Italy win a wild 5-4 over Israel after twice trailing and then after throwing away a 4-2 lead in the final 5 minutes. Tonali's perfectly placed shot through traffic deceived the keeper for the winner in the first minute of stoppage time.
News flash #2, Mo: a fair percentage of the people who'd attend a soccer match of any kind are staying out of sight. And a slightly smaller percentage of Americans like me who are their allies are staying away from sporting events.
It's early, but Surimane lead a group that includes Panama, El Salvador, and Guatemala. That could be the toughest group in all of qualifying.
Venezuela, who have never qualified for a WC in their history, had a chance to advance to the intercontinental playoff with a home win against Colombia, who had nothing to play for. The Vino Tintos led twice, but in one of the all-time bottle jobs, capitulated 6-3 in front of their own fans in Maturin, which allowed Bolivia to take their place after they beat Brazil 1-0 in La Paz. That's what that numpty Ale Moreno gets for trashing the Canadian team on Espn at last summer's Copa America.
Kane scores his 75th and 76th goals. Mental he has thirteen more goals than Rooney in second with 10 fewer games played. To be fair more competition and more games against weaker opponents (this WCQG is a joke - the days of playing Germany and Italy and actually having to fight for a World Cup are long over).
I did do an AI check on which England player has scored the most tournament goals, and also the most goals against top ten FIFA sides, and Kane still came out on top. He's simply the greatest modern England goal scorer. Absolute privilege to have had him at Spurs. People denigrate his achievements, but none of them can answer the question, 'If he's not that great, why isn't everyone doing it?'
So England qualify, with 2 games to spare. A couple of Spurs-related notes (beyond Kane): a Spence cross led to a Latvian own goal, and Dane Scarlett trained with the team after Ollie Watkins pulled out.
18 goals For, 0 Against. England, generally, always do well in qualifying (Graham Taylor and Shteve McClaren eras aside), so probably doesn't signify anything.
Some surprises in Concacaf qualifying: Guatemala, El Salvador, and Trinidad have been eliminated, and Costa Rica will go out if they fail to beat Honduras in their final fixture. Suriname, Curaçao, and Haiti are on the verge of direct qualification, and at worst will go to the interconfederation playoff. Curaçao are coached by 78-year old Dutch legend Dick Advocaat.
This game was absolutely mad. Scotland led twice, and Denmark were reduced to 10 men on 61 minutes, but still managed to equalize late, only for Scotland to score twice in stoppage time to book their passage. Now that's proper fitba, lads!
I figured we'd have to wait until 60 or 80 qualified for the World Cup, but it only took going to 48 to get Scotland in. Congrats Jocks!
Watched the game when I got home, and I have to say, the ref, Simon Martiniek, who reffed the WC Final, and his VAR were an absolute disgrace. I didn't think he was very good in the WC Final, and he gave the softest of second yellows to the Danish player in the second half. The penalty award to Denmark was one of the worst decisions I have seen in a long time, and the VAR took over 3 minutes to send the ref to the monitor and he barely looked at it before pointing to the spot. Dreadful piece of goalkeeping by Schmeichel on the second Scottish goal. And an outrageous 4th goal from Kenny Maclean, from the half-way line. I mean, why not?