It’s like the World Cup all over again.
The UEFA Nations League kicks off on Thursday and Virgin Media TV – aka the re-branded TV3 – are all over it. You’d want to be a mathematician to wrap your head around the workings and permutations of it all, but you’d only want to be a football fan to appreciate the serious line-up of games we have coming up.
And even if you’re not a mathematician, we’ve tried to simplify it here. The moral of the story being that if Ireland finish third in their group of three with Denmark and Wales, we’ll be in the treacherous place of being seeded third rather than second come the Euro 2020 group stages.
So these games are important. Ireland kick off their campaign against Wales on Thursday night in the Cardiff City Stadium – that game will be live on Sky while there will be highlights later on in the evening on Virgin Three.
In place of the Ireland game, Virgin – a National Television channel available on Saor View – are showing the always interesting clash of Germany and the recently crowned World Champions France.
The Germans will surely be out to avenge their woeful World Cup campaign in the Allianz Arena in the 7.45 kick-off.
That clash of the titans will kickstart a five day bonanza of games all available on the Virgin TV channel.
The #NationsLeague kicks off this week! ⚽️
📆 THU – Germany vs France.
📆 FRI – Italy vs Poland.
📆 SAT – England vs Spain.
📆 SUN – France vs Netherlands.
📆MON – Portugal vs Italy.
📆TUE – Spain vs Croatia.All these games LIVE plus much more on Virgin Media TV. pic.twitter.com/hrEtdMAd10
— Virgin Media Sport (@VMSportIE) September 4, 2018
Italy, fresh and rested after not taking part in the World Cup host Poland the following day. Roberto Mancini will be hoping to get his country back on the wagon with a win here against a side who struggled in Russia.
Then on Saturday, we’ve the clash of Gareth Southgate’s England with Spain. Southgate will be hoping his Three Lions can build on the progress they made in that World Cup.
It only gets better on Sunday with Deschamps’ champions out again this time against the Netherlands. Like Italy, Ronald Koeman’s side should be rested and ready to go.
The football keeps on coming into Monday and Tuesday with Ronaldo’s Portugal taking on Italy and Spain against Croatia.
When you consider that there actually is something riding on these games rather than them being pointless friendlies, maybe it’s time we admit that this Nations League thing wasn’t such a bad idea after all.
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