GENEVA: In a congested football season where elite players have aired the idea of going on strike, the Nations League returns this week looking less than a top priority.
France captain Kylian Mbappe opted to stay away, his probable deputy Antoine Griezmann retired from the national team, and Romelu Lukaku asked to work on his fitness at new club Napoli rather than join the Belgium camp.
Add a wave of injury call-offs in Germany and elsewhere — some of them serious, for Spain defender Dani Carvajal and German goalkeeper Marc-Andre ter Stegen — and the Nations League will open an international door for newcomers.
Belgium coach Domenico Tedesco called up four potential debutants to experiment in games in what is the third-tier competition for European teams.
“We will not do it during the important World Cup qualification,” said Tedesco, looking ahead to that important next stage in 2025.
The 2026 World Cup in North America is, however, already now in play for teams targeting that tournament and each has two Nations League games from Thursday through Tuesday.
Results in the next week, and two more games in November, are the last chance to gain a better seeding in the Dec. 13 draw in Zurich for European qualifying groups for the World Cup.
Two teams pushing to raise their FIFA ranking and go into the draw pot of second-seeded teams are Norway and Slovenia.
Haaland vs. Sesko
Europe’s most feared striker and one of its emerging stars are due to meet again on Thursday in Oslo.
Erling Haaland and Benjamin Sesko, once club mates at Salzburg, are the main attractions when Norway hosts Slovenia in their second-tier League B group.
Haaland has 11 goals in 10 games for Manchester City this season plus a winning goal in the Nations League, sealing a 2-1 victory over Austria last month.
Sesko has six in nine games for Leipzig — including three in the Champions League — plus four in two Nations League games. The tall striker got a hat trick in a 3-0 win over Kazakhstan.
Thursday’s game will not be decisive in the group but it will decide who leads at the midway point and is set for promotion to the top tier. The return game in Ljubljana is Nov. 14.
France’s leader
The last time France played a game with neither Mbappe nor Griezmann on the field? November 2016, in a 0-0 draw with Ivory Coast in a friendly.
It will happen again Thursday when France faces Israel in Budapest. The Hungarian capital is the neutral venue chosen since Israel’s conflict with Hamas started one year ago.
Mbappe has faced a latest round of criticism at home by asking out of coach Didier Deschamp’s squad last week then starting for Real Madrid in a league game Saturday.
The search for a new captain has taken Deschamps back to Madrid, with 24-year-old midfielder Aurelien Tchouameni named Wednesday to take the armband. France also travels to face Belgium on Monday.
Standout Italy
Italy leads the top-tier group that includes France and Belgium after winning both its September games on the road.
A 3-1 win in France, despite trailing in the first minute, was perhaps the standout performance in the Nations League last month. Italy followed it with a 2-1 win over Israel in Budapest.
Coach Luciano Spalletti’s squad, refreshed with younger players after a round of 16 exit at the European Championship, now has back-to-back home games: against Belgium in Rome on Thursday and Israel in Udine on Monday.
Italy can seal a top-two finish in the group on Monday with two rounds left to play in November. That would earn a place in the Nations League quarterfinals in March.
Top-tier teams that advance to the Nations League Final Four mini-tournament in June will not start their World Cup qualifying games until September. They will need to be placed by FIFA into four-team groups.
Rookie ‘keepers
Manuel Neuer has retired from the Germany team and Marc-Andre ter Stegen is out injured beyond the March international break.
So, in come three newcomers competing to be first-choice goalkeepers for games at Bosnia-Herzegovina on Friday and home to the Netherlands on Monday: Oliver Baumann of Hoffenheim, Alexander Nubel of Stuttgart and Janis Blaswich, who plays at Salzburg on loan from sister club Leipzig.
Coach Julian Nagelsmann also is without the injured trio of Bayern’s Jamal Musiala, Arsenal’s Kai Havertz and West Ham’s Niclas Fullkrug.
Games to watch
Defending champion Spain returns Saturday hosting Denmark which won its first two games under new coach Lars Knudsen without conceding a goal.
Two entertaining teams at Euro 2024, Georgia and Albania, renew rivalry on Monday. Georgia won 1-0 in Tirana last month and leads that second-tier group of four Euro 2024 teams which also includes the Czech Republic and last-place Ukraine.
Cristiano Ronaldo has graced almost every national stadium in Europe across two decades and 214 games for Portugal, though not yet Hampden Park in Glasgow. He should play there Tuesday.
It took Ronaldo until his 214th game last month to even face Scotland, and he scored a men’s record-extending 132nd goal to seal a 2-1 win in the 88th minute.
In the same group, Poland vs Croatia should see two greats face off as captains: 36-year-old Robert Lewandowski and 39-year-old Luka Modric.
Mbappe among stars missing from Nations League while European teams eye World Cup qualifying
https://arab.news/re55m
Mbappe among stars missing from Nations League while European teams eye World Cup qualifying
- France captain Kylian Mbappe opts to stay away from Nations League
- The Nations League will open an international door for newcomers
Russell, Antonelli lead Mercedes in one-two qualifying positions for F1’s Australian GP
- Russell topped all three sessions in F1’s knockout qualifying format, finally casting aside questions of where Mercedes team was in the new-era pecking order
MELBOURNE: Mercedes has revealed its dominant hand during qualifying for Sunday’s Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix.
George Russell earned his ninth-career pole position Saturday ahead of his teammate Kimi Antonelli for the team’s 83rd front-row lockout and its first since the 2024 British Grand Prix.
Russell topped all three sessions in F1’s knockout qualifying format, finally casting aside questions of where Mercedes team was in the new-era pecking order. His pole time, at 1 minute, 18.518 seconds, was almost eight-tenths faster than the nearest non-Mercedes challenger, Red Bull rookie Isack Hadjar, who completed the top three.
“It was a great day, we knew there was a lot of potential in the car, but until we get to this first Saturday of the season, you never know,” Russell said. “But it really came alive this afternoon, especially when the track temperatures cooled, we know we tend to favor those conditions.”
Antonelli was relieved to have made it onto the front row alongside his teammate after a crash in final practice at the exit of turn two meant it was a race in the Mercedes garage to get him out for qualifying.
“It’s been a very stressful day. Unfortunately, I went into the wall (in FP3),” he said. “But the guys (in the garage) were the heroes today to put the car back on track.”
Hadjar was impressive by qualifying third on debut for Red Bull, his highest-ever grid position.
“The only thing I can do is take them at the start, but they’re just too fast at the moment,” Hadjar said of Mercedes. “I want to keep my position and a second podium would be cool.”
Ferrari showed it’s neck-and-neck with McLaren on pace, with just one and a half tenths seconds covering the four drivers just beyond the top-three — with Charles Leclerc qualifying fourth, McLaren’s Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris in fifth and sixth respectively, and Lewis Hamilton in seventh.
Racing Bulls showed they’ve taken a step forward over the winter, with New Zealander Liam Lawson eighth ahead of his highly-rated rookie teammate Arvid Lindblad.
The big surprise of the session came from four-time F1 world champion Max Verstappen, who triggered red flags at Melbourne’s Albert Park after he lost control of his Red Bull car in braking for turn one in the first half of Q1 and ended in the barriers.
The Dutchman, who was unhurt from the crash, though upset that his brakes locked up, will now start from the back of the grid.
F1 heads into a new era this year, with unprecedented changes across the chassis (car) and power unit, which now feature an almost 50:50 output split between the turbo 1.6-liter V6 engine and electrical energy harvested from the brakes, one that requires a new, often counterintuitive driving style from the drivers.
