Burnie_man Posted September 26, 2019 Share Posted September 26, 2019 49 minutes ago, forameus said: Is there really that much difference between that and the bottom 16 ranked? If they take it away now, it's really poor in my opinion. This spot was the aim for these sides, the chance to be at a major tournament, and potentially the chance to inspire a nation to really kick on to the next level. Remove it, and these countries go back to may as well not existing, in a footballing sense. Plus, as someone who watches tournaments to be entertained, if that team goes up and contributes to even one match you're going to remember post-tournament, then that already puts them above most of the average teams that go. I'd far rather see any of the teams currently in line for a playoff spot in League D play anyone in the tournament, rather than some middle-of-the-road match like Sweden vs Denmark (with no offence meant to either of those). IMO Gibraltar, Faroe Islands, Liechtenstein, Latvia, Andorra, Malta, or San Marino shouldn't have a 1 in 7 chance of qualifying. I'd rather watch Sweden v Denmark than a turkey shoot of Andorra v Germany. If the qualifying spot remains, I rather suspect it's going to be a group of 4, and a group of 3, with the winners qualifying. Some League C teams will be desperate to be relegated into that. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Donathan Posted September 26, 2019 Author Share Posted September 26, 2019 1 hour ago, Burnie_man said: IMO Gibraltar, Faroe Islands, Liechtenstein, Latvia, Andorra, Malta, or San Marino shouldn't have a 1 in 7 chance of qualifying. I'd rather watch Sweden v Denmark than a turkey shoot of Andorra v Germany. If the qualifying spot remains, I rather suspect it's going to be a group of 4, and a group of 3, with the winners qualifying. Some League C teams will be desperate to be relegated into that. I could see them just doing a single group of 7 with three home and three away games each and the top 4 getting promoted (replaced by the bottom sides in each league C group). No qualification spots. Having 6 games each would mean all 55 teams play 6 games. If any new member joins then they could go to two groups of 4 with the top two in each group promoted. Still no qualification spots. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HibeeJibee Posted September 26, 2019 Share Posted September 26, 2019 (edited) Likely that only A + B winners will get playoff places for WC 2022... alongside 10 qualifying runners-up... and as noted for Euro 2024 likely that D winner will only get to fill a space further up. EDIT: Incidentally it's confirmed Division D will have 2 groups of 4 & 3... winners promoted... bottom finishers in Division C playoff for relegation. I'd have gone 1 group of 7... top 2 promoted. Edited September 26, 2019 by HibeeJibee 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
forameus Posted September 27, 2019 Share Posted September 27, 2019 Looking at the "new" Division B...am I being mental in thinking that with a decent draw we could win one of those groups? Based on the last NL rankings (which are looking pretty generous to us right now...) we're the 5th seeded team, so in pot 2. Our pot 1 teams are Russia (well...), Austria (yeah, probably), Wales and Czech Republic. We'll avoid Norway, Serbia and Finland (which one of those beats us in March?) and then outside of that it's a lot of mixed teams. Wales, N. Ireland and Israel would be a winnable group to me. Of course, disclaimer that in a year's time when these games take place, we could either be off the back of being at the Euros, or being on one of the worst dips we've been on in ages, which obviously affects things. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charger29 Posted September 27, 2019 Share Posted September 27, 2019 Looking at the "new" Division B...am I being mental in thinking that with a decent draw we could win one of those groups? Based on the last NL rankings (which are looking pretty generous to us right now...) we're the 5th seeded team, so in pot 2. Our pot 1 teams are Russia (well...), Austria (yeah, probably), Wales and Czech Republic. We'll avoid Norway, Serbia and Finland (which one of those beats us in March?) and then outside of that it's a lot of mixed teams. Wales, N. Ireland and Israel would be a winnable group to me. Of course, disclaimer that in a year's time when these games take place, we could either be off the back of being at the Euros, or being on one of the worst dips we've been on in ages, which obviously affects things.Its not impossible but unlikely given recent performances.I'm not sure I'd want us to sneak into the top league anyway, other than just to say we got there. We'd be back down to B straight away with our tails between our legs and 5/6 losses to help tank our world ranking even more.Getting 2nd/3rd place in B would likely give a playoff spot for the majority of tournaments anyway. Probably the best place for us. Edit: How many points would we need to finish top of a 6 game group. 12pts min? 3 home wins plus an away win sounds tough. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
forameus Posted September 27, 2019 Share Posted September 27, 2019 14 minutes ago, charger29 said: Its not impossible but unlikely given recent performances. I'm not sure I'd want us to sneak into the top league anyway, other than just to say we got there. We'd be back down to B straight away with our tails between our legs and 5/6 losses to help tank our world ranking even more. Getting 2nd/3rd place in B would likely give a playoff spot for the majority of tournaments anyway. Probably the best place for us. Edit: How many points would we need to finish top of a 6 game group. 12pts min? 3 home wins plus an away win sounds tough. Well I was only meaning from the possibility of the playoffs giving a spot at the World Cup. There is absolutely no fucking chance we're getting that from the traditional means, so at least it'd be an outside shot. But yeah, in terms of going up to A (where we'd get absolutely pummeled) it's not great. In terms of 2nd/3rd being enough for a playoff, would that be the case for the hypothetical World Cup scenario? 10 qualify, and they're likely all going to be from the top division. I can't see anyone in that second pot being good enough to top a qualifying group. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charger29 Posted September 27, 2019 Share Posted September 27, 2019 Well I was only meaning from the possibility of the playoffs giving a spot at the World Cup. There is absolutely no fucking chance we're getting that from the traditional means, so at least it'd be an outside shot. But yeah, in terms of going up to A (where we'd get absolutely pummeled) it's not great. In terms of 2nd/3rd being enough for a playoff, would that be the case for the hypothetical World Cup scenario? 10 qualify, and they're likely all going to be from the top division. I can't see anyone in that second pot being good enough to top a qualifying group.The 10 that finish 2nd in their wc quali group will be in the playoffs so that means... we'll we don't really know what that means yet but that makes a total of 20 teams who won't be taken into account for the NL playoff places. It's probably not as simple to get a wc playoff through the NL as I had initially though though.It's interesting that they never agreed to anything at the UEFA meeting a few days ago. Maybe some disagreement on only 2 teams from NL getting a playoff spot. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
forameus Posted September 28, 2019 Share Posted September 28, 2019 On 27/09/2019 at 13:48, charger29 said: The 10 that finish 2nd in their wc quali group will be in the playoffs so that means... we'll we don't really know what that means yet but that makes a total of 20 teams who won't be taken into account for the NL playoff places. It's probably not as simple to get a wc playoff through the NL as I had initially though though. It's interesting that they never agreed to anything at the UEFA meeting a few days ago. Maybe some disagreement on only 2 teams from NL getting a playoff spot. Surely it'd be either a qualifying playoff or a nation's league playoff rather than both? Rhetorical question of course, no one knows. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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