Match Day Thread General matchday thread.

Fun fact:


Soungoutou Magassa became the 179th different player to score a Premier League goal for West Ham.

No side have had more different goalscorers in the competition’s history (level with Tottenham).

 

Useless Manc tits ...

 

FA Cup second round weekend. All the frivolity and anticipation of getting a fun draw at a new ground or a Sky Six away day only to get Sheffield United away and lose with half a reserve team.

 

World Cup draw in a bit albeit after Trump doing a speech and winning some sort of award, songs from Robbie Williams and The Village People and others I can’t remember, Infantino doing whatever he does, some other stuff etc.

BBC2 anyway.

 

Pot 1: Canada, Mexico, USA, Spain, Argentina, France, England, Brazil, Portugal, Netherlands, Belgium, Germany.

Pot 2: Croatia, Morocco, Colombia, Uruguay, Switzerland, Japan, Senegal, Iran, South Korea, Ecuador, Austria, Australia.

Pot 3: Norway, Panama, Egypt, Algeria, Scotland, Paraguay, Tunisia, Ivory Coast, Uzbekistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Africa.

Pot 4: Jordan, Cape Verde, Ghana, Curacao, Haiti, New Zealand plus six play-off winners.

 

How does the World Cup work?


There will be 48 teams in this World Cup, instead of the usual 32.

That is 12 groups of four teams each.

The top two of each group go through to the last 32, where they will be joined by the eighth best third-placed teams.

And then the knockout stages start with the same amount of teams who usually compete the whole World Cup...

 

Can’t have more than two European teams in a group. Can’t have two of any team from the others in a group. Complicated nonsense just to give us three easy games.

Would be fun if the US got some of Trump’s less preferred nations but I think that'll conveniently be avoided.

 

They'll drag this out for ages and it's not really that interesting.

They don't decide when and where until tomorrow either, all a bit non event.

 

Iran to beat the US in their first match would be fun.

 

Could somebody let me know when actual draw starts as can't be arsed with all the bollocks before.

Presumably it'll be about 6.

 

For anyone that don't know the rules of the World Cup draw, it's all detailed here...

https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...ich-teams-have-qualified-and-how-does-it-work

Some parts copied and pasted...

So far, 42 teams have booked their place. Here are our qualifiers, grouped into the pots for the draw:

Pot 1: Canada, Mexico, USA, Spain, Argentina, France, England, Brazil, Portugal, Netherlands, Belgium, Germany.

Pot 2: Croatia, Morocco, Colombia, Uruguay, Switzerland, Japan, Senegal, Iran, South Korea, Ecuador, Austria, Australia.

Pot 3: Norway, Panama, Egypt, Algeria, Scotland, Paraguay, Tunisia, Côte d’Ivoire, Uzbekistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Africa.

Pot 4: Jordan, Cape Verde, Ghana, Curaçao, Haiti, New Zealand, four European playoff teams, two intercontinental playoff teams.

In the European playoffs, the winners of Wales v Bosnia and Herzegovina will host the winners of Italy v Northern Ireland for a place in the finals; the winners of Ukraine v Sweden will play the winners of Poland v Albania; the winners of Slovakia v Kosovo will be at home to the winners of Turkey v Romania; and the winners of the Czech Republic v Republic of Ireland will host the winners of Denmark v North Macedonia.

The 48 teams have been divided into four pots containing 12 teams each. Pot 1 consists of the three co-hosts – USA, Mexico and Canada – along with the nine top teams in the current Fifa rankings. The next three pots were decided by the Fifa rankings, with the lowest-ranked qualified teams in Pot 4. The 12 groups for the World Cup will then be formed by one team from each pot (full pots listed later).

Well, not quite. There are still six qualification places to be decided via playoffs in late March, and teams involved in those matches have been placed in Pot 4. That means a team such as Italy will be ostensibly the weakest opponents in a group, even though they have won the World Cup four times and are ranked No 12 in the world, should they come through the European qualifying playoffs. Teams from the same qualifying conference should, in theory, not be in the same group. But that is impossible for European teams as Uefa will have 16 teams in the draw. There will, though, be a maximum of two European teams in any group. In addition, the top four teams in the Fifa rankings – Spain, Argentina, France and England – cannot face each other until the semi-finals (of course, they have to make it there first), provided they win their groups.

The match schedule will be released on Saturday 6 December.

 

Amazing they found someone more bent than Sepp Blatter to take this gig.

 

Just switched on to see Robbie Williams singing with no sound.

This is what football is really about.

 

Only a couple of dollars from each ticket will pay his fee for this five minutes of work.

Looks surprisingly well. Would’ve said he was a dark horse for the 2026 dead thread if I hadn’t seen him on Talksport yesterday. Fair play to the guy with minimal talent and brain cells he’s done exceptionally well.

 

Excited to see who wins the FIFA Peace Prize….

Oh I thought there’d be other nominees.

 

Next years winner - Elon Musk for helping to prevent civil war in England.

 

Ffs, well if we needed to be reminded how bent and ridicuous FIFA has become, this is the cherry on the cake. The clowns rewarding a clown.