The Nations League was allowed to replace the traditional friendly matches with more interesting official meetings at the national team level. Thanks to this tournament fans were able to see more interesting confrontations between teams of roughly equal level of play. Therefore, it is more difficult for analysts to make football tips predictions on such matches.
This tournament every cycle gives fans unforgettable matches, reveals new football heroes, and allows small teams to develop (like San Marino). However, several teams do not do well in the tournament. Today we will talk about the top disappointments of the current Nations League group stage.
Poland
Kadra never left Division A. Even though Lewandowski and the company didn't make the playoffs and didn't compete for the title, they didn't find themselves in last place until the current draw. But in this tournament:
- the team has picked up only four points;
- lost a match to Scotland;
- lost to Croatia;
- has been overlooked by Portugal;
- has conceded in every match.
Unfortunately, these results led to the disappointment of Kadra's fans. However, the team scored in all matches except for the loss to Croatia (0:1). Therefore, betting on both teams to score in Poland matches would be a good decision. Now the team will be directly in the B division. With the level of play that the Polish players are showing, it is far from certain that they will manage to move back up to Division A in just one Nations League game.
Finland
Last year's Nations League was a successful one for Suomi. The team finished second in the Division B group and fans expected the Finnish national team to build on their success. The presence of a good goalkeeper, a good midfield, and a good striker gave them hope. But instead, they were in for a complete disappointment.
The team did not score a single point in 6 matches. Moreover, it scored only 2 goals (though one of them was against England). Of course, it would be wrong to expect Suomi to play on equal terms with the pioneers of football. But against Greece and Ireland, it seemed that their chances were not quite zero.
As a result, zero points and departure to division C, where you can get easier opponents, but those who are also on the rise there are also enough. So Finland's current result was disappointing for many football fans.
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan was one of the contenders for Euro 2024 in the summer. However, they were thrashed 5-0 by Greece in their last four. After that, fans expected the team to be angrier and start the Nations League more successfully.
Unfortunately, their hopes were not fulfilled. The team managed to take a nil draw against Norway with Haaland and Sørloth in attack (though the Scandinavians outplayed them on all indicators). But the opponents were not so polite to them and this score remained the only one in the group stage. Moreover, Kazakhstan is one of the two teams in the Nations League that did not score a single goal (but Andorra had 3 teams in the group, and Kazakhstan had 4).
Of course, the fans were disappointed with this result and were hoping for a more successful tournament. Now Kazakhstan will have to try again to get out of division C for promotion.
Conclusion
Of course, analysts xGscore.io noted not the most successful game not only these teams. Belgium miraculously did not fall out of Division A directly, Luxembourg could have performed much better, Latvia failed to take 6 points even against the Faroe Islands and got relegated, etc.
However, the results of the above-mentioned national teams were less surprising than what the national teams in our ranking showed. Fans believe that these teams will be able to turn things around in the next edition of the tournament. It remains only to wait and see if they will manage to fulfill such hopes.
