As it seems Streamable doesn't want to play, here's a summary of some recent goals Croatia 2 Ukraine 0 (Kramaric) Rakitic has literal acres of space on the right side of the Ukrainian box, shins a volley which tamely bobbles across the Ukraine area with nobody around to clear it, and Kramaric smashes it in at the far post Italy 1 Albania 0 (Candreva) Spinazzola aims a cross at nobody in particular, all but one of the Albanian defence ignore it, and the ball happens to land at Candreva's feet as he drives it into the roof of the net. Serbia 1 Georgia (Prijovic) Georgia's entire team decided it wasn't worth being within four feet of the ball when somebody in red is running through midfield, an late attempt at an interception gifts the ball to Mitrovic, who has so much space to aim his cross into Prijovic just needed to get any body part onto it. Spain 1 Israel 0 (Illarramendi) A corner is cleared to his feet, and with nobody closing him down he has so much goal to aim his volley at the big question is whether the oh-so-tolerant Madrid-based fans would have demanded the Guardia Civil be deployed to the Basque Country if he missed.
Wales' tactics seemed to consist of cross the ball into a congested area, see at least two Irish players head it away, then repeat again and again and again to the same result. You'd think they'd have developed a Plan B for when Bale wasn't playing given how often he's "injured" for friendlies.
McLean could have easily picked up 4 bookings in that game but will leave the 'hero'. As you say, RCL, the world's fecked up!!
With wins for Ireland and Croatia, Slovakia miss out on their spot. All in all, an organisational ****show.
I'm not going to defend McClean, but the ref set a very lax standard for bookings and stuck to it. Still ended up chucking quite a few about, as that's what happens when you let people commit plenty of fouls.
Strachan's blaming genetics for Scotland failing to qualify. There may be some merit in this assertion when applied to some nations. But being short, fat and ginger is a lame excuse - and it's not done Strachan any harm. Nor Nicola Sturgeon, Jimmy Krankie and a few others too.
I remember we had a little'un in our World Cup winning team.Dirty little devil named Nobby Stiles.He claimed "poor eyesight!".....and Alan Ball.
I don't have any feelings about Slovakia specifically, but if they are the 1 team in 9 not to get a play off spot, then indeed it's a **** show, because as a "world" cup each group needs two teams that aren't going to trouble the second round (including England?) from the rest of the world. I know it's harsh, but surely increasing the number of teams is only going to increase the number of dead first round games - unless they are going for straight knock out in the first game, in which case the losing team might wonder why they bothered over two years to get there. And we get upset when we miss a PL weekend due to an international break - imagine how it's going to be when we lose the entire middle of the season to accommodate the world cup that nobody voted for.
Tim Cahill reaches 50 international goals in helping Australia to qualify. Not bad for a midfielder, although if he played a few games v American Samoa, I'm wondering why he hasn't got 100.
Rather bizarrely if Greece don't beat Gibraltar and Bosnia win then Bosnia will go above Greece in the group but will be below Slovakia in the 2nd place table (where the result against Gibraltar doesn't count). Can't see it happening.
