‘Andorra away’ helps nobody…least of all Andorra and co

Saturday night, Andorra away. It was hardly a billing that deserved such a prestigious time slot.

In fact, it was unlikely to set the pulses racing whenever it was scheduled. And increasingly, it’s fixtures like this that are giving international football a bad name. For all the thrills and excitement a summer (or, ahem, winter) tournament can provide us every two years, those memories can feel an awfully long way away when we’re greeted with such one-sided fare on a regular basis.

International football has retained its purity as the club game continues to gorge on its own morals in a quest for instant gratification, but to properly profit on the opportunity to be held as a bastion of decency, national sides must ensure they’re fully capturing attentions when it’s their time to shine.

And in European qualifying, that means reducing the number of these ‘Saturday night, Andorra away’ matches where there’s little in the way of competition. Sure, there’s an element of hypocrisy in celebrating international football’s virtues on one hand and then championing the idea of reducing the exposure of the minnows to the top countries in another, but if it’s not grabbing fans or stretching the players schlepping across the continent, then is there really any benefit?

Supporters of the current system will point towards North Macedonia winning in Germany and France drawing at home to Bosnia Herzegovina as reasons to stick with the current plan. And nobody wants to lose the chance to see David bloody Goliath’s nose. But North Macedonia sit second in Group J with 12 points from seven matches and reached Euro 2020 – albeit through the back door left ajar by the Nations League – and aren’t the sort of side an overhauled qualification process would exclude if they maintained their form of recent years.

Realistically, it would be likes of San Marino, the tiny nation that has never won a match in qualification for either the Euros or World Cup since joining in 1990 and have lost their past 17 World Cup qualifiers in the past two campaigns – conceding an average of nearly five goals per game. It’s hard to say this format is helping their development. It’s not as if introducing a tier system for UEFA qualifiers will stop emerging nations from getting the chance to play the bigger nations either.

TEXTO PROPIEDAD: https://www.football365.com/news/andorra-away-minnows-uefa-world-cup-qualifcation