Marten

Ajax were 1-2 up away at PSV at HT. But in the second half PSV seem to be making amends, 5-2 now with around 15 minutes to go. Excelsior are losing 3-1 against Volendam, we're having a shite second half but at least slightly amusing that our shiteness is sending Ajax to the bottom of the table. Feyenoord lost 2-1 against Twente in a top of the table clash, AZ are at home to NEC later on.

Yep, the bowlers did well today, but their batting is awful. It doesn't help though that the ECB have relegated the domestic 50 over game to a glorified reserve league whilst the stars play an unnecessary tournament in a format that nobody else plays...

India keep getting dot balls and Stokes has just been bowled, 33/3 after 8 overs. You'd fancy India now, especially with Stokes gone.

Absolutely delighted with this. After the hammering by Australia, they picked themselves up and then had this performance, especially the bowlers did great. And that direct hit by Van Beek was a great one. The Dutch media seem to finally take notice of the cricket team too, that media attention has been really lacking so here is hoping it will pick up, this team deserve that.

Meanwhile in de Eerste Divisie, Ajax B dropped to the bottom place in the table.

Ajax just sacked their manager Maurice Steijn. I never saw that coming!

Ajax dropped into the auto relegation places and she made such a statement?

Today was the perfect chance for Ajax to climb out of the bottom places as they played bottom side FC Utrecht. Instead, Utrecht won 4-3, they overtook Ajax who are now in the automatic relegation places.

No, the highest Path A team will be at home to Estonia if there are 3 or 2 Path A teams in the play-offs. Wales can at best be the second highest as one of Poland or Czech Republic will definitely be in the play-offs and both are above Wales. If they are second highest, they'll play a Path B team at home. If they are third highest, they will play Poland or Czech Republic away.

Agreed with all of that. Regarding Path A there is a decent chance Croatia will still make it. They are level in points with Wales but behind them in H2H. Croatia's remaining games are Armenia at home & Latvia away, you'd expect them to get the full 6 points from that. If they do, they will qualify if Wales drop points either at home to Turkey or away to Armenia. If that happens, the semi finals would become Italy v Estonia & Poland v Wales. Even with Italy's recent record of messing up qualification chances, you'd expect them to beat Estonia and then either Poland or Wales. And if Italy beat North Macedonia at home and then Ukraine away, they will qualify automatically. That would pass a Path A play-off spot down to a team from Division B. Ukraine would then be in the PO with one of them, Finland & Iceland being drawn in the Path A PO.

In fairness, the qualifier should count too in this as it's a tough tournament in itself due to only 10 countries being at this World Cup. I've never agreed with only 10 countries at the WC and am glad it gets expanded to 14. Scotland have shown they deserve to be at this stage too. IMO, both The Netherlands and Scotland should be in with a shout of becoming full members with how both have consistently shown to not be any worse than the lesser full members.

Ukraine taking the second place in their group from Italy changes the play-offs. As it stands, no teams from path B will be needed to fill up path A, it will now be as follows: Path A: Croatia v Estonia & Italy v Poland Path B: Israel v Iceland & Bosnia and Herzegovina v Finland Path C : Georgia v Luxembourg & Greece v Kazakhstan

Oh my... I can't quite believe it. I didn't see that coming when we were 140/7!

It could be in Ireland's interests if we qualify automatically, but results in other groups have already made any scenario that would make them reach the playoffs unlikely. However, as we still play Gibraltar after Ireland and we only need to win one of these games to qualify (and that is assuming Greece beat France), I doubt that will be on their mind much anyway at this stage.

Assuming we don't f*ck it up against both Ireland and Gibraltar, that means that our PO ticket will get passed on to a League B team based on the current standings. As things stand, these are the teams in the play-offs now: Path A: Croatia, Poland, Estonia Path B: Israel, Bosnia and Herzegovina Path A or B: Finland, Ukraine, Iceland (one of those will be drawn into path A, the other 2 go in path B) Path C : Georgia, Greece, Kazakhstan, Luxembourg

Yep, must be some words between him and the VAR referee after the game. Anyway, not good from our side, but we got the win and are as good as qualified so I'm definitely happy with that.

Seems to me that the referee wasn't sure why he had to check that when he was at the screen and stuck with his decision as a result. I admit the first penalty was really soft, but this seemed clear enough.

This time it was a clear penalty, 1-0 up at last!

Not exactly exciting stuff from us...

Awful stuff, hopefully they can catch whoever is doing this before more are killed...

Apparently 2 Swedish fans who wanted to attend Belgium v Sweden have been shot dead...

Dank je wel and that's exactly why I'm not overly confident at the moment...

A bit late, but congratulations to Scotland for qualifying with 2 games spare, some achievement that! Hopefully we will follow. If we beat Greece in Athens tonight we'll be as good as qualified (3 more points needed but we're still to play Gibraltar). A draw means we'd still have it in our own hands if we beat Gibraltar & Ireland (at home). A loss would mean that we have to win those 2 games and hope Greece lose to France.

Lochee United 2-1 Tayport Wow, what an ending to the game. In all honesty, this was our poorest game of the season so far. The first half both teams were poor, although I'd say we were slightly better. In the second half, they were better and their goal was coming. Nothing seemed to work after that and it looked like we were heading to a 0-1 defeat. In stoppage time Jack Neave scored an absolute screamer from a distance. As we were just happy with the likely looking draw, Kerr Hay scored the completely unexpected (and in all honesty, undeserved) winner. The game was poor, but if you want to win the league, you need to win these games as well.

Being Dutch, I fully agree.