The top continental governing body runs two distinct tournaments for national teams.
Fans often ask what sets apart the historic European Championship from the newer Nations League, a competition UEFA introduced for national squads in 2018. This piece clarifies the differences and explains how each event fits into the wider European football calendar.
Follow the live final from the 2023 UEFA Nations League Final Four, featuring the Netherlands and Croatia.
How do the UEFA Nations League and the European Championship differ?
The UEFA Nations League is a national team competition designed to replace a stretch of friendly matches with official fixtures, ensuring teams meet opponents of comparable strength. It operates on a biennial cycle in which all 55 UEFA member associations participate. The teams are grouped into four leagues labeled A through D according to their coefficients. Each league is subdivided into multiple groups, creating a structured league-system landscape rather than a simple knockout path.
At the conclusion of the group stage, the top team in each group gains promotion to the next higher league, while the bottom team faces relegation to the lower tier. Additionally, the four group winners in each league advance to a final four format. The champions of League A ultimately compete for the UEFA Nations League title within that league context.
In contrast, the European Championship, commonly known as the Euro Cup, remains the premier international competition for European national teams and is organized by UEFA on a quadrennial cadence. Since 2016 the tournament has featured 24 competing nations, competing across a central host nation or shared hosts in a given edition, with the field determined through a traditional qualifying campaign followed by a final tournament bracket.
The concept behind the Nations League traces back to the need to restore interest and relevance to international fixtures after a long series of domestic and continental campaigns. The format was designed to inject competitive balance and create meaningful matches in the calendar while offering a pathway to the European Championship through performance in the league stage. The competition also aims to keep fans engaged between major continental championships by presenting high-stakes clashes that carry implications for upcoming editions of the Euro Cup.
For Euro qualification, teams typically proceed through a separate set of qualification matches. The Nations League, by contrast, provides routes to the Euro Cup via play-off spots that are earned through performance across the league and, in some cases, through group outcomes. The final four stage within each league fosters an additional level of competition and spectacle, aligning with the broader aim of maintaining momentum for national teams as they chase summer continental glory.
All UEFA member nations can participate in the Nations League without a separate qualifying stage, though each team is assigned to a league according to last season’s results and relative strength. The Nations League then functions as a dynamic gauge of national team form, with promotion and relegation shaping the long-term landscape of European international football.