Nigerians seem to think Ghanaians speak English with a funny accent. And Ghanaians think Nigerians are "noisy." I'm pretty sure "noisy" is code for something but I haven't figured it out yet.
We had a run-in with some nasty Ghana "fans" in South Africa in 2010. Be careful with those guys. We had some South Africans sitting nearby back us up.
An added "penalty" of drawing Brazil or Argentina would be the possibility of drawing two UEFA sides in pots 3 and 4, and one of the draw outcomes would be getting a team like Wales from pot 4 when there are so many preferable alternatives in there. If we get a European side in pot 1, then we can only draw one additional UEFA side.
Today seems like a good time to pull up this thread. Joe Scally's club team, Borussia Mönchengladbach, are hosting a friendly v Ukraine, one of our possible WC opponents. Good luck, Joe, and good luck, Ukraine!
Ukraine is in no position mentally to be playing a World Cup qualifier. That team is in an impossible position. How can they focus on playing when many of their families and their country are being destroyed in real time?
What is your suggestion? They can't postpone this any further. I sincerely doubt the team has *any* interest in forfeiting; if anything, they could very well be viewing this as an opportunity for unification under the Ukrainian flag. Is Oleksandr Zinchenko unable to play for City right now? What about Ruslan Malinovskyi for Atalanta? The Ukrainian domestic league (Dynamo Kiev, Shakhtar Donetsk, etc) based players are training *together* for 6 weeks ahead of the Scotland match. I'm actually going to bet on them to win that match on the road straight up because of the training together advantage plus their top level players are awesome.
Ukraine should withdraw from competition. Making Ukraine play a match right now is not fair to them or to their opponents.
I thought they were playing in Qatar, but maybe that is just the IC playoffs. Anyway, if they want to play, they should play. Its completely unpredictable how that affects the team to me.
What if all their players and 80% of the global Ukrainian population disagreed with that? Would you still arrogantly suggest they withdraw?
They play in Glasgow and then if they win will play in Cardiff four days later with everything on the line. I personally think they beat Scotland or take them to pens. Scotland actually in a tricky spot — Andy Robertson plays the night of 5/28 in the UCL final and then has to travel and go on 6/1 for the playoff. Tierney also coming off a fairly serious injury. Ukraine super fresh + training together + emotional high + Zinchenko not in UCL final. Give me Ukraine despite being on the road. In Cardiff, I lean Wales holding serve due to freshness and the home crowd.
Of Interest: U.S. World Cup Opponent Iran Criticized for Slow Preparations for Qatar https://www.si.com/soccer/2022/05/05/iran-world-cup-preparations-usmnt-qatar snip: Iran is in Group B with England and the United States at the World Cup, which kicks off Nov. 21 in Qatar. But while there have been reports of a June friendly with New Zealand and talk of a potential match with Canada, so far Iran hasn’t confirmed its warm-up commitments. “There appears to be no concrete plan,” Afshin Ghotbi, head coach of Iran’s national team from 2009-11, told The Associated Press. “Time is of the essence and preparation is vital to the success of Iran.
I'm on the Canadian soccer mailing list and they sent info about tickets for the Canada/Iran friendly in Vancouver yesterday.
Not really given that the US and Canada don’t play similar styles at all. It’s better for us in that we get to see Iran against a very familiar opponent.
In a way I don't blame Iraq for assuming so. I mean, we do share a league, so many of our players originate in the same pool, but that said, we don't play alike at all. (They'll need to figure that out. I hope they don't.)
I'm quite confident that those coaching Iran have access to match videos and can analyse the respective styles of teams. Iran seem to have trouble organising friendlies so I think they are prepared to play anyone decent just to work on their own structures.