In praise of Roberto Mancini's Italy, Nations League finalists and Europe's weirdest team - The Warm-Up

THURSDAY'S BIG STORIES Make It Make Sense Ad With the Nations League group stages done and very much dusted, it's time to look ahead. Not to the World Cup, a mere distraction. But to the Nations League finals, which will be happening next summer in the Netherlands.

Probably in the Netherlands. As far as we can tell that hasn't quite been confirmed yet. TransfersCity set asking price for Bernardo, Messi may rejoin Barca — Paper Round2 HOURS AGO Still, no rush, it's only three games.

The Nations League itself may be a bloated and byzantine thing, as intuitive and easy to look at as its flag, but its finals are so streamlined. Two knock-outs, then a final. It's both a blessing and a surprise that UEFA didn't try to stick an extra six-game round robin on the end, just for science.

But then, it appears that science has been set aside for the occasion. France are not there, despite being the defending World Cup champions and the obvious answer to the question 'Best team in Europe?'. And Italy are, despite having rolled into these games on the back of their abject failure to qualify for the World Cup.

This comes despite the fact that a Nations League group is meant to be harder than a World Cup qualifying group, being made up of peers as opposed to being seeded. Perhaps we might conclude from this that the Nations League, for all that it has a flag and a trophy, is still just a collection of friendlies and should be taken precisely as seriously as that implies. This probably has some truth in it, but any competition that gives us the chance to say 'England have been relegated' will always have a special place in our hearts.