Euro 2020 qualifiers

[Twist]

12 hours ago, Lineker said:

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

Isn’t the concern more around Bulgaria?

[gunnar hendershow]

12 hours ago, Adam said:

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.

I've been trying to wrap my ahead around exactly how the playoff format works. So basically there's four spots and instead of doing it like they normally select groups (you can't have a qualifying group of 5 top ranked nations) the "best" 4 are in 1 group competing for 1 spot, the "next best" 4 in another group competing for another spot, and so on.

If it creates a scenario where Luxembourg can get in that's really cool but it does also seem to mean three of Switzerland/Denmark, Iceland, Bosnia, and Wales are going to miss out which is a bit odd.

[MDK]

6 minutes ago, damsher hatfield said:

Wales are going to miss out which is a bit odd.

Oh dear what a pity never mind 

[Baddar]

Wales now need Croatia to beat Slovakia next month to keep qualification chances alive. Beating Azerbaijan away from home won't be easy though - Croatia couldn't manage it.

[Lineker]

Stonking finish from Rashford there.

[Baddar]

Racist abuse aimed at Sterling, it seems.

[Adam]

And Mings. Disgraceful, they need to start kicking these teams out of tournaments. What else will have any effect? The current steps are useless.

[Baddar]

Heading to bed now as I have to be up early, but at HT it was one step from being abandoned. Crazy that this shit still happens. 

[lanky316]

This was always going to happen once we talked of walking out sadly. Obvious group of Neo-Nazis who only turned up to hurl abuse and just be total shitbags of human beings. Large group of them left at half time so hopefully the game can finish normally.

[FLiam]

Didn’t the Bulgarian FA president “slam” England for talking about the possibility of racism only the other day...? 

Found it. 

Quote

Comments by Gareth Southgate and England players such as Tammy Abraham about possible racist abuse in Sofia have been described as “offensive” and “derogatory” by the president of the Bulgarian Football Union.

It means he’s clearly blind to the issue.

[Arjen Robben]

Disappointing that they seem to have bottled going the whole on this UEFA protocol because the monkey chants haven't gone anywhere in this second half at all but nobody's making any effort to complain a third time and have the match abandoned.

[Szumi]

I would love to see a black player score and go full Adebayor, running the length of the field to slide in front of the racist shit bags. Fuck those pieces of shit.

[gunnar hendershow]

At this point UEFA or FIFA need to come down and suspend an entire country from an international cycle. You'll know when the line's been crossed (it was in today's match) and when it has you come down on them. Empty stadiums don't solve it, time to punish the FA itself. Then with potential tournament money out of their pockets they'll finally step in.

[DFF]

6 hours ago, damsher hatfield said:

At this point UEFA or FIFA need to come down and suspend an entire country from an international cycle. You'll know when the line's been crossed (it was in today's match) and when it has you come down on them. Empty stadiums don't solve it, time to punish the FA itself. Then with potential tournament money out of their pockets they'll finally step in.

They could try banning fans from the offending country for entire tournament cycles. So, force Bulgaria to only accept away fans for an entire qually campaign etc, and band Bulgarian fans from attending away internationals too. 

[Yorkshire Owl]

Bulgaria manager didn’t hear the chants or see the salutes but thought the England fans were out of order ..... wow!

[MDK]

9 minutes ago, Yorkshiresbadass said:

Bulgaria manager didn’t hear the chants or see the salutes but thought the England fans were out of order ..... wow!

Just heard on the wireless that the Bulgarian PM/President has called for the Manager to be sacked, I think.

Lets not pretend we don't have our own problems. 

[Naitch]

I think it was the head of the Bulgarian FA that their president was calling to be sacked rather than the manager.

[Colly]

54 minutes ago, MDK said:

Just heard on the wireless that the Bulgarian PM/President has called for the Manager to be sacked, I think.

Lets not pretend we don't have our own problems. 

Ban football in London. 

[lanky316]

There was that incident in Hartlepool too, better to ban it in everywhere north of Exeter just to be safe.

[MDK]

no u