As per title. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/26207723 8 groups of 6 1 group of 5 plus France (the hosts) yes you read that correctly. Even though France will play in the 2016 finals as hosts, they will still compete in the qualifying groups but their fixtures will not be allocated any points. Seems pointless (literally) to me. Complete cock-up again from UEFA as those fixtures involving France will still affect the group when you consider yellow/red cars and injuries. Platini might have been a fantastic footballer in his day but when it comes to football administration he's clueless. And he'll probably be the next FIFA President.....
To ensure a place at Euro 2016, nations must finish in the top two in their group. The best third-placed finisher also qualifies before the remaining eight third-placed teams go into the play-offs in November 2015. Kinell. Maybe even Scotland have a chance of qualifying for this one.
That is farcical. If nothing rides on the games and all you stand to do is lose players to cards or injuries teams will just put out second string sides. It will be a selectorial ****efest. Utter, utter ****e from the masters of how to turn the beautiful game into a pile of ****e.
Being in Pot 1 should basically be a bye to the finals anyway. Whatever, the draw is, it’s bound to be **** and uninspiring. If I am to care, I’d like this group: England Ireland Turkey Scotland N Ireland Gibraltar. It might actually make it reasonably interesting. However, it’s bound to be something repetitious like: England Ukraine Poland Montenegro Moldova San Marino
I was correct in the sense it’s a mind numbingly **** group. No English arrogance here (as no doubt we’ll stumble and stutter to **** through it andf pat ourlseves for qualifying from it from the last game) but our B or U21 team should be able to qualify from that group. Seemed that the group before (Germany) got the teams I wanted: Ireland/Scotland. Boredom awaits.
England (Group E), San Marino, Lithuania, Estonia, Slovenia, Switzerland Gibralta avoid (England), Germany, Georgia, Scotland (McGregor, Boyd), Poland, Ireland (Long, Brady et al) N Ireland (Bruce), Greece, Faroe Islands, Finland, Romania, Wales, Bosnia, Andora, Cyprus, Israel, Belgium Highlights, Scotland v Ireland (Long v McGregor) can't wait, and a warm welcome to Gibralta Germany (ouch)
Focking hell we got a boring group.... I was looking forward on travelling to some of the places. Russia Sweden Moldova Montenegro Austria (Nice place, but we had them in the last qualifier) Lichtenstein Should be able to qualify though
What a **** group. Can we apply for automatic qualification so we can **** these pointless games off and arrange some decent friendlies in their place?
This is massive OG by UEFA. There'll be so many pointless games when the top seeded countries will have qualified with 2/3 games left. Top players will be rested under pressure from club managers, fans will stay away from meaningless games. UEFA might as well seed the top 8 teams directly to the finals and have done with it - unless that IS the grand plan for future tournaments which will allow more mid-week games for an expanded Champions League.
A 24 team tournament is ridiculous. Be some right ****e qualifying. Thst said, a bit of overconfidence here. We should qualify no problem. But the Swiss will do us.
England and Switzerland will qualify as 1st and 2nd. San Marino will finish bottom with 0 points. the other 3 countries will fight it out for third and a play-off game. If that 3rd team does qualify they will then be knocked out at the group stage in the finals. You can write the script before any games are played - as you can with most of the other groups.
Even a team comprising of 11 Tom Cleverley's should qualify from that group. No offence to the teams there. You'll qualify, top 2 go through automatically and so does the best third placed team.
Chris Smalling will be captain of England by time this tournament comes around. Fully deserved as well.
