The Nations League Table Is Not Sorted by Goal Difference: How Group Positions Are Decided, and What Settles on Them
Four matchdays are played between 24 September and 6 October 2026 and two more in November, and at the end of them a set of markets settles on a table. Almost every explanation of that table available to a reader reproduces the standings and stops. This page does the part that decides money: the order in which the regulations break a tie, which is head-to-head before goal difference, and the second comparison, used for anything that ranks teams from different groups, in which some matches are deliberately left out of the arithmetic. No tips, no odds, no predicted line-ups.
The habit that reads this table wrongly
A reader who follows domestic league football arrives at any table with a trained eye: points, then goal difference, then goals scored. It is a reliable habit in most of the competitions a British or Irish reader watches week to week, and it is the wrong habit here. The UEFA Nations League breaks a tie on points by looking first at nothing but the matches the tied teams played against each other. Only when that private comparison fails does the competition widen the lens to the whole group, and by then four criteria have already been applied.
The consequence is easy to state and easy to miss. A team can sit at the top of the goal-difference column and finish second. A broadcast graphic that sorts a live table by goal difference during the November matchday is not showing the order the competition will use, and a market on group position does not settle on the graphic. It settles on the standings the competition confirms, and those are built by the sequence below.
This page is the settlement companion to our Nations League 2026/27 betting guide, which carries the verified calendar, the group draw and the season tracker. That guide says a market on the final standings settles only once the table is confirmed. This one says how the table is built.
Article 15, in the order it bites
Article 15 of the Regulations of the UEFA Nations League 2026/27 sets out what happens when two or more teams in a group finish level on points. The criteria are applied in order, and the first one that separates the teams ends the process. The quoted wording below is taken from the article itself.
| Order | Criterion | Which matches count |
|---|---|---|
| a) | “Higher number of points obtained in the group matches played among the teams in question”Only the matches the tied teams played against each other count. The rest of the group is set aside. | Head-to-head only |
| b) | “Superior goal difference from the group matches played among the teams in question”Goal difference appears here for the first time, and it is not the goal difference printed in the table. | Head-to-head only |
| c) | “Higher number of goals scored in the group matches played among the teams in question”Still inside the private mini-table formed by the tied teams. | Head-to-head only |
| d) | “Criteria a) to c) are reapplied exclusively to the matches between the remaining teams”Where three teams are tied and one of them separates under a) to c), the head-to-head test is run again between the two still level. | Head-to-head, re-run |
| e) | “Superior goal difference in all group matches”This is the goal difference column a reader recognises. It is the fifth criterion, not the first. | Whole group |
| f) | “Higher number of goals scored in all group matches”Goals for, across the six matches a four-team group gives each side three of. | Whole group |
| g) | “Higher number of away goals scored in all group matches”Away goals survive as a ranking criterion here even though they no longer break aggregate ties in UEFA knockout football. | Whole group |
| h) | “Higher number of wins in all group matches”A side with two wins and a heavy defeat now ranks above one with three draws. | Whole group |
| i) | “Higher number of away wins in all group matches”The last of the on-pitch criteria. | Whole group |
| j) | “Lower disciplinary points total based only on yellow and red cards”The regulations attach three points to a red card and one to a yellow. Cards decide the position at this depth, and nothing else does. | Whole group |
| k) | “Higher position in the 2026/27 UEFA Nations League access list”A published list in which no two teams share a place. It cannot end in a tie, which is why this sequence always produces an order. | Seeding, not football |
Read the column on the right rather than the wording and the shape of the article becomes obvious. Four of the eleven criteria never look outside the matches the tied teams played against one another. Five look at the whole group. One looks at cards. The last looks at a seeding list and no football at all.
What that order does, worked through
The example below uses invented teams and invented results. It is illustrative arithmetic, not a forecast of any group in this competition, and no real fixture is being predicted.
Two teams finish on eleven points. Team A has a goal difference of plus nine across its six matches. Team B has plus four. In the two matches they played against each other, Team B won at home by two goals and Team A won at home by one.
Criterion a) looks only at those two matches: three points to Team B, three to Team A. Level. Criterion b) looks at goal difference in those two matches only: Team B is plus one, Team A is minus one. Team B is first.
Team A’s plus nine never enters the calculation. It would have been decisive under criterion e), and criterion e) is never reached. A bet on Team A to win the group, placed by a reader who checked the goal-difference column, loses to a rule the column does not show.
Criterion d) is the one that catches people out in a three-way tie. If three teams are level on points and the head-to-head mini-table separates one of them, the regulations do not then hand the remaining two straight to goal difference across the whole group. Criteria a) to c) are reapplied to the matches between the two teams still level. A three-way tie is therefore resolved by running the same head-to-head test twice, on two different sets of matches, before the whole-group numbers are consulted at all.
The practical reading for anyone holding a position on a group is that the result of a single fixture between two rivals is worth more to a group-position market than the margin of any other result in the group. That is a structural fact about how the table is built. It is not a suggestion about which side of any match to back, and how the price of a long-dated position is constructed in the first place is set out in outright betting explained, with the margin inside it measurable using the margin calculator.
The criterion that cannot end level, and what that rules out
The last criterion in Article 15 is the team’s position in the 2026/27 UEFA Nations League access list, the seeding document published with the competition. Every team occupies exactly one place on it and no two teams share a place. A criterion of that kind cannot itself produce a tie, which means the sequence as a whole always terminates in a single, strict order.
That has a consequence worth stating plainly, because it removes a worry rather than adding one. There is no drawing of lots for a league-phase position in this competition, and no mechanism by which two teams are declared joint first. A settlement rule that reduces a payout when two or more selections share a position — the family of rules covered in dead heat rules explained — has nothing to operate on in a Nations League group, because the competition does not generate the shared position that such a rule exists to handle.
One qualification, and it is the honest one. This is a statement about the competition’s own regulations, not about any operator’s terms. An operator is free to write a settlement rule that behaves differently, and the rule it has written is the binding text for a bet it holds. What this page establishes is that the competition will hand that operator an unambiguous order.
The second table, the one you cannot read off the standings
Several outcomes in this competition do not depend on a single group. They depend on comparing teams that finished in the same position in different groups: which third-placed sides go where, which runners-up rank above which, which group winners are the best ranked. Article 19 governs that comparison, and it does something the group table does not do. It throws matches away.
The sentence that changes the arithmetic. Article 19 provides that “the results against fourth-placed teams are not taken into account for the purposes of comparing teams placed first, second and third”. A team’s record inside its own group is untouched by this. What changes is the record used when that team is measured against a team from another group: the matches against the bottom side are removed first, and the comparison is run on what is left.
The comparison then proceeds through its own ordered list: position in the group, points in the matches taken into account, goal difference in those matches, goals scored, away goals, wins, away wins, the same disciplinary total of three points for a red card and one for a yellow, and finally the access list. The phrase “matches taken into account” is doing the work throughout. It is not the same set of matches as the group table.
For a reader holding a position, the point is not the detail of the list. It is that two numbers exist for the same team, they are built from different matches, and only one of them is ever printed. A market that turns on being the best-ranked side in a given position settles on the number nobody publishes in a standings table.
Why the exclusion exists: the groups are not the same size
The rule looks arbitrary until the shape of the competition is put next to it. Leagues A, B and C each hold sixteen teams in four groups of four. League D holds six teams in two groups of three. That is fifty-four entrants in all, and it means a team in League D plays four league-phase matches where a team in the leagues above plays six.
Comparing a first-placed team from a four-team group with a first-placed team from a three-team group on raw totals would compare three home-and-away meetings with two. Removing the results against the fourth-placed team leaves every side being compared with the same number of matches on the books. The rule is a levelling device, and knowing that is the difference between remembering it and merely reading it.
There is an asymmetry in it that is easy to overlook. The exclusion is written for teams placed first, second and third. When fourth-placed teams are themselves being compared with one another — which is how the bottom of League A is resolved — there is no equivalent instruction in the same sentence. A reader working out what a relegation market turns on should therefore check which comparison is being run before assuming which matches count.
Which market settles on which table, and when
The competition produces more than one ranking, and they are confirmed at different moments across nine months. The table below maps the common market families onto the ranking each one actually depends on.
| Market family | Ranking it depends on | Earliest it can be final | What to check |
|---|---|---|---|
| Group winner, group position, to finish top two | The group table, ranked under Article 15 | Evening of 17 November 2026, when the last group match is complete | Head-to-head comes first. A side leading on the goal-difference column can be second in the table it settles against. |
| To be promoted, to be relegated | The group table first, then the cross-group comparison under Article 19 where the outcome depends on ranking teams from different groups | Partly on 17 November 2026, partly at the play-offs of 25–30 March 2027 | Once teams from different groups are being compared, results against fourth-placed teams drop out of the arithmetic. |
| Best-ranked group winner positions feeding the EURO 2028 play-offs | The cross-group comparison, not any single group table | Not before the EURO 2028 qualifying competition has run its course | The number of places available is itself variable, so the market has a moving denominator as well as a moving numerator. |
| Outright winner of the competition | League A group tables to reach the quarter-finals, then knockout results | The final, 9–13 June 2027 | Extra time applies unevenly across the knockout rounds, so a ninety-minute market and a to-progress market are different bets. |
| Individual match result, over/under, both teams to score | None. These settle on the match | At the final whistle of the match in question | League-phase matches can end level and settle as draws. Nothing in Article 15 touches them. |
The last row is the one that keeps the rest in proportion. Nothing in Article 15 or Article 19 touches an ordinary match market. A league-phase match settles on ninety minutes plus stoppage time, it can end level, and the tiebreak machinery only ever operates on the standings those results feed. The separate question of what a bet does and does not cover once the whistle goes at ninety minutes is handled in extra time and penalties, and it matters here because extra time is applied unevenly across this competition’s knockout rounds.
Where a position depends on a route rather than a result — qualification reached through one of several doors, on several dates — the settlement question changes shape entirely. That family is covered in to qualify betting explained, and the specific routes into the next European Championship, including the one that runs through this competition, are set out in our EURO 2028 qualifying guide.
Three dates, and the difference between them
The league phase runs from Thursday 24 September to Tuesday 17 November 2026. Group positions are settled on the evening of the seventeenth and not before: with four of the six matchdays packed into the thirteen days to 6 October, a table can look decided in early October and stay undecided for six more weeks.
The quarter-finals and the promotion and relegation play-offs are played from 25 to 30 March 2027, and the finals from 9 to 13 June 2027. A market described in a single phrase as settling on final standings may therefore resolve in November, in March or in June depending on what it is really asking, and the operator’s own rule is the text that decides which. That gap between what a market is called and what it turns on is the single most common source of a settlement dispute on long-dated positions.
The calendar itself, fixture by fixture and with every change logged and dated, lives on the Nations League hub. How this autumn window sits inside the domestic season — and why the club calendar is empty while it runs — is set out on the Premier League 2026/27 hub and the Champions League 2026/27 guide.
What can still move a table after the football has finished
Two things sit outside the arithmetic above and both are worth knowing before a position is held to November. The first is that a match may not be played as scheduled at all. A fixture postponed, abandoned or rescheduled changes when a table is complete rather than how it is ordered, and what that does to an individual bet depends on the operator’s rule for the match rather than on the competition regulations. That is covered in abandoned and postponed matches.
The second is a decision taken off the pitch. Where a result or a points total is altered by a governing body after the event, a table that looked final moves without a ball being kicked, and whether a bet already settled is reopened is a contract question rather than a sporting one. The general shape of that problem, and the questions to ask about it, are in points deductions and your bets.
Neither of those is a reason to expect trouble. Both are reasons to know, before placing a long-dated bet, which of your questions the competition answers and which only the operator can.
What this page does not cover
It does not summarise any operator’s settlement rules, and it names no operator. Those rules are the binding text for a bet, they differ between firms, and a page that paraphrased them would be handing a reader a version of a contract rather than the contract. The competition regulations decide what the table says. The operator’s rules decide what your bet does about it, and only one of those two documents is the same for everybody.
It carries no odds and no prices, deliberately. A number quoted today would be wrong within the week, and a page about how a competition is ordered does not improve by pinning a stale price to it. It carries no selections and no predicted line-ups either: the international window that begins on 24 September will produce plenty of both elsewhere.
Where the calendar interacts with offers that carry a deadline — a club-competitions-only promotion during a window with no club football in it, for instance — the reasoning is on the international break betting rules page rather than here.
Frequently asked questions
Is the Nations League group table sorted by goal difference?
Not first. Article 15 of the competition regulations puts head-to-head results ahead of everything else: points in the matches played among the tied teams, then goal difference in those matches, then goals scored in those matches. Goal difference across all group matches is only the fifth criterion, and it is reached only once the head-to-head sequence has failed to separate the teams. A side that is ahead on the goal-difference column printed in a table can therefore finish below a side it beat, and a market on group position settles on the regulation order rather than on the column.
Can two teams finish level on every criterion and share a position?
No. The last criterion in the sequence is the team's position in the 2026/27 UEFA Nations League access list, a published ranking in which no two teams occupy the same place. Because that criterion cannot itself end level, the sequence always produces a single order, and there is no drawing of lots to decide a league-phase position. That is worth knowing before assuming that a dead-heat rule could ever apply to a group-winner market in this competition: the competition does not generate the tie that such a rule exists to handle.
Why would results against the bottom team in a group be ignored?
They are ignored only for one job: comparing teams that finished in the same position in different groups. Article 19 states that the results against fourth-placed teams are not taken into account for the purposes of comparing teams placed first, second and third. The reason is that the groups are not all the same size. Leagues A, B and C are played in groups of four, while League D is played in two groups of three, so a comparison that counted every match would be comparing three-match records with two-match records. Inside its own group, every result a team has counts as normal.
When is a Nations League group position actually final?
Group positions are final on the evening of Tuesday 17 November 2026, when the last matches of the sixth and final league-phase matchday are complete. Anything that depends on comparing teams across groups, including promotion and relegation outcomes decided by the play-offs, is not resolved then: those play-offs are scheduled for 25 to 30 March 2027, and the competition itself finishes with the finals on 9 to 13 June 2027. A market described as settling on the final standings may mean any of those three moments, and the operator's own settlement rules are the text that decides which.
Do disciplinary points really decide a league position?
They can, and they sit tenth in the order. Where two teams cannot be separated by head-to-head results, by goal difference, by goals scored, by away goals, by wins or by away wins, the regulations turn to a disciplinary total built from cards, counting three points for a red card and one for a yellow. It is a rare place to arrive, but it is a real one, and it is the only criterion in the list that can be changed by something that happens after the ball is dead. This page does not reproduce the full disciplinary scale, which is set out in UEFA's own regulations.
Sources
The sources below were read on 21 September 2026. The quoted wording of the ranking criteria is reproduced from the Regulations of the UEFA Nations League 2026/27 as published by UEFA. The worked example is invented arithmetic, labelled as such where it appears, and is not a forecast of any group. No operator is named and no price appears on this page.
- UEFA, Regulations of the UEFA Nations League 2026/27, Article 15 — equality of points, league phase: the ordered ranking criteria — documents.uefa.com
- UEFA, Regulations of the UEFA Nations League 2026/27, Article 19 — individual league, interim overall and final overall rankings, including the exclusion of results against fourth-placed teams — documents.uefa.com
- UEFA, 2026/27 UEFA Nations League: all you need to know — league sizes, group sizes and the dates of the league phase, play-offs, quarter-finals and finals — uefa.com
- UEFA, 2026/27 UEFA Nations League: all the league phase fixtures — the complete matchday list used to check the dates cited here — uefa.com
18+. A position that depends on a table stays open for weeks, and an open position invites a second bet to protect the first one. The order of the table is fixed by a rule you can read today; the decision to add to a stake is not, and it is worth taking away from the match. Deposit limits, time-outs and support are on our responsible gambling page.