News: Other Teams - WC 2022 / International Edition (R)

If they do or do not qualify for Qatar but believe next year is Ronaldos last year .

And top 10 world wide will be tough to keep , with out him .

 

I’ve clarified my position just a few posts back and there was certainly no intention to offend anyone .

 

Right ok, but even looking beyond ‘the real German’ comments which can be pretty offensive, your point was that they somehow shouldn’t count the same as other German CF’s because they weren’t born in Germany. This is despite the fact they were both 100% trained at German clubs and in the German footballing system.

Podolski also played at u17, u18, u19 and u21 for the DFB. For me if he had played for Poland at senior level it would have been more like poaching, not the other way around.

 

he sounds like butthurt Pole who thinks Germany "stole" Klose and Podolski from them. And I've seen that type of fixation for 20+ years now.

 

Yeah totally deserved by Serbia. The better side from basically 10 minutes onwards. Especially after a pretty horrible error from Patricio for the equaliser Portugal didn’t offer a lot and played like they were going for the draw, dropped deeper and deeper.

Portugal have a lot of attacking talent, but I don’t think Santos’ tactics gets the best out of them. Every time I see them they look pretty pedestrian.

 

I prefer Portugal qualify for 2 reasons.
1-Majority of my life they qualify, would be weird without them
2-Have ability to take out other top countries.

 

Yeah Portugal still have a decent chance, they have experience of playoffs in the recent past and have enough match winners in their squad. But in a one off match anything can happen, wouldn’t like being a Portugal fan right now. The wait until March is gonna be pretty tense.

Talking of the playoffs, as far as I can gather, the 10 group runners up + 2 teams via the nations league will be placed into 3 pairs of one leg semi finals, with the 6 winners playing off in a one leg final v the other winner of their paired SF to produce 3 more finalists.

So far the countries guaranteed play offs are
Portugal, Sweden, Wales*, Czech Rep*, Scotland, Austria*, Russia, Poland, North Macedonia, plus 3 from Italy/Switzerland, Finland/Ukraine and Netherlands/Turkey/Norway.

*Austria, Wales/Czech Rep qualify for playoffs via Nations League performance. Wales & Czech Rep can both still finish 2nd in Group E but whichever team doesn’t will still be in the playoffs in any case.

The 6 seeded teams will be those with the best record in qualifying, taking out results v 6th placed countries. Those seeds will get a home SF.

Personally I would like to see Portugal, Poland and Austria qualify.

 

dayum, Italy in playoff spots, back to back WCQ.....

something my dad always said was Italy always more tourney team than anything. In qualifiers/friendlies meh, something for most GS. Basically irrelevant matches+ pts based matches.

Portugal and Italy in playoffs.

 

Kane inflating his NT stats
3 goals vs Albania
4 goals vs San Marino.

 

A)Swiss
B) Serbia
C) Spain
D)Tomorrow
E) Croatia

3/4 who DIDN'T have edge won group.....

 

Very surprised that Italy couldn’t score, European Champions finish behind Switzerland lol.

Two bs penalty handball decisions as well. Couldn’t beat the 13-0 win v San Marino though

 

I do want Italy to qualify but I've been saying for years my soft spot team is Swiss.

-knocked out France at Euro
-dumped Italy to playoff at WCQ

 

Ok he did apologise

 

Bad news for a lot of the teams in the playoffs, only 3 spots available and Italy + Portugal in there.

 

i'd love to see Austria, Poland, and Italy qualify.

 

Gotta love Mancini - Italy juts got dropped to play in the playoffs to qualify and he is talking about winning the world
Cup .

 

current standings:

Qualified team for WCC from Europe:

• Spain
• Denmark
• Germany
• England
• Belgium
• France
• Croatia
• Switzerland
• Serbia
• Turkey/Norway/Netherlands

Teams playing in the playoffs:

• Portugal
• Italy
• Sweden
• Poland
• Russia
• Scotland
• North Macedonia
• Austria
• Wales
• Czech Rep
• Finland/Ukraine
• Turkey/Norway/Netherlands

Lets assume Holland qualify directly for the WC tonight ...Due to the seeding of the groups I dont believe Portugal has to play Italy at all to qualify . Might be wrong.

These are the top 6 seeds in their order for the playoffs
1 Portugal (A, X)
2 Scotland (A, X)
3 Italy (A, X)
4 Russia (A, X)
5 Sweden (A)
6 Poland (A)
So lets assume these 6 teams win their semis final games , then would it not mean his are the final fixtures:????
Portugal vs Poland
Scotland vs Sweden
Italy vs Russia

 

Agree with Mancini, Italy are a traditional tournament team, they peak at finals

 

They have to get there first though..

 

yes and as it seems it wont all be that easy =- see now they could end up playing against a Portugal. Read the play-off rules again.

There are three playing paths to qualify.

Team will be drawn into six matches: The seeded teams will go into pot 1 and the none seeded into pot 2
Teams from pot 1 will be drawn and allocated into the 6 matches as home games. Starting from match 1 all the way through to 6,
and then Pot 2 will be allocated again starting from Match 1 all the way through to Match 6.

Match 1 - Match 7
Match 2 -
Match 3 - Match 8
Match 4 -
Match 5 - Match 9
Match 6 -

Then the winners of Match 1 and 2 will play finals
Match 3 and 4
Match 5 and 6

So this can well mean that Portugal and Italy could end up playing in one final

 

Roundup
-Uruguay headed for F with a 3-0 L to fricking Bolivia. NT downtrending
-Turkey to playoff shame Kuntz didn't take Job earlier
-Our Dutch Rivals qualified
-No WC for Haaland.
-Ivory Coast out

 

Argentina have qualified.

in for another Geman ass-whopping???

 

🚨 OFFICIAL: Óscar Tabárez has been sacked from his position as coach of Uruguay after 15 years in charge. 👋🇺🇾

(Source: @Uruguay) pic.twitter.com/ul0jqCESuy

— Transfer News Live (@DeadlineDayLive) November 19, 2021