After the draw,surely England can't fail to qualify. Group E: England, Switzerland, Slovenia, Estonia, Lithuania, San Marino.
Especially with the top 2 guarenteed qualification and half the third placers too. I've got no idea why they've expanded it to 24 teams
It's not a question of whether we qualify or not, it's more whether any of those games are going to be exciting enough to bother watching. Beyond Switzerland there's not a single game you'd really call competitive. Based on the ever-accurate FIFA rankings, Slovenia are 27th, Estonia 91st, Lithuania 102nd, and San Marino =207th (last). Shame we didn't get drawn with France really, they would have posed a decent test, but the result wouldn't have mattered. As it is we're likely to go into the tournament averaging 3+ goals a game and having lost at most twice. That's hardly the best of preparation. At least we'll be able to rotate the squad and give a few fringe/youth players a chance to shine. The Germany, Scotland, RoI, Gibraltar group looks mildly interesting, but beyond that there's going to be very little of note happening in the qualification campaign.
An interesting question is will these games allow us to improve our fifa to make sure we get seeded once we get to the tournament.
Probably not, but with only 8 teams going out in the group stage, a nightmare draw wouldn't be the end of the world. It wouldn't surprise me if we top the group, yet Switzerland still get seeded ahead of us.
A lot of it is down to who you play in friendlies and how seriously you take them. Fifa rankings are a joke
Do you know what? I couldn't care less about England all I care about now is NCFC. England bore me and have disappointed me too often.
