Donathan

Tinfoil hat time, I'm wondering if winning our group here is actually a good thing or not. This is the nations league before Euro 2024. Generally for Euros, you're all but guaranteed a playoff spot just by being in league B. The next one after this is the world cup 2026 nations league. Assuming the current format is retained (There are 16 spots rather than 13, so they may offer more playoff spots or still have 12 teams but just do one-off ties rather than 4 team playoffs) you MUST be a UNL group winner and almost certainly for league A or league B. That being the case, it's easier to win a group in league B. So really we should finish 2nd here rather than win the group.

Just noticed that you're playing at home on Tuesday at 3:30pm. What's that all about?

Hendry shouldn't have shot but Marshall was the main person at fault IMO

I assume Craig Gordon wasn’t fannying about in a different postcode from his goal line.

Interestingly I live down south and I noticed a lot of snobbery among the fans down here when they played Andorra last week, with many suggesting that that it’s unreasonable to demand that the English players risk injury by playing such a “meaningless” fixture. When I pointed out that Andorra have as much right as anyone else to attempt to qualify for the World Cup, they said whilst this was true, most of the other confederations (apart from tiny CONMEBOL) have preliminary rounds to whittle out some of the diddies with the bigger teams coming in later in the competition. I wonder if UEFA will ever look to go down to just 10 groups of 4 for the Euros and 8 groups of 4 for the WC qualifiers (as they will have 16 spots from 2026)

Jo Cox?

I think he’s already back from holiday as he was running a cabinet away day in the south west today, which has presumably been cancelled now

Sadly he has now passed away at the scene

I don’t mean giving them a break from the qualifiers, though. I just mean, for example, you could take the group winners from UEFA who get the top 5 points and put them straight into the group stages rather than having to play a preliminary round

I’d genuinely rather have 64 teams rather than 48. At least then you’d have two advantages over 48: 1) It fits nicely into the more traditional 16/32 team format rather than the relatively shit format with two-third of the 3rd place teams qualifying or, even worse, the horrendous 16 groups of 3 format that is being implemented. 2) If you go to 64 you’ll have a shit load of diddies rather than a few who stick out like a sore thumb and we can just recalibrate our expectations to acknowledge that the opening group round is basically an extension of qualifying. If they’re going to insist on 48, then in my opinion there should be 16 “super qualifying” spots (Say 6 for UEFA, 3 for CONMEBOL, 2 AFC, 2 CAF, 2 CONCACAF and 1 host) who go straight into the group stage, then the remaining 32 qualifiers have to play a preliminary knockout game to make the group stage.

Who was the English player about a decade ago that has a single substitute appearance in a qualifier and vultured a goal by tapping one on the line that was blatantly already going in? I think it would have been a Jermaine Defoe goal but can’t remember who it was that applied the final touch but I’m sure he has the best goals per minute ratio in international football history.

Like its mitigating all the big clubs in England getting all the decisions.... https://www.planetfootball.com/quick-reads/how-the-premier-league-table-would-look-if-we-didnt-have-var-in-2020-21/ Everton and West Ham actually the biggest winners from VAR with Arsenal, Brighton and Liverpool the biggest losers.

Like its mitigating all the big clubs in England getting all the decisions.... What evidence do you have that this is the case?

It’s a 48 team effort so they can easily fit three berths of automatic qualifying in, especially when those three include the two giants of CONCACAF and the possible emerging third force. They’ll just heavily limit how many berths CONCACAF get from the qualifiers and you’ll end up with the usual 6 berths going to USA, Mexico, Canada, Panama, Costa Rica and Jamaica but the first three won’t have had to play qualifiers.

It’s interesting that people seem to think the OF will benefit from VAR decision. They currently benefit from horrendous on field refereeing decision and VAR being brought in will mitigate this.