A few teams have secured play off places - Netherlands, Denmark, Scotland and Croatia. Croatia have effectively qualified. Technically they need one point from two games, but they can't be overtaken on points and have a +15 goal difference advantage on the Czechs, who only have one match left.
How was that goal for Belarus disallowed? VAR seems to be getting worse. Such a soft reversal. Ireland got a really bad penalty against them and VAR didn’t even call the ref to the podium to check it. Scotland seem to be getting a few breaks and grinding out results. Shows how important not losing in the big away games is in qualifying.
Faroe Islands with a population of 55,000 have battered Montenegro 4-0 and just beat the Czech’s 2-1. They only lost away against Montenegro and the Czech’s with very late conceded goals. Only conceded six goals in all seven qualifying games.
Northern Ireland v Germany Iceland v France Wales v Belgium Upset Monday? Three interesting games anyway.
They were only a point away from the Group C Nation League playoffs as well in the last cycle. They've won at least one match in five of their last six qualifying campaigns, during which time they've won more qualifying matches than Malta, with 10 times the population, have in their history.
It is crazy. Even their U21’s have won a few games in the start of the new qualifying phase. Must have a player pool (of 16 to 35 year olds) the size of a normal town.
I can't see that exact breakdown, but as of 2017 they had 3,700 men aged 15-24. and just over 10,000 aged 25-54. If the later is split evenly, then that's a player pool of under 10,000 adult men aged 15-40. Their league system supports 43 teams. Granted, there's reserve teams playing, but taking a match day squad of 16 for each team, that means around 700 or so players. The participation rate is ridiculous.
Deschamps is a bizarre coach. He puts out a different team every game. I don't think he knows his best team despite being in the job for 13 years
I think their CB depth is where it sticks out. You can still make a decent team in the other parts of the pitch (albeit still fairly weaker than 7-8 years ago) when everyone is fit and they've some good youngsters coming through, but there's a clear gap between other major nations in Europe and them when it comes to defenders.
There’s absolutely no excuses for them to be bottom of their group. I can understand not winning the group because Switzerland are a good team but if they finish below Kosovo and Slovenia, well that’s appalling really.
Belgium are absolutely woeful defensively. They wouldn't get a single defender in our squad never mind first team
France went 2-1 up against Iceland, but were pegged back to 2-2. Iceland only had two shots on target in the match and 30% possession.