England boss Gareth Southgate has welcomed the new UEFA Nations League competition, following Wednesday’s draw in Lausanne.
The Three Lions will face Croatia and Spain in group four of League A next Autumn, when the inaugural edition of the tournament begins.
With each team playing home and away against each other, with a place in the Finals for the group winners and relegation to League B for the bottom-placed team, there’s plenty at stake for all involved.
And Southgate believes the format of the competition is ideal for all of the 54 nations, who have been placed into four initial leagues based on their ranking.
"The idea of the tournament is to have fewer friendly matches and competitive matches against a high level of opposition," said the Three Lions manager.
"We want to play the best teams and ideally we were hoping for teams we hadn't played for a while, like Croatia.
"We've played Spain a couple of times recently but you couldn't hope for better level of opposition than what the Spanish bring.
"There's something resting on these games and you want to test yourselves against the best.
"As we saw in November [against Germany and Brazil], everybody's approach showed a lot of enthusiasm and the excitement levels are much higher.
"That's what you need to make international football meaningful and we like the concept of less friendlies and games against high-level teams."
The Nations League games will take place across the international weeks of September, October and November later this year.
And while the games with the Netherlands and Italy in March and then the matter of this summer’s World Cup in Russia for Southgate to deal with first, he says the excitement which the new schedule could generate will only benefit all involved.
"I think there's a real buzz about it because the top level teams want competitive games and the teams in the other leagues get a realistic challenge too," he added.
"If you’re one of the smaller nations there's no point losing heavily, regularly, against better teams so how do you develop?
"You play in competitive games where you might start to win more and gain confidence that way, which is important for their development as a country.
"And there's a carrot there for them to qualify for the finals too."
England are back in action on home turf when they face Italy at Wembley on Tuesday 27 March. Tickets are on sale now, priced from £35 for adults and we also have a great offer for groups of fans looking to attend, so find out more on how you could save up to 20 per cent.
