World Cup 2026

[Sanguine]

It annoys me that Liam Scales isn't related to John. Football is the only place I've come across this surname.

[South Coast Royal]

They may turn out to be just as bad but hopefully BBC commentators and the (un?)necessary co-commentators will be better at the World Cup than ITV's Matterface and Dixon-they IMHO are even worse than Tyldesley.

Yesterday they kept on and on about our record qualifying stats and Dixon just can't stop praising Arsenal players and is even serious about Rice being the best corner taker in world football ....until Saka takes one.
That one was called by Dixon as brilliant even if it hit the head of the defender and deflected for the ever alert Kane to tap in.

A successful qualifying campaign again but they did deign to point out that other teams in the past have had a perfect qualifying but then got knocked out when the real thing came around.

I am not sure what has been learned because the opposition has been weak and allowed us so much easy possession to such an extent that Anderson is now seen by many as a certain starter when it has been impossible to judge how he might do against teams that are any good.
"You can only beat what is put in front of you " is true enough but I have serious doubts about the defensive part of England's game come next year.

At least we are there again having eventually beaten an Albanian side that we were told were unbeaten in recent games -those were 1-0s against the might of Andorra, Gibraltar, Latvia and Serbia.
Having said that, for a small nation that has never beaten anybody of note in their history, I thought they looked tidy last night and came close to drawing the game and I hope they end up qualifying for the very first time.

One last moan-why call it a low block when it has always been known as a packed defence?.

[LUX]

It annoys me that Liam Scales isn't related to John. Football is the only place I've come across this surname.

Yep, Prunella played for Torquay..

[Sanguine]

They may turn out to be just as bad but hopefully BBC commentators and the (un?)necessary co-commentators will be better at the World Cup than ITV's Matterface and Dixon-they IMHO are even worse than Tyldesley.

Yesterday they kept on and on about our record qualifying stats and Dixon just can't stop praising Arsenal players and is even serious about Rice being the best corner taker in world football ....until Saka takes one.
That one was called by Dixon as brilliant even if it hit the head of the defender and deflected for the ever alert Kane to tap in.

A successful qualifying campaign again but they did deign to point out that other teams in the past have had a perfect qualifying but then got knocked out when the real thing came around.

I am not sure what has been learned because the opposition has been weak and allowed us so much easy possession to such an extent that Anderson is now seen by many as a certain starter when it has been impossible to judge how he might do against teams that are any good.
"You can only beat what is put in front of you " is true enough but I have serious doubts about the defensive part of England's game come next year.

At least we are there again having eventually beaten an Albanian side that we were told were unbeaten in recent games -those were 1-0s against the might of Andorra, Gibraltar, Latvia and Serbia.
Having said that, for a small nation that has never beaten anybody of note in their history, I thought they looked tidy last night and came close to drawing the game and I hope they end up qualifying for the very first time.

One last moan-why call it a low block when it has always been known as a packed defence?.

Albania conceded five goals in the group, and four were to us. Sure, the opposition aren't all that, but they can setup defensively. We did well, was a comfortable victory.

Fwiw, Albania has claimed some good recent (ish) victories - beat Poland, Czech Republic and Bulgaria before Euro 2024, where they only lost by one goal to Italy and Spain.

[stealthpapes]

A successful qualifying campaign again but they did deign to point out that other teams in the past have had a perfect qualifying but then got knocked out when the real thing came around.

Hmmm, while England have not lost a World Cup qualifying game since a dead rubber vs Ukraine in 2009 (! I know ...) this is the first perfect record in that they've won every qualifying game since the 1950s. In 'modern times', 1990 saw 3 wins, 3 draws, no goals conceded, then 94 unsuccessful (defeats to Holland and Norway), 98 1 defeat (Italy) 2002 1 defeat (Germany), and 2006 1 defeat (Northern Ireland).

However, there has been no historical correlation between qualifying results and success at final tournaments.
(to be fair ... the last I saw of that was in 2010 ish, so Southgate's two effective qualifying tournaments and highly successful finals performances might skew that).

[stealthpapes]

They may turn out to be just as bad but hopefully BBC commentators and the (un?)necessary co-commentators will be better at the World Cup than ITV's Matterface and Dixon-they IMHO are even worse than Tyldesley.

Yesterday they kept on and on about our record qualifying stats and Dixon just can't stop praising Arsenal players and is even serious about Rice being the best corner taker in world football ....until Saka takes one.
That one was called by Dixon as brilliant even if it hit the head of the defender and deflected for the ever alert Kane to tap in.

A successful qualifying campaign again but they did deign to point out that other teams in the past have had a perfect qualifying but then got knocked out when the real thing came around.

I am not sure what has been learned because the opposition has been weak and allowed us so much easy possession to such an extent that Anderson is now seen by many as a certain starter when it has been impossible to judge how he might do against teams that are any good.
"You can only beat what is put in front of you " is true enough but I have serious doubts about the defensive part of England's game come next year.

At least we are there again having eventually beaten an Albanian side that we were told were unbeaten in recent games -those were 1-0s against the might of Andorra, Gibraltar, Latvia and Serbia.
Having said that, for a small nation that has never beaten anybody of note in their history, I thought they looked tidy last night and came close to drawing the game and I hope they end up qualifying for the very first time.

One last moan-why call it a low block when it has always been known as a packed defence?.

Albania conceded five goals in the group, and four were to us. Sure, the opposition aren't all that, but they can setup defensively. We did well, was a comfortable victory.

Fwiw, Albania has claimed some good recent (ish) victories - beat Poland, Czech Republic and Bulgaria before Euro 2024, where they only lost by one goal to Italy and Spain.

I wouldn't know how to quantify it but it feels like, for the most part, European international games are much closer and the smaller nations have improved - most notably in much better organised defences.

[Clyde1998]

They may turn out to be just as bad but hopefully BBC commentators and the (un?)necessary co-commentators will be better at the World Cup than ITV's Matterface and Dixon-they IMHO are even worse than Tyldesley.

Yesterday they kept on and on about our record qualifying stats and Dixon just can't stop praising Arsenal players and is even serious about Rice being the best corner taker in world football ....until Saka takes one.
That one was called by Dixon as brilliant even if it hit the head of the defender and deflected for the ever alert Kane to tap in.

A successful qualifying campaign again but they did deign to point out that other teams in the past have had a perfect qualifying but then got knocked out when the real thing came around.

I am not sure what has been learned because the opposition has been weak and allowed us so much easy possession to such an extent that Anderson is now seen by many as a certain starter when it has been impossible to judge how he might do against teams that are any good.
"You can only beat what is put in front of you " is true enough but I have serious doubts about the defensive part of England's game come next year.

At least we are there again having eventually beaten an Albanian side that we were told were unbeaten in recent games -those were 1-0s against the might of Andorra, Gibraltar, Latvia and Serbia.
Having said that, for a small nation that has never beaten anybody of note in their history, I thought they looked tidy last night and came close to drawing the game and I hope they end up qualifying for the very first time.

One last moan-why call it a low block when it has always been known as a packed defence?.

Albania conceded five goals in the group, and four were to us. Sure, the opposition aren't all that, but they can setup defensively. We did well, was a comfortable victory.

Fwiw, Albania has claimed some good recent (ish) victories - beat Poland, Czech Republic and Bulgaria before Euro 2024, where they only lost by one goal to Italy and Spain.

I wouldn't know how to quantify it but it feels like, for the most part, European international games are much closer and the smaller nations have improved - most notably in much better organised defences.

I was doing this for something else, but...

If we use the Football Manager database (as a guide) and take the best twenty outfielders and the two best goalkeepers from each country (not considering whether they're retired from internationals), all but seven European nations have a 'best' squad worse than Reading's 'best squad' according to the game (even after we consider our two recent signings): Latvia; Faroe Islands; Malta; Andorra; Liechtenstein; Gibraltar and San Marino.

Essentially, aside from a few microstates, European national teams are above English League One standard. Even though England are slightly better than an Arsenal or Liverpool, a side like Albania (who have the most average squad in Europe by this measure) are the equivalent of Ipswich or Leicester in terms of individual player ability. Organise that right and you've got a difficult team to play against.

[BRO_BOT]

It annoys me that Liam Scales isn't related to John. Football is the only place I've come across this surname.

Yep, Prunella played for Torquay..

tbf International Football on a Monady night is a tough crowd! I chuckled

[BRO_BOT]

Eric Chelle couldn't contain his anger after he saw someone from the DR Congo Team using dark magic (voodoo) in the shoot outs

Is that allowed?

https://x.com/AJSilverCFC/status/1990225104580870479

[Silver Fox]

Germany and Netherlands makes 34, just the 14 to go

Canada
Mexico
USA
Japan
New Zealand
Iran
Argentina
Jordan
Korea Republic
Uzbekistan
Australia
Ecuador
Brazil
Uruguay
Paraguay
Colombia
Morocco
Tunisia
Egypt
Algeria
Ghana
Cabo Verde
South Africa
Qatar
England
Senegal
Cote D'Ivoire
Saudi Arabia
France
Croatia
Norway
Portugal
Germany
Netherlands

[Sanguine]

In Scotland's hands tonight, beat Denmark to get to their first World Cup since 1998.

Switzerland and Spain will join that list^ tonight unless they suffer bizarre heavy defeats. Kosovo and Turkey need to beat them each by seven goals to take the automatic spots.

Belgium will qualify by beating Liechenstein.

Also a shoot-out in group H, where Austria will need to avoid defeat against Bosnia and Herzegovina in order to qualify.

[Winston Biscuit]

Iraq Vs UAE at 4pm today

[Silver Fox]

Interesting* that UEFA have managed to make all the deciding matches tonight to be winner takes alls (GD excepted) with the addition of WaLOLes needing to beat North Macedonia for a playoff spot

[Winston Biscuit]

59 minutes in and UAE have just taken the lead

[Clyde1998]

59 minutes in and UAE have just taken the lead

Iraq score a seventeenth minute of added time penalty to win the game 2-1 and advance to the inter-confederational play-offs.

[Winston Biscuit]

Allahu akbar!!

[Orion1871]

[Orion1871]

Scott McTominay gives Scotland the lead in three minutes with a bicycle kick.

[Winston Biscuit]

McTominay

[Clyde1998]

https://x.com/BBCSportScot/status/1990871517870149871