Euro 2020 qualifiers

[Baddar]

Just the 3 assists and a goal for KDB tonight...

[MDK]

Poor Scotland 

[TCO]

Why are Scotland so shit? On paper their team looks much stronger than ours but they don't seem to grind out results like we do.

We know the pain of a full back being your captain and best player too!

[Lineker]

Sancho, Kane, Sterling. What an awesome trio up front.

[Bobfoc]

England have San Marino'd this one.

[Lineker]

Lol.

[Colly]

Kosovo are unbeaten in 15 games, this is a long way from San Marino.

[Liam]

1-1.

And yeah, Kosovo are a stronger team than many.

[Bobfoc]

Just now, Colly said:

Kosovo are unbeaten in 15 games, this is a long way from San Marino.

Anything to remind me of this:

 

[Gazz]

It was Kosovo's sort of but not really camo kit that confused Keane.

[Colly]

This might be a bit more San Marino than I thought.

[Gazz]

Pep's turned Sterling into a monster.

[Bobfoc]

This is a fun match.

[lanky316]

Game back on! I've enjoyed watching Kosovo tonight, they have a go and play some nice stuff.

[Gazz]

It's a good job we're so good in attack because we can't defend for shit.

[Chris2K]

Isn't Kane missing a pen one of the signs of the Apocalypse?

[Colly]

You're thinking of Matt le Tissier.

Did their keeper just ask Sterling for a shirt swap? Might fit his kids I guess.

[Lineker]

No sign of any players walking off yet then I hope?

[Gazz]

Why pass backwards from this position?

[Adam]

I've been looking at the current state of play in Euro 2020 qualifying as pertains to the convoluted Play Off they've come up with for this one, partially because I'm a national football geek and partially because I wanted to see what the Home Nations sides chances were considering most of them are not looking likely to qualify from their groups.

I've realised that Scotland, despite qualifying for the Play Off as a League C team, are likely to face tougher opposition in the Play Off due to the knock-on of all but 4/5 League A/B sides qualifying via the group stage route. If it ended right now, Scotland would be in the League B play-off with Northern Ireland as well as League C qualifiers Norway and Serbia, but if a couple of the group qualifiers swing away from A/B sides to C/D sides (this is feasible for Kosovo over Czech Republic, Hungary over Croatia/Slovakia, Romania/Norway over Sweden and North Macedonia/Slovenia over Austria) then Scotland could find themselves in a play-off with Austria and Wales, two sides I'd consider stronger than Scotland in a lot of areas. Not that the current Scotland side look that capable of even beating the League C sides to be fair.

This format does also mean that, in the event of missing out in the group stage, it's highly likely that Wales, Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland will be in the Play Offs. The League A play-off will almost certainly be Switzerland/Denmark, Iceland, Bosnia and then Wales if both Sweden and Austria qualify automatically. It would only take, say, Romania finishing above Sweden in the group, to engineer an entirely British Isles League B play-off as well, since if one of Sweden and Austria drops out of an automatic place and Republic of Ireland drop to 3rd in their group, and nothing else changes, the League B teams would be Wales, Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland and Scotland.

Elsewhere, perennial minnows Luxembourg are quite close to a League D play-off spot, they just have to hope one of Kosovo or North Macedonia pull off a surprise and make it into the top two of their group. The idea of Luxembourg playing in the Euro finals is bizarre.

I think they should've just stuck with the simple one-stage format myself but here we are.