Donathan

Darijo Srna, DOF of Shakhtar Donetsk, confirms that the game has been moved to June. This likely means that our UNL home game vs Armenia gets moved from 4th June to 16th November (when we’d play a pre-WC friendly if we qualify, so this would be instead of a friendly), and if we win the playoff SF then the final would be on 14th June so we’d have to move our trip to Armenia back to September and form a triple header with Ireland home and Ukraine away. Also means Ukraine will be at Hampden twice in 72 hours. Playoff semi on 4th June and UNL game on 7th June. I think UEFA will schedule two friendlies for us in the March window: Thursday 24th March: Home vs Poland Monday 28th March: Away vs loser of Wales/Austria

Ah right. Not sure who replaces Turnbull. Maybe Ferguson. I listed Fraser at RWB because both SOD and NP haven’t been getting a game for their club, so I think Clarke might play the in form Fraser over either of them.

If they go to 32 there’s little reason not to let everyone in. Only 23 teams would miss out in that scenario and all five UK/IRE nations are pretty comfortably ranked in the top 32. They could do something along the lines of: 10 groups of five Top 2 in each group and best three 3rd placed teams qualify directly, the other four third placed teams form a playoff path. Then three other playoff paths from the top ranked UNL teams that haven’t already qualified Also likely that the home nations would be reprised in 2027 as an alternative to centralised friendlies. This would be useful for promoting the tournament.

If we are playing competitive football in March (far from guaranteed) then my predicted 26 man squad is: Goalkeepers Craig Gordon (Hearts) Liam Kelly (Motherwell) David Marshall (QPR) Defenders Stephen O’Donnell (Motherwell) Nathan Patterson (Everton) Andy Robertson (Liverpool) Kieran Tierney (Arsenal) Ryan Fraser (Newcastle United) Grant Hanley (Norwich City) Jack Hendry (Club Brugge) Scott McTominay (Manchester United) Scott McKenna (Nottingham Forest) John Souttar (Hearts) Anthony Ralston (Celtic) Midfielders Callum McGregor (Celtic) Billy Gilmour (Norwich City) John McGinn (Aston Villa) Ryan Jack (Rangers) Kenny McLean (Norwich City) Stuart Armstrong (Southampton) David Turnbull (Celtic) Forwards Lyndon Dykes (QPR) - if fit Che Adams (Southampton) Ryan Christie (AFC Bournemouth) Jacob Brown (Stoke City) Ross Stewart (Sunderland)

McTominay back for the Manchester derby

Still no sign of Dykes for QPR yesterday but Ryan Christie came off the bench for Bournemouth.

Eve Muirhead & Bobby Lammie won the Scottish mixed doubles championship in Perth this afternoon with a 9-2 win over Jen Dodds & Bruce Mouat (the defending world champions) in the final.

Reckon only England will get automatic qualification but (like with the previous Euros) they will guarantee that if any of the other host nations qualify then they will play their group games at home

Probably end up with something like: Group A - Wembley and Tottenham Group B - Dublin and Belfast Group C - Manchester and Liverpool Group D - Glasgow and Edinburgh Group E - Newcastle and Leeds Group F - Cardiff and Birmingham Last 16: Tottenham, Dublin, Belfast, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Leeds, Birmingham, Liverpool QFs: Wembley, Cardiff, Manchester and Newcastle Semi’s: Glasgow and Dublin Final: Wembley

Can he get banned from the six nations for that?

https://www.uefa.com/MultimediaFiles/Download/competitions/Draws/02/06/15/09/2061509_DOWNLOAD.pdf This seems to be the oldest mention I can find of centralised friendlies. France (who automatically qualified for euro 2016 as host) were compelled to play friendlies against one of the smaller groups.

Just in the last five years or so.

Lendl doesn’t strike me as someone who would just come back for a laugh for old times sake. Murray obviously still thinks he can play at a high level and Lendl agrees.

This isn’t allowed anymore. UEFA force you to play a friendly on available international dates to stop teams manipulating their world ranking.

I’ve read that the dates of 4th and 14th June respectively are being considered for the SCO v UKR SF and the final. What this would likely mean: UNL matchday one for our group (4th June) gets moved all the way back to November, right before the World Cup. That’s our home game against Armenia and Ukraine’s trip to Ireland. They’d be played on Wednesday November 16th. If either Scotland or Ukraine make the WC, they’d then lose the ability to play a friendly on that date. But needs must. For whichever two of Wales/Austria/Scotland/Ukraine make the playoff final, their UNL MD4 game (14th June) would get moved to September to form a triple header. Ukraine would likely be warned that no future rearrangements are possible and that if they fail to fulfil any more fixtures then they’ll be given a 3-0 forfeit.

My prediction for what will happen: - Wales v Austria will go ahead - Playoff path B will go ahead, with Poland given a bye to the final. - Scotland v Ukraine playoff semi-final moved to the first matchday of the June playoff, and the final Wales/Austria v Scotland/Ukraine to the second matchday (roughly 4th and 7th June respectively). - FIFA/UEFA will make it clear that if Ukraine are still unable to fulfil the fixture at this point, they will have no choice but to withdraw from the competition and Scotland would then get a bye to the final. - Draw for the finals goes ahead with the European playoff winner given pot 4 status. - Austria v Belgium or Wales v France pushed back to September to make a triple header (enabling the SF winner to play the final in June) - Scotland v Armenia and Ireland v Ukraine also pushed back to September to make a triple header - Scotland v Ukraine (UNL game) moves to the period immediately before the World Cup

Like the idea of a friendly against Poland with the proceeds going to Ukraine

Steal freaks my nut out to this day

So basically NATO is stuck between a rock and a hard place now? Enforcing a NFZ would be tantamount to declaring war on Russia, likely leading to nuclear weapons being fired at western targets and hundreds of millions of us would die. Not enforcing a NFZ would be tantamount to giving Putin a free pass to either annexe Ukraine or to overthrow their government and install a pro-Russian puppet, and the he just moves on to the next target (Moldova?) and before you know it we have a full blown Soviet Union again. The current fudge from western powers is to arm Ukraine to better defend itself whilst choking the Russian economy with the biggest package of economic sanctions in living memory in the hope that it will ramp up internal pressure on Putin to either pull back, or resign. There’s a danger in there that if Putin thinks he’s losing this war then he might say f**k it and nuke everyone anyway. I really fail to see what the way out is here.

That McLeish suggestion is pretty wacky. Instead FIFA should do something more realistic like merge Scotland and Ukraine together into Scokraine and have them play the Wales/Austria winner. Do the same with the other path and then ensure that Scokraine and Polanssia are kept apart in the finals draw to avoid WW3 breaking out.

You’ll need a stab proof vest.

There should certainly be no delay. That would be grossly unfair to Wales who would be in pot 3 if they qualify, but “Europe 1” would be in pot 4. As pointed out earlier in the thread, Russia could have the ban lifted at any moment (and likewise, Ukraine could find themselves more able to fulfil the fixture at any moment if a ceasefire is agreed). For this reason I think calling up ringer teams is probably a non-starter, so it’ll likely be byes to the final for Poland (almost certainly) and Scotland (probable) unless a ceasefire is agreed. This also goes in line with the precedent set by the Spartak Moscow/RB Leipzig situation. I say a bye for us is only probable because I think there’s a non-zero chance that Ukraine will cobble together a team of overseas based players, whereas for Poland I think a bye is all but certain unless there’s a ceasefire leading to Russia being reinstated

Russia now suspended so unlikely to be a boycott id think

Assuming no one would touch him with a barge pole the two choices are pay him throughout the length of his contract while he’s de facto suspended on full pay, or (if cash flow permits) pay him the full lot as a lump sum to go now. I would imagine they’ll do the former until the summer to see if some overseas club might take him. If they can’t punt him in the summer transfer window then maybe we see them “mutually agree to part ways” after that.

I’m all for this becoming the honeys of curling thread