Donathan

Hopefully secret agents Che and Stuart can be recruiting him. Don’t get me wrong I like Patterson, but Livramento walks into our XI

Walker-Peters starting for England today so there’s another one that Livramento is behind

It’ll be at the Cardiff City Stadium without a shadow of a doubt

No doubt Egypt will beat Senegal too completing a clean sweep for the North African sides

Qatar are new as well actually

North Macedonia say hi!

DR Congo have never been to the World Cup in their current guise but they of course did go to the 1974 World Cup under the name of Zaire, when they were in our group

Turkey seem to bid for a lot of things and lose out. Will this be their turn?

In total 19 spots have already been determined. A further 10 will be determined this week and the final 3 in June.

Quick state of play in the qualifiers after last night: Asia Qualified teams: 4 Remaining spots: 0.5 Japan's win in Australia seals a spot for both them and Saudi Arabia, joining the already qualified Iran and South Korea. The Socceroos can still qualify, but will need to win 2 playoff matches. The first of those will be against one of UAE, Iraq or Lebanon. The winner of that game will face the South American 5th placed team in the final playoffs. Africa Qualified teams: 0 Remaining spots: 5 Five two-legged playoffs will determine the 5 representatives. First legs are being played today with the deciding legs on Tuesday. Today's fixtures are: DR Congo v Morocco - 3pm Cameroon v Algeria - 5pm Mali v Tunisia - 5pm Egypt v Senegal - 7:30pm Ghana v Nigeria - 7:30pm North America Qualified teams: 0 Remaining spots: 3.5 With two games left in the round robin, Canada have 1.99 feet in Qatar and the USA and Mexico have 1. Costa Rice and Panama both still have a chance, but realistically they'll be focusing on finishing 4th and having a playoff against the Oceanian winner. South America Qualified teams: 4 Remaining spots: 0.5 Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador and Uruguay have all qualified with at least one game to spare. Peru lead the chase for the playoff spot (Against Australia/UAE/Iraq/Lebanon), but either Colombia or Chile could pip them on the final day. Oceania Qualified teams: 0 Remaining spots: 0.5 Covid has wreaked all kinds of havoc on this process but they're down to the semi finals, which are being played on Sunday with the final on Wednesday Solomon Islands v Papua New Guinea New Zealand v Tahiti Winner will face (most likely) either Costa Rica or Panama. Europe Qualified teams: 10 Remaining spots: 3 10 group winners have already qualified: France, Germany, Croatia, Serbia, England, Spain, Switzerland, Denmark, Belgium and Netherlands. The remaining three berths will be decided by the playoff final winners: Poland v Sweden (Tuesday) Portugal v North Macedonia (Tuesday) Wales v Scotland or Ukraine (June)

It’s annoying that he’s pretty much frozen out by Real Madrid as we can’t count on him doing a hammy a few weeks before the final now. Kieran Tierney will just have to mark him out the game.

For me, the team that started last night is the exact line up that would have started the playoff semi final had it been played (given Robertson had covid and Dykes wasn’t fit) I think we will ring the changes for the Austria game Kelly Halkett-Hendry-Tierney SOD-McLean-Jack-Hickey Armstrong Stewart-Brown Debuts for Kelly, Halkett and Ross Stewart, with Jacob Brown getting a first proper appearance (He’s got two caps, but came on in the 85th minute in Moldova and the 90th minute last night) I’d also give Clark and Ferguson the second half to get them some minutes and would like to see Patterson, Taylor and Gilmour involved off the bench. Everyone else gets a well earned rest.

Bale is basically a striker for Wales. The wing backs won’t be marking him.

You are an absolute roaster.

The last time a healthy McTominay didn’t play RCB in a competitive game was, IIRC, the Czech Republic game in the euros. In that case we were missing Ryan Jack, and Gilmour hadn’t broken into the first team yet, so McTominay played in midfield and Hendry played RCB. In that game, Hendry was at least partially at fault for the killer second goal (albeit Marshall was also to blame) A back-3 requires the RCB and LCB to take turns pushing up the park, you can’t leave all three back or you get overrun in midfield. This is what both McTominay and Tierney do so masterfully. If you want to drop McTominay you might as well change to a 4-2-3-1 with Robertson/Tierney taking turns to push on to the LW Gordon Patterson-Hendry-Hanley-Tierney Gilmour-McGregor McGinn-Adams-Robertson Dykes

That’s so incredibly defeatist

Qatar are no mugs and if anything would be slight favourites to beat us on home soil (52nd ranked vs our 40th, but home advantage may tip in their favour), but ultimately, you have to snap up the choice of drawing a team who’s ranking suggests they should be 4th seeds rather than one of the top 8 teams in the world. Being in their group would also give the possibility of playing in the opening game, which would be fitting given we did so 24 years ago in our last World Cup.

Do you mean naturalise?

Or not

Beginning to look like the road to Qatar goes through Cardiff

The u-17 elite stage is also being played (in Scotland) just now. All games are at the Falkirk stadium apart from the Germany/Czech Republic game on the last matchday, which is in Hamilton. Matchday 1 results: Scotland 2-2 Czech Republic Germany 3-0 Georgia Scotland were two down at half time thanks to two late first half goals but pegged one back on the 70th minute then scored an injury time equaliser to grab a point

Their qualifying playoffs are being played before the draw (i.e. this week) and my pots were based on an assumption of all the top ranked teams winning through.

Assuming that the teams currently in qualifying positions in CONCACAF/AFC continue to hold them and that the higher ranked teams emerge from UEFA/CAF playoffs then the pots will likely be: Pot1: Qatar, Belgium, France, Argentina, England, Italy, Spain Pot2: Denmark, Netherlands, Germany, Mexico, USA, Switzerland, Croatia, Uruguay Pot3: Sweden, Senegal, Iran, Japan, Morocco, Serbia, South Korea, Nigeria Pot4: Canada, Tunisia, Cameroon, Ecuador, Saudi Arabia, UEFA Path A winner, AFC/CONMEBOL playoff winner, CONCACAF/OFC playoff winner We would play up to 1 other European team and 2/3 from Asia/Africa/North America/South America (but no more than 1 from each) Dream group: Qatar, USA, Nigeria, UEFA Path A winner. Nightmare group: Brazil, Germany, Senegal, UEFA Path A winner

I doubt he changes the system for a friendly so we are probably looking at: Gordon McTominay-Hanley-Tierney Patterson-Gilmour-McGregor-Taylor McGinn-Adams-Christie

This is how it worked in England on both occasions that mandatory face coverings were removed. The first week, a majority still wear them. By week two it’s 50-50. After a month you’re talking 15%-20% wearing them.