Ireland and the winner of the Moldova v Kazakhstan play-out tie, Gibraltar and Azerbaijan.
Groups
The fixture list was confirmed by UEFA on 17 December 2021, the day following the draw.
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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Ranking of fourth-placed teams
Relegation play-outs
The two worst-ranked fourth-placed teams of League C participated in the relegation play-outs to determine the team which would be relegated to League D. The relegation play-outs were scheduled on the same dates as the
UEFA Euro 2024 qualifying play-offs. If at least one of the teams due to participate in the relegation play-outs had also qualified for the Euro qualifying play-offs, the relegation play-outs would have been cancelled, and the worst-ranked team in League C in the
Nations League overall ranking would have been automatically relegated.
However, this scenario did not occur, and the relegation play-outs progressed as scheduled.
The play-out tie was as follows, with the higher-ranked team hosting the second leg:
Times are
CET (
UTC+1
+01:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +01:00. In ISO 8601, the associated time would be written as 2019-02-07T23:28:34+01:00. This time is used in:
*Central European Time
* West Africa Time
* Western European Summer Time
**Brit ...
), as listed by UEFA (local times, if different, are in parentheses).
Summary
Matches
''Lithuania won 2–0 on aggregate and remained in League C, while Gibraltar were relegated to
League D
League or The League may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''Leagues'' (band), an American rock band
* ''The League'', an American sitcom broadcast on FX and FXX about fantasy football
* ''League of Legends'', a 2009 multiplayer online battle a ...
.''
Goalscorers
Overall ranking
The 16 League C teams were ranked 33rd to 48th overall in the 2022–23 UEFA Nations League according to the following rules:
*The teams finishing first in the groups were ranked 33rd to 36th according to the results of the league phase.
*The teams finishing second in the groups were ranked 37th to 40th according to the results of the league phase.
*The teams finishing third in the groups were ranked 41st to 44th according to the results of the league phase.
*The teams finishing fourth in the groups were ranked 45th to 48th according to the results of the league phase.
Euro 2024 qualifying play-offs
The four best teams in League C according to the overall ranking that did not qualify for
UEFA Euro 2024 through the
qualifying group stage competed in the play-offs, with the winners qualifying for the final tournament.
Key
*
GW Group winner from Nations League C
* Team qualified directly to final tournament
* Team in bold advanced to play-offs
Notes
References
External links
*
League C
{{DEFAULTSORT:2022-23 UEFA Nations League C