England 3 Czech O

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Well, an interesting change this year with domestic football in the UK and Europe, shutting down for a three week break to play The Nations League international football comp. Nations League is much better than friendlies and internationals and treated like the third biggest international competition and so worth winning. Its a good innovation, boosting crowds, more competitive football, players gelling together more. It works by groups , the elite being Group A, which has four equal divisions, and then Group B,C & D etc. ..same again....the last group being the tax havens like Luxembourg and Gibraltar. You can be promoted or relegated to to the next group and the very top Group A has a grand final. You can also force your way into the European Championships by winning a play off through this competition. Its like a back-up for the big teams that fail to qualify for the Euros as per normal. Its also used the same way with the World Cup. A good example is that Sweden lost every game in their World Cup qualifying group proper but made the World Cup with a strong Nations League performance. It also gives the minnows a chance of making The Euros and the The World Cup as those comps expand. Italy have missed out on the last two World Cups with a dramatic and unexplained demise but have used the Nations league to improve their team. Nation League is a hit, in truth. We were sold out at Wembley to watch lowly Czech tonight, near on 90.000. That's unusual for a lesser game. We won 3 of our 4 games but lost the first one to Spain, effectively a de facto World Cup Final that should have been. Spain beat us 3-2.I think we would have lost a World Cup Final versus Spain anyway. The next round of Nations Cup matches are in mid November, the final two games of the group. Spain will win the group and England will play a K/O match. Scotland and Wales have been poor in their group but NI Ireland a bit stronger, as have Eire. Harry Kane equalled Peter Shilton's record cap total at 125.