Think of WC qualifiers gone by: England in a group with Italy; England in a group with Germany; England in a group with Holland and Norway – when we didn’t even make it. But looking at the groups, they all look straight forward for the top seeds. This series, UEFA have created more top seeds, meaning when paired with the second seeds, there’s already a noticeable disparity in standard.
Europe have more qualifying slots now don’t they? Would take a nightmare for the decent teams to not qualify now.
World cup and euros qualifying is all one big joke now, half of Europe qualifies for the euros and half of the (serious) football playing globe qualify for the world cup, for a half decent team (not you Scotland) it's almost harder to not qualify now
It's almost as if a load of financial maximisers have sat down at FIFA and brainstormed 'how we gonna ensure that all the countries with the highest profit potential actually qualify', innit?
TC. Will you be going to WC games in Canada?...I'm hoping/planning to see the England three group stage games, then might go the next assuming they get through to the round of 32, then 16, 8, 4.
Not sure yet. Need to know where England are playing in the group stages first. If they're in Toronto it would be ideal. Have friends I could stay with in Vancouver and Seattle so that might be a possibility as it's many years since I went out there - both great locations for touring too. Need to improve my fitness first and polish the old boots. Hope we manage to meet up for a beer or two if we both make it !
