Donathan

Groups of death might become a thing of the past with the way the draw is seeded now. Prior to 2018, they just seeded the hosts + top 7 in the rankings, then everyone else was a free for all subject to the constraints that teams can’t face their own continental rivals/max two Europeans in each group. In theory you could have a seeded team and then the 8th, 9th and 10th ranked countries all in one group. Now that they do proper ranking based pots, it’s far less likely.

The only ones to have actually taken tournament slots are Croatia, Bosnia-Herz, Latvia, North Macedonia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Ukraine. Several more of the new members have, however, actively prevented us from qualifying for tournaments by taking results off us while out direct rivals beat them. Faroe Islands, Lithuania, Georgia and Belarus all spring to mind. Could argue Kazakhstan too although technically we ended up qualifying for the tournament in which they’d beaten us in qualifying.

You can add Germany of the last few years to that list. IIRC from the 2006 World Cup to Euro 2016 inclusive, they reached the semi finals of every single major tournament. That’s got to be unprecedented 6 in a row for a European side. They won the 2014 World Cup and reached the final of euro 2016. It was the nucleus of the side that was built for their home World Cup and then supplemented with some players that emerged in 2010 like Muller and Ozil. Since then, they were papped out of Russia 2018 in the groups and then comfortably beaten by England in the first knockout round of the Euros. I think they’re on the verge of getting back to competing in the latter stages.

I care. Not from the point of view that there’s anything wrong with it at all, but from the point of view that our society clearly has more work to do if the First Minister of the country feels that being open about her sexuality would negatively impact on her career or public profile. It’s incredibly sad if that’s the case.

I've heard this before. Not sure if it's a loonball conspiracy or if there's any truth to it.

The 1986 World Cup qualifiers had 32 teams competing for 12 slots plus 1 intercontinental playoff (which we ended up in and won, beating Australia 2-0 on aggregate) Now there’s 55 countries competing for the same 13 places.

Yep. Nothing concrete about that. I personally think the 7th would be a poor choice.

Playing in Ukraine and Ukraine being able to field a squad are two completely different kettles of fish. Obviously their playoff semi final is away from home anyway, as will the final if (god forbid) they make it there. However, for their nations league group games, I think it’s a safe bet that they’ll find some adopted home stadium to play them. Poland would make sense given that it’s a neighbouring country, is geopolitically friendly with Ukraine, and has plenty of large stadiums given that they co-hosted the euros a decade ago.

Yeah I noticed that 2 of “our” games are at 7pm our time and the other is a Friday at 10am. If we qualify I might well book the Friday off work

Qatar not playing the first game is a weird decision

It’ll be easy to work out our route to the final. Just see what the daily Mail says England’s route is and copy it

I’d take that group

Group E is the group of death

Poland coming out there is VERY good news

We will be in the Argentina/Mexico group unless Serbia or Poland land there

All this Europe/non-Europe pairs main we are likely to join a European seed

Double feck

Oh feck.

English media already wanking over not having to play a “real” pot 1 team until at least the QF

Someone should post our route to the final tonight (Obviously starting with Ukraine and Wales)

I’ve got it at 22.5% of automatically getting Qatar. For that to happen they’d need: - To draw USA, Uruguay or Mexico from pot 2 (37.5% chance) - To draw one of Tunisia, Senegal or Morocco from pot 3 (60% chance, as they cannot get Iran, Japan or South Korea) There is still a chance “we” could get Qatar if they draw a UEFA team from pot 2 (or pot 3), but for that to happen we’d also need Brazil and Argentina both to have a European team in their group.

So basically, we are hoping for Qatar to get with a non-European pot 2 team?

UNL fixtures schedule: 3rd June/4th June: Poland v Wales, Ireland v Ukraine, Scotland v Armenia 6th June/7th June: Wales v Netherlands, Scotland v Ukraine 10th June/11th June: Wales v Belgium, Ireland v Scotland, Ukraine v Armenia 13th June/14th June: Netherlands v Wales, Ukraine v Ireland, Armenia v Scotland. I think 4th/7th (Or 3rd/6th) makes sense from the point of view that it means you know exactly which four games need to be rearranged, i.e., the bolded ones. But I did read in some paper a few weeks ago that 4th/14th is in play (With the middle two UNL games being unaffected).

Yeah, if they’re letting Dynamo Kyiv play friendlies then there’s no way the national team will be prevented flying abroad for a World Cup playoff. It’s questionable whether they’re able to get their entire first team squad together as some will want to stay and fight but I think we can assume that the SF will go ahead in some guise.

Trying to get my head around why this is? There are two balls in our pot that can’t be draws against Brazil or Argentina. Namely, Ecuador and the AFC/CONMEBOL winner. So the increases our risk of facing Brazil and Argentina to 1/6 (each). Roughly a 30%-35% chance that we’d face one of them. Similarly, Qatar cannot face Saudi Arabia or the AFC/CONMEBOL winner. So there would be the same 1/6 chance of being drawn against them. The only thing I can think that would tip the scales away from Brazil/Argentina is that Uruguay are in pot 2 so there is a high chance of them being drawn against a European opponent from pot 2, which in turn reduces the risk of us landing in that group. With Qatar, they can play anyone from pot 2 so there’s a 3/8 chance that they’ll avoid a UEFA team.