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.