Internationals October (Nations League + Euro 2021 play-offs + Friendlies)

1966

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Did Sancho even touch the ball the whole time he was on the pitch?

Pains me to say it cause I hate the cnut but Rice is quite good..
I don't remember him getting a touch so there can't have been a significant one. All I remember is wondering whether Sancho actually came on.

I understand why Southgate benched him. With perhaps one exception against farmers, he's been turning in solid 5/10 performances for us since he first got called up. Whether the system is having an impact on him is hard to say, but it's equally clear that he's either not willing or not able to apply himself to it.

Any semblance of a system had gone out the window by the time Sancho came on last night anyway. All he had to do was use his copious pace and stamina to press like a bulldog for the final 20 minutes of a match. I was disappointed by his apparent lack of ability and inclination to do so in an important match (a second consecutive NL finals is not major, but also far from nothing).

Kane, a player renowned for not being particularly agile and who had already played the full match with muscular fatigue and the fear of more to come, was running around like a madman for those last 10-20 minutes. Kane may not have had anything like his best match but good god, you could tell he cared about its outcome. I suppose that's why he's the captain and Sancho is on the bench.

It's early days still for the dream of a rotating Kane/Sterling/Sancho(/Rashford/Greenwood) front 3 but the auguries haven't been promising. Sancho hasn't even looked like supplanting Rashford, who tries hard but is clearly still the "weak" link in our very strong starting trio.
 
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1966

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FA need to sack this joker before it's too late. Experimenting late at this stage with all these shitty defensive tactics. He should know by now with all the attacking options we have what the best set up is and the best eleven when available. He's been in the job for over 4 years, next year will be a total write off and a waste of another tournament guaranteed with him in charge.
Agree. It's all very well defending him with "but the defence can't be relied on!" because that's true, but, equally, the team we started for most of the Euro qualifiers augmented with a couple of creative additions (like Grealish) could outscore even elite teams, enough to make up for lapses at the back (see 3-2 Spain, 5-3 Kosovo etc.). And I think everyone in the country would feel better about going down in a blaze of 4-3 glory than a tumescent 1-0 like last night.

It's also something of a mystery that we can't find three fecking CBs good enough to keep the number of goals we concede down to reasonable levels. In fact, I don't believe that we can't. There's no way we should need 6 or 7 defensively-minded players when we're so top-heavy. Play to your strengths, which in our case means scoring more than our opponents. Spurs have something similar going on with Kane + Son vs a much less distinguished MF/DF and going on the attack seems to be working okay for them (e.g. 5-2, 7-2, 6-1: you can afford to concede when those are your scorelines).
 
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Andycoleno9

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Well, I didn't get the specific answer I was looking for above (see edit to my precious post) but your post did confirm my suspicions that the 48 team WC was just a way to force further anti-competitive expansion into new markets. UEFA and CONCACAF, as the only confederations with any real chance of winning, should make up at least half of the teams.

(Hell, there are teams ranked outside of a top 24 combined UEFA/CONCACAF that would give any country in, say, the Asian confederation a good game. But obviously I'm not in favour of entirely excluding the rest of the world from the World Cup, even if the standard of the teams should be as high as reasonably possible.)
AFC (Asia) – eight places (up from 4.5)
Caf (Africa) – nine places (up from 5)
Concacaf (North and Central America) – six places, of which three go to hosts (up from 3.5)
Conmebol (South America) – six places (up from 4.5)
(Oceania) – one place (up from 0.5)
Uefa (Europe) – 16 places (up from 13)

Insult to common sense and sport in general. Being the best is awarded with 3 spots and for being shit is awarded with 8 spots
 

Piratesoup

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International football in general is looking at some truly awful years. At this point I can't even be arsed about the EC or even the WC anymore.
 

1966

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AFC (Asia) – eight places (up from 4.5)
Caf (Africa) – nine places (up from 5)
Concacaf (North and Central America) – six places, of which three go to hosts (up from 3.5)
Conmebol (South America) – six places (up from 4.5)
(Oceania) – one place (up from 0.5)
Uefa (Europe) – 16 places (up from 13)

Insult to common sense and sport in general. Being the best is awarded with 3 spots and for being shit is awarded with 8 spots
Oops, I mixed up CONCACAF with Conmebol, as you probably guessed. But everything I said still stands.

Yeah, I agree with you.
 

RashyForPM

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AFC (Asia) – eight places (up from 4.5)
Caf (Africa) – nine places (up from 5)
Concacaf (North and Central America) – six places, of which three go to hosts (up from 3.5)
Conmebol (South America) – six places (up from 4.5)
(Oceania) – one place (up from 0.5)
Uefa (Europe) – 16 places (up from 13)

Insult to common sense and sport in general. Being the best is awarded with 3 spots and for being shit is awarded with 8 spots
Countries like Ireland, Thailand, Slovakia, Bosnia, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Zambia, Guinea, Scotland, Honduras, Panama and Trinidad will all become permanent fixtures at the greatest international tournament in the world. Apologies to anyone from those countries but it’s a farce. Everyone will qualify.
 

1966

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Countries like Ireland, Thailand, Slovakia, Bosnia, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Zambia, Guinea, Scotland, Honduras, Panama and Trinidad will all become permanent fixtures at the greatest international tournament in the world. Apologies to anyone from those countries but it’s a farce. Everyone will qualify.
Agreed. I've repeatedly defended the right of nations like San Marino to participate in Euro and WC qualifying, despite some people calling for walkovers to be forced out in a pre-qualifying tournament. And I really hope San Marino get to a tournament one day. But only if it's down to the merits of their achievements.

Every country should have the opportunity to reach a world cup, but it still has to be meritocratic. It cheapens not only the tournament itself but the prestige of qualifying when FIFA simply lowers the bar for entry, especially when their intent is primarily to tap emerging markets to convert every last remaining non-viewer into an active participant.

They already have the largest viewer base for any sporting event in the world. They just got greedy. Or even more so than usual anyway.
 

RashyForPM

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Agreed. I've repeatedly defended the right of nations like San Marino to participate in Euro and WC qualifying, despite some people calling for walkovers to be forced out in a pre-qualifying tournament. And I really hope San Marino get to a tournament one day. But only if it's down to the merits of their achievements.

Every country should have the opportunity to reach a world cup, but it still has to be meritocratic. It cheapens not only the tournament itself but the prestige of qualifying when FIFA simply lowers the bar for entry, especially when their intent is primarily to tap emerging markets to convert every last remaining non-viewer into an active participant.

They already have the largest viewer base for any sporting event in the world. They just got greedy. Or even more so than usual anyway.
Exactly my thoughts. I don’t mind those countries getting in if they qualify by getting 1st or 2nd in their qualifying groups and actually deserve to play in a prestigious tournament like the World Cup. However, Fifa are basically inviting them in now. Horrendous. It could backfire on them in terms of viewership too, which I doubt they considered, as who would want to watch something like Scotland vs Burkina Faso. There are no advantages to this format except more people can see their countries in a World Cup. What’s the fun in that too? They hardly broke sweat for the opportunity.
 

FootballHQ

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AFC (Asia) – eight places (up from 4.5)
Caf (Africa) – nine places (up from 5)
Concacaf (North and Central America) – six places, of which three go to hosts (up from 3.5)
Conmebol (South America) – six places (up from 4.5)
(Oceania) – one place (up from 0.5)
Uefa (Europe) – 16 places (up from 13)

Insult to common sense and sport in general. Being the best is awarded with 3 spots and for being shit is awarded with 8 spots
For Asia I would say South Korea and Japan have improved a fair bit from where they were in mid 90s, both can make last 16 of World cups now and it's not a huge shock. Also have Iran who were very competitive in a tough group in last world cup. Fifa obviously want to get China in world cup regularly so that's one way of doing it. Less said about Saudi Arabia the better....would say for Asia 5 is reasonable total. Australia also part of this now of course.

Concacaf....again US and Mexico usually get out of groups and Costa Rica were brilliant story in 2014. Think problem is there isn't much depth in Concacaf so 3 automatically plus a play off does seem excessive considering it's a 6 team group so not sure how they're going to do things for 2026 with US, Mexico and Canada all in straight away.

Commebol- No problem given what they have given on the world stage. Chile were twice copa america winners and didn't make WC in last cycle and Colombia didn't make a world cup between 2002-10.

Oceania- It feels right they get automatic spot but piss easy for New Zealand to make it against Vanuatu and whoever. Can remember Australia beating Soloman Islands 31-0 about 20 years back. :lol:

Africa- I think this is the really interesting one. Considering how bad collectively African sides have been at world cups for a long time now getting 9 places is a sporting scandal. However.....

I remember the debate on here during 2018 world cup of how African teams could improve and a few made the interesting point that due to only 5 places and it being a pretty cut throat qualification teams can't really build from making successive world cups like teams like US and Japan have done. You get Nigeria and Cameroon with weak generation of players and they miss out on world cup. Senegal were excellent in 2002 and then didn't make a world cup until 2018. Algeria have excellent generation but after a good showing in 2014 missed out on last world cup.

That's the one thing I'd argue for. 48 team world cup just feels ridiculous anyway as I think they were planning a play off round before the usual 32 team group stage so 16 teams will just play one game and go home. Could be wrong on that format though.
 

1966

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For Asia I would say South Korea and Japan have improved a fair bit from where they were in mid 90s, both can make last 16 of World cups now and it's not a huge shock. Also have Iran who were very competitive in a tough group in last world cup. Fifa obviously want to get China in world cup regularly so that's one way of doing it. Less said about Saudi Arabia the better....would say for Asia 5 is reasonable total. Australia also part of this now of course.

Concacaf....again US and Mexico usually get out of groups and Costa Rica were brilliant story in 2014. Think problem is there isn't much depth in Concacaf so 3 automatically plus a play off does seem excessive considering it's a 6 team group so not sure how they're going to do things for 2026 with US, Mexico and Canada all in straight away.

Commebol- No problem given what they have given on the world stage. Chile were twice copa america winners and didn't make WC in last cycle and Colombia didn't make a world cup between 2002-10.

Oceania- It feels right they get automatic spot but piss easy for New Zealand to make it against Vanuatu and whoever. Can remember Australia beating Soloman Islands 31-0 about 20 years back. :lol:

Africa- I think this is the really interesting one. Considering how bad collectively African sides have been at world cups for a long time now getting 9 places is a sporting scandal. However.....

I remember the debate on here during 2018 world cup of how African teams could improve and a few made the interesting point that due to only 5 places and it being a pretty cut throat qualification teams can't really build from making successive world cups like teams like US and Japan have done. You get Nigeria and Cameroon with weak generation of players and they miss out on world cup. Senegal were excellent in 2002 and then didn't make a world cup until 2018. Algeria have excellent generation but after a good showing in 2014 missed out on last world cup.

That's the one thing I'd argue for. 48 team world cup just feels ridiculous anyway as I think they were planning a play off round before the usual 32 team group stage so 16 teams will just play one game and go home. Could be wrong on that format though.
All of this is well reasoned and based on solid analysis of the competition's history. Good post. Obviously it's still consistent with massive flaws in the new system.

You've highlighted why it's safe to say that nobody from outside UEFA or Conmebol has a hope in hell of actually winning (and even then, UEFA is the heavy favourite). I don't think it's reasonable or realistic to say that every team who qualifies has to have a good chance of winning because that would be totally impossible, but as you increase the size of the competition, you inevitably decrease the average quality (as well as setting up a lot of comparatively poor matches).

The only exception to the rule and only way to partially buffer against the effect of expansion is to modify the selection process so as to pick better teams. For example, a system that results in, say, Switzerland being picked over, say, Iran, where both teams could theoretically be on the border for most WCs, is probably going to create a better tournament overall. And that hypothetical could be achieved simply by assigning a lopsided (but objectively fair) number of slots to UEFA. Which is the exact opposite of what FIFA is actually doing.

I'm not disagreeing with anything you said or trying to correct you btw. I'm expanding on it with further context. The fact that some of the lesser federations have a few teams capable of springing a moderate surprise (the occasional QF/SF peak hardly stuns the international game) is not a good reason to expand the number of places offered to those federations, especially when the 13th ranked UEFA nation is probably still competitive with those teams. At most, there's a case to be made for giving dark horses enough places to make sure those teams have a fair chance to qualify. It's hard to justify the handouts that FIFA is trying to offer.
 

MC89

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Really glad that’s that rubbish over and we get the real football back, as said on a previous post they should’ve scrapped international football till this virus is over with or preferably indefinitely.
 

TheLord

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This is such a stop-go, stop-go season with all the crammed up nonsensical internationals. I feel sorry for the club managers TBH.