UEFA Nations League 2020 simulations (July 2020)

UEFA is the first confederation to draw up a schedule of matches for National Teams in coming Autumn. After the postponement of the EURO 2020 to 2021 they still had to find room in the calendar for the one-off semi-finals and finals in the four paths to decide the last 4 berths in the EUROs. They found that room by stretching both October and November windows by one day to accommodate 3 match days in each window. In that way they could also maintain the already scheduled group matches for the UEFA Nations League 2020-2021 this Autumn. There's even room now for some of the postponed friendlies from the March and/or June window.


After the UNL group matches the November 2020 ranking will then be used to seed the draw of the 10 European qualifying groups for the World Cup 2022 in Qatar. This campaign will start as originally scheduled in March 2021 and may even be extended to March 2022 now as FIFA has in the meantime decided to postpone the intercontinental play-offs in WC-qualifying from March 2022 to June 2022.

I've made 10.000 simulations of the revised schedule of matches for UEFA teams this year. All probabilities in %.

First the EURO 2020 qualifying play-offs. I've made earlier simulations of the play-offs in November and December last year. Per participating team the probability to qualify for the path-final and then to win that final and qualify for EURO 2020:

Path A          to final               qualification Iceland 72,74 48,39 Bulgaria 65,09 19,58 Romania 27,26 18,38 Hungary 34,91 13,65 Path B          to final               qualification Slovakia 73,32 41,74 Bosnia-Herzegovina 73,41 29,63 Republic of Ireland 26,68 16,38 Northern Ireland 26,59 12,25 Path C          to final               qualification Norway 61,04 43,30 Serbia 38,96 30,61 Scotland 80,70 21,79 Israel 19,30 4,30 Path D          to final               qualification Georgia 76,16 38,79 North Macedonia 72,47 34,66 Kosovo 27,53 15,48 Belarus 23,84 11,07

Not surprising considering the lack of matches this year you see roughly the same results, though both Slovakia and Norway saw their high qualification probabilities diminish a bit.


Then the final standings for the groups in the UEFA Nations League 2020:

group A-1	1st	2nd	3rd	4th
Netherlands	50,89	30,93	13,70	4,48
Italy	36,63	36,70	19,58	7,09
Poland	9,06	21,50	39,95	29,49
Bosnia-Herzegovina	3,42	10,87	26,77	58,94
group A-2	1st	2nd	3rd	4th
Belgium	57,46	27,30	12,56	2,68
England	25,43	36,00	28,54	10,03
Denmark	15,12	29,37	37,95	17,56
Iceland	1,99	7,33	20,95	69,73
group A-3	1st	2nd	3rd	4th
France	40,98	28,84	18,57	11,61
Portugal	28,37	28,07	25,21	18,35
Croatia	18,68	23,59	28,66	29,07
Sweden	11,97	19,50	27,56	40,97
group A-4	1st	2nd	3rd	4th
Spain	42,88	27,94	17,52	11,66
Germany	27,12	28,23	25,27	19,38
Switzerland	17,50	23,78	29,22	29,50
Ukraine	12,50	20,05	27,99	39,46
group B-1	1st	2nd	3rd	4th
Austria	30,45	25,97	22,92	20,66
Norway	26,70	25,76	24,16	23,38
Romania	23,37	24,62	25,53	26,48
Northern Ireland	19,48	23,65	27,39	29,48
group B-2	1st	2nd	3rd	4th
Slovakia	36,98	28,85	21,48	12,69
Czech Republic	35,65	30,56	21,33	12,46
Scotland	19,10	25,03	30,78	25,09
Israel	8,27	15,56	26,41	49,76
group B-3	1st	2nd	3rd	4th
Serbia	31,19	28,23	24,54	16,04
Russia	30,81	28,28	25,09	15,82
Turkey	29,54	27,96	25,68	16,82
Hungary	8,46	15,53	24,69	51,32
group B-4	1st	2nd	3rd	4th
Wales	43,27	28,53	18,36	9,84
Republic of Ireland	30,94	30,63	22,92	15,51
Finland	17,41	24,30	31,38	26,91
Bulgaria	8,38	16,54	27,34	47,74
group C-1	1st	2nd	3rd	4th
Montenegro	47,43	25,96	16,93	9,68
Cyprus	22,30	27,51	25,82	24,37
Azerbaijan	17,04	24,61	29,60	28,75
Luxembourg	13,23	21,92	27,65	37,20
group C-2	1st	2nd	3rd	4th
Georgia	34,42	27,71	21,61	16,26
North Macedonia	33,46	28,11	21,49	16,94
Armenia	16,89	22,93	28,96	31,22
Estonia	15,23	21,25	27,94	35,58
group C-3	1st	2nd	3rd	4th
Greece	38,68	32,15	24,08	5,09
Slovenia	32,83	32,16	28,30	6,71
Kosovo	27,29	31,32	32,83	8,56
Moldova	1,20	4,37	14,79	79,64
group C-4	1st	2nd	3rd	4th
Albania	40,85	30,65	18,72	9,78
Belarus	37,46	31,22	19,94	11,38
Kazakhstan	12,47	21,01	32,28	34,24
Lithuania	9,22	17,12	29,06	44,60
group D-1	1st	2nd	3rd	4th
Latvia	37,54	28,08	20,28	14,10
Faroe Islands	29,70	27,99	24,21	18,10
Malta	19,95	24,17	28,04	27,84
Andorra	12,81	19,76	27,47	39,96
group D-2	1st	2nd	3rd
Liechtenstein	55,59	35,26	9,15
Gibraltar	38,99	47,10	13,91
San Marino	5,42	17,64	76,94

Some tight groups.to be expected. And what to think of group A-3 with 3 top-10 teams in it, including both finalists of the last World Cup and the current European and Nations League title holder. Weirdly strong.




Then the probabilities to reach and win the Nations League finals. In square brackets you find the probabilities to qualify for the round, given qualification for the previous knock-out round.

team  qualify for the UNL finals Belgium 57,46 Netherlands 50,89 Spain 42,88 France 40,98 Italy 36,63 Portugal 28,37 Germany 27,12 England 25,43 Croatia 18,68 Switzerland 17,50 Denmark 15,12 Ukraine 12,50 Sweden 11,97 Poland 9,06 Bosnia-Herzegovina 3,42 Iceland 1,99 team            qualify for the final Belgium 36,63 [63,75] Netherlands 28,84 [56,67] Spain 25,68 [59,89] France 22,57 [55,08] Italy 17,96 [49,03] Portugal 13,43 [47,34] Germany 12,94 [47,71] England 10,67 [41,96] Croatia 7,65 [40,95] Switzerland 6,85 [39,14] Denmark 4,96 [32,80] Ukraine 4,27 [34,16] Sweden 3,76 [31,41] Poland 2,63 [29,03] Bosnia-Herzegovina 0,83 [24,27] Iceland 0,33 [16,58] team                       win the title Belgium 25,06 [68,41] France 14,32 [63,45] Netherlands 12,61 [43,72] Spain 12,14 [47,27] Portugal 7,37 [54,88] Italy 6,61 [36,80] England 5,26 [49,30] Germany 5,23 [40,42] Croatia 3,35 [43,79] Switzerland 2,41 [35,18] Denmark 2,10 [42,34] Sweden 1,48 [39,36] Ukraine 1,15 [26,93] Poland 0,64 [24,33] Bosnia-Herzegovina 0,23 [27,71] Iceland 0,04 [12,12]

Wouldn't that be something, a final Belgium - the Netherlands 😈



And finally the probabilities (in %) for each team to land in each pot for the WC qualifying draw. The teams are ordered by their average ranking position for UEFA teams in the November ranking (avg).

team	pot 1	pot 2	pot 3	pot 4	pot 5	pot 6	avg
Belgium	100,00	0	0	0	0	0	1,06
France	100,00	0	0	0	0	0	1,94
England	100,00	0	0	0	0	0	3,60
Portugal	99,80	0,20	0	0	0	0	5,00
Spain	99,51	0,49	0	0	0	0	5,28
Croatia	99,70	0,30	0	0	0	0	5,28
Netherlands	87,93	12,07	0	0	0	0	8,22
Italy	86,82	13,18	0	0	0	0	8,33
Germany	74,00	26,00	0	0	0	0	9,11
Switzerland	70,51	29,49	0	0	0	0	9,25
--------------------------
Denmark	64,07	35,93	0	0	0	0	9,68
Sweden	16,37	83,63	0	0	0	0	11,58
Poland	1,16	98,84	0	0	0	0	13,38
Wales	0	99,97	0,03	0	0	0	14,29
Ukraine	0,13	99,87	0	0	0	0	14,63
Austria	0	90,77	9,23	0	0	0	17,50
Turkey	0	78,15	21,85	0	0	0	18,81
Serbia	0	71,47	28,53	0	0	0	18,95
Slovakia	0	66,74	33,26	0	0	0	19,33
Republic of Ireland	0	54,13	45,87	0	0	0	20,25
--------------------------
Russia	0	33,99	66,01	0	0	0	21,58
Romania	0	31,99	68,01	0	0	0	22,00
Northern Ireland	0	28,39	71,61	0	0	0	22,26
Iceland	0	21,54	78,46	0	0	0	22,92
Norway	0	19,05	80,86	0,09	0	0	23,49
Czech Republic	0	2,26	97,62	0,12	0	0	25,13
Bosnia-Herzegovina	0	1,18	96,09	2,73	0	0	26,86
Scotland	0	0,30	88,76	10,94	0	0	28,04
Hungary	0	0,07	73,67	26,26	0	0	29,15
Greece	0	0	71,61	28,39	0	0	29,72
--------------------------
Finland	0	0	37,73	62,27	0	0	30,93
Bulgaria	0	0	26,60	73,40	0	0	31,75
Montenegro	0	0	2,06	97,94	0	0	33,36
Slovenia	0	0	1,63	98,37	0	0	33,77
Albania	0	0	0,15	99,85	0	0	34,60
North Macedonia	0	0	0,36	99,64	0	0	35,07
Belarus	0	0	0	98,56	1,44	0	37,88
Georgia	0	0	0	96,09	3,91	0	38,03
Israel	0	0	0	92,66	7,34	0	38,89
Cyprus	0	0	0	73,78	26,22	0	39,77
--------------------------
Luxembourg	0	0	0	30,36	69,64	0	40,95
Armenia	0	0	0	6,51	93,49	0	42,22
Estonia	0	0	0	1,22	98,78	0	43,13
Kosovo	0	0	0	0,75	99,25	0	44,27
Azerbaijan	0	0	0	0,07	99,93	0	44,71
Faroe Islands	0	0	0	0	100,00	0	45,57
Kazakhstan	0	0	0	0	100,00	0	46,50
Lithuania	0	0	0	0	100,00	0	48,57
Latvia	0	0	0	0	100,00	0	48,96
Andorra	0	0	0	0	100,00	0	49,46
--------------------------
Moldova	0	0	0	0	0	100,00	51,18
Malta	0	0	0	0	0	100,00	52,39
Liechtenstein	0	0	0	0	0	100,00	52,46
Gibraltar	0	0	0	0	0	100,00	53,97
San Marino	0	0	0	0	0	100,00	55,00

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About me:

Software engineer, happily unmarried and non-religious. You won't find me on Twitter or other so called social media. Dutchman, joined the blog in March 2018.