Donathan

ISIS and Hamas are two sides of the same coin. Both Islamic Jihadist organisations. This attack is likely revenge against the West for supporting Israel.

Yup, basically confirms it.

Unconfirmed reports that the gunman posted a video online pledging allegiance to ISIS before the attack.

Terrorist attack in Belgium reportedly related to this.

What game is this and what’s happened?

It’s never too early to be thinking ahead. Indeed, taking the Nations League seriously is a big part of the reason why we’ve gotten where we are not (both in terms of euro 2020 where we got in through the playoffs, and doing well in the most recent instance to clinch a pot 2 seeding for the upcoming euros)

It’ll get lost amongst the euphoria of Scotland fans but got to say Norway’s performance in this group was an abject failure. Draw in Georgia, they did beat them at home but only held on because Georgia missed a great chance to equalise at the end, nothing against Spain, 2-1 defeat at home to us. They took care of business against Cyprus but seriously not good enough.

Underrated point here but I’m kind of buzzing for the draw itself. Last time because of the unique hosting format we were guaranteed to be in the group that was played at Hampden and Wembley (and even at that we hadn’t officially qualified when the draw was made) so we couldn’t get properly hyped for it. Similarly we were “involved” in the draw for the Qatar World Cup but it wasn’t certain that we’d qualify and we ultimately didn’t. Being in a proper draw for a proper tournament that we’ve qualified for using the traditional route is something that you’d need to be well into your thirties to remember happening for Scotland.

If the draw was today: Pot 1 - France, England, Belgium, Croatia, Netherlands, Portugal, Switzerland, Spain, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Ukraine Pot 2 - Austria, Serbia, Poland, Scotland, Hungary, Wales, Czech Republic, Turkey, Norway, Romania, Slovakia, Greece Pot 3 - Finland, Ireland, Slovenia, Albania, Bosnia, North Macedonia, Iceland, Montenegro, Israel, Northern Ireland, Bulgaria, Georgia Pot 4 - Luxembourg, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Kosovo, Estonia, Cyprus, Azerbaijan, Faroe Islands, Latvia, Lithuania, Andorra Pot 5 - Moldova, Malta, Gibraltar, Liechtenstein, San Marino I don’t think we should be too worried about any of those pot 3 teams so I’d back us to get at least a playoff. Slovenia and Albania would be the trickiest customers as both are rapidly improving sides. Conversely there’s a few pot 1 teams that I’d back us to go and win the group over. Sweden in particular are guff and their current world ranking being so good tells me that the ranking system is based over way too long of a period to be particularly relevant.

Finland are now guaranteed a playoff spot as the best runner up from league B. They have an outside chance to qualify automatically, but most likely they’ll be in the playoffs. Of the other league B winners, Serbia look good to qualify directly, Israel have a 50/50 chance, Bosnia probably not. The next reserves to get into the playoffs are, in order of priority: Ukraine, Iceland, Norway, Slovenia, Republic of Ireland and Albania. Of those, Slovenia and Albania look good to qualify directly anyway. Ireland and Norway are out of the running to qualify directly. Ukraine and Iceland have an outside chance but playoffs more likely. There’s also a chance of one of these teams getting into the league A playoffs. One of Wales and Croatia will definitely miss out on direct qualification and one of Poland or Czech Republic will probably miss out. That leaves two slots, although one of those may be needed by the Netherlands if they crash out in favour of Greece. If there’s only one spot left in league A, the first priority reserve is actually Estonia as league D winners. However if there are two spots (i.e., if Netherlands do qualify directly), then one of the spots will be filled by a league B team. We global only give Ireland a 0.5% chance to make the playoffs now whereas Norway is around 50/50. Slovenia are likely to qualify directly BUT if they miss out, they only have around a 1/3 chance of being in the playoffs. Norway need three from: 1) Netherlands to qualify ahead of Greece 2) Poland AND Czech Republic to qualify over Albania (highly unlikely) 3) Israel to qualify over Romania 4) Bosnia to qualify over Slovakia (highly unlikely) 5) Serbia hold onto their automatic place (almost certain) Ireland would need four of those to happen AND Slovenia to hold on to their spot. Ireland would need

In which case that has changed since the last World Cup. Austria and Czech Republic (both league B group winners) were given the two playoff spots for nations league teams whereas Bosnia-Herzegovina, a league A team at the time, missed out entirely.

Humza now saying that a majority of seats for the SNP at the next general election will trigger an independence referendum. Only problem is, it won’t. Yet again the SNP are making the rules up when they know fine well that whoever is PM after the election will just say no. I want someone to ask Humza what his next move is when the PM says no again.

Unless the rules have changed slightly, the 4 NL slots go to the best 4 group winners rather than the best 4 teams altogether. Given that there’s 24 slots to be filled through the main qualifying tournament for either direct qualification or the playoffs, you’d have to think at least one or two of the league C group winners will get a playoff. At the moment we are 17th in UEFA which is in the middle of pot 2. We’d need to climb 5 slots to sneak into pot 1. 3 of the 5 teams directly above us have a fairly significant risk of missing the euros (Sweden almost certain to miss out, and both Ukraine and Poland are likely relying on the playoffs) so hopefully we’d have a chance to climb above some of them.

We global pot projections: Pot 1: Germany, Portugal, France, Belgium, Spain, Hungary Pot 2: England, Denmark, Albania, Turkey, Switzerland, SCOTLAND Pot 3: Austria, Netherlands, Serbia, Italy, Croatia, Czech Republic Pot 4: Slovenia, Slovakia, Israel, playoff winners x3 From pot 1 I’d fancy a crack at any of hosts Germany, Belgium or Hungary. Hungary are the weakest on paper but have a very well organised team. Germany have been relatively weak for five years now and Belgium’s golden era is over. After that my next choice would be France. If we can’t get a winnable game then I’d rather at least play someone that will also beat the other teams easily. I know we beat Spain at Hampden but I don’t fancy playing them or Portugal at a neutral venue. Pot 3 - Boring as they’re all recent opponents but it’s really got to be one of Austria, Serbia or Czech Republic. I think I’d rather play Serbia because the other two will almost feel like an away game being countries that border Germany. Having said that there’s a strong argument that it’s better to play Czech Republic and be the team seeking revenge, whereas Austria and Serbia want revenge on us. Italy, Croatia and Netherlands are all very strong teams that we’d be hoping to avoid. Pot 4 - After playing Israel 7 times between autumn 2018 and autumn 2021, we’ve not played them for a couple of years. A reunion might be in our best interests because Slovenia have Benjamin Sesko and he gives me the fear in the same way Patrik Schick did at the last euros. Slovakia would also be a decent draw and so would the league C playoff winners (Greece most likely). You probably want to avoid the other two playoff winners (league A likely Poland or Wales, league B could be a reunion with Ukraine)

It’s pretty telling that he didn’t play either of them in a friendly in Turkey over a 40 year old Gordon and then begged Gunn to join up when Gordon became injured. He clearly doesn’t rate them.

I’d been reluctant to start this thread before our qualification was confirmed but now that we are officially in, let’s discuss who’s going to be in the squad for the finals. It’s not clear yet whether UEFA will retain 26 man squads or whether that was just a COVID thing and we’ll go back to 23. Barring any injuries I think the following players are locks: Goalkeepers: Angus Gunn Defenders: Andy Robertson, Kieran Tierney, Aaron Hickey, Nathan Patterson, Jack Hendry, Grant Hanley, Ryan Porteous, Scott McKenna Midfielders: John McGinn, Scott McTominay, Billy Gilmour, Callum McGregor, Kenny McLean, Lewis Ferguson, Stuart Armstrong Forwards: Che Adams, Lyndon Dykes, Ryan Christie That really only leaves a couple of outfield slots unless they do go stick with squads of 26. The last two outfield slots comes down so either a 5th CB (Liam Cooper or John Souttar), another WB (Greg Taylor, Tony Ralston or Josh Doig), another midfielder (Ryan Jack) or a 4th forward (any of Jacob Brown, Kevin Nisbet or Lawrence Shankland) Obviously if it’s 26 you can have one of each and bring along Ben Doak as a young wildcard pick. Don’t be surprised as well to see Elliott Anderson commit now that we’ve qualified. Not sure if there’s anyone else that could play their way into Steve’s thoughts. For the two remaining goalkeeper slots, I think a fit Craig Gordon will be brought along as cover for Angus Gunn because I don’t think the manager will want to be one injury away from having to put Kelly or Clark into a major tournament game. If Gordon does come then I think Robby McCrorie could be the third keeper, whereas if there’s no Gordon then it’ll be both Clark and Kelly.

What did he say?

What are they singing that's to the same tune as God Save The King?

Can't see any of those teams causing Spain trouble. I expect them all to qualify either way.

I see Viaplay have given it the Rory Hamilton and Michael Stewart treatment.

7 minutes added now. Can anyone find a winner?

3-3!!!

3-2 now. Man City’s Akanji just scored. Switzerland have a minute plus injury time to find an equaliser.

3-1 Belarus. Goal was initially ruled out for offside but a long VAR check ends up with the goal being awarded.

Switzerland 2-1 down at home to Belarus is a potential shocker