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2018 World Cup Qualifiers


DFF

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  • 1 month later...

It seems I'm getting sloppy here - missed an entire round of CONCACAF qualifying!

Bermuda, Dominica, Barbados, Saints Kitts and Nevis, Nicaragua, Belize and Curaçao qualified for the second round, which will be held in June.

The 2nd Round Draw is as follows:

Saint Vincent & the Grenadines - Guyana

Anitgua & Barbuda - Saint Lucia

Peurto Rico - Grenada

Dominica - Canada

Dominican Republic - Belize

Guatemala - Bermuda

Aruba - Barbados

Saint Kitts & Nevis - El Salvador

Curaçao - Cuba

Nicaragua - Suriname

EWB! Pick a side!

The first legs for the these games are soon! (Nicaragua/Suriname is on the 7th, the rest play across 10th-12th).

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm still backing Bermuda.

Bermuda play their second leg today, after drawing the first leg 0-0 - every chance of going through!

Saints Vincent & the Grenadines, Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, Barbados and Curaçao have already qualified from their respective two legged play offs.

Tomorrow is when the remainder of the 2nd legs are. Puerto Rico lead Grenada 1-0, Canada lead Dominca 2-0, Saints Kitts/Nevis and El Salvador drew 2-2 in their opener, and Nicaragua lead Suriname 1-0.

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I'm still backing Bermuda.

Bermuda play their second leg today, after drawing the first leg 0-0 - every chance of going through!

Saints Vincent & the Grenadines, Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, Barbados and Curaçao have already qualified from their respective two legged play offs.

Tomorrow is when the remainder of the 2nd legs are. Puerto Rico lead Grenada 1-0, Canada lead Dominca 2-0, Saints Kitts/Nevis and El Salvador drew 2-2 in their opener, and Nicaragua lead Suriname 1-0.

Guatemala (1-0 agg vs Bermuda), Grenada (2-1 agg vs Puerto Rico), Canada (6-0 agg vs Dominica), El Salvador (6-3 agg vs St Kitts/Nevis), and Nicaragua (4-1 agg vs Suriname) all also qualified for the next round.

The draw for the third round will be held on 25 July 2015, at the Konstantinovsky Palace in Strelna, Saint Petersburg, Russia.

The full list of teams competing in that stage is as follows:

Jamaica, Haiti, Canada, El Salvador, Guatemala, Saint Vincent & the Grenadines, Granada, Antigua & Barbuda, Belize, Barbados, Nicaragua and Curaçao

It is another straight forward two-legged knock out round. The six winners move to Round Four, where they are joined by Costa Rica, Mexico, USA, Honduras, Panama and Trinidad & Tobago.

***

In other news, the AFC are currently in their mahoosive group stage section. Probably the biggest story so far as that Guam top their group with two wins from two (beating Turkmenistan and India). To be honest, the groups aren't worth looking at yet as the fixture list is all over the place (some teams have played twice, while others are yet to play).

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  • 1 month later...
  • Admin

 

The draw for the 2018 World Cup qualifying groups takes place in St Petersburg at teatime on Saturday, with Wales joining England among the nine seeded teams from Europe.

Whatever surprises the ceremony manages to come up with are unlikely to match the general level of astonishment that both England and Wales currently sit higher in the Fifa world rankings than Spain, Italy and France, all of whom have actually won World Cups within the last couple of decades. Italy and France have fallen so far down the chart that they are no longer among the top seeds, and now lurk ominously in pot two where, along with Denmark, they could represent a serious obstacle to Roy Hodgson’s or Chris Coleman’s hopes of progress.

The worst-case scenario for England or Wales would be to pick up one of the major teams from pot two, France or Italy, and then collect Poland or Sweden plus Turkey or Montenegro from the lower groups as the draw progresses.

On the other hand it would be equally possible to end up with a series of qualifiers as unchallenging as England’s present opponents in their Euro 2016 group. A World Cup qualifying section involving Iceland, Greece, Norway and Moldova is perfectly feasible, as is the prospect of being matched with neighbouring Scotland or Northern Ireland – both pot three – or with the Republic of Ireland from pot four.

The main consideration is that England and Wales will be kept apart from the World Cup holders, Germany, the top European seeds, and neither can they be matched with Belgium, with whom Wales are familiar from their efforts to qualify for next summer’s European Championship in France. There are 52 European countries involved in the draw, with Russia qualifying automatically as hosts.

There will be seven groups of six nations and two groups of five. It has already been agreed for commercial (television) reasons that England will go into a six-team group, so they are certain to end up with either a minnow from pot six or a testing trip to Georgia or Kazakhstan. The nine group winners will go straight into the draw for the World Cup proper; the best eight runners-up will have to play off for the remaining four places.

The first qualifying games will take place in September next year, with the groups concluding in October 2017; the play-offs are a month later.

The draw ceremony takes place in the Konstantin Palace in St Petersburg and is scheduled to commence at 4pm BST. The Fifa confederations of Africa, Oceania, South America and Concacaf (North, Central America and the Caribbean) will also be involved.

 

Top European seeds (with leading world rankings plus UK and Ireland)

Pot one 1 Germany (2); 2 Belgium (3); 3 Holland (5); 4 Portugal (7); 5 Romania (8); 6 England (9); 7 Wales (10); 8 Spain (12); 9 Croatia (14)

Pot Two Slovakia, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, Czech Republic, France, Iceland, Denmark, Bosnia-Herzegovina

Pot Three Poland, Ukraine, Scotland (29), Hungary, Sweden, Albania, Northern Ireland (37), Serbia, Greece

Pot Four Turkey, Slovenia, Republic of Ireland (52), Norway, Bulgaria, Faroe Islands, Montenegro, Estonia

Pot Five Cyprus, Latvia, Armenia, Finland, Belarus, Macedonia, Azerbaijan, Lithuania, Moldova

Pot Six Luxembourg, Kazakhstan, Liechtenstein, Georgia, Malta, San Marino. Andorra

Dream draw: England, Iceland, Albania, Faroe Islands, Moldova, Andorra

Nightmare draw: England, Italy, Sweden, Turkey, Finland, Kazakhstan

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I had no idea the draw was coming up so soon. I never would have thought just a couple of years ago that Wales would be in a pot above Italy and France, but they've earned it. From England's perspective, Wales are a team worth avoiding at this point, but I've always maintained that if England try their hardest, they can lose to anyone, so the prospect of drawing some of those teams from Pot Two hardly fills me with any kind of hope. Having said that, a so-called nightmare draw would be more entertaining.

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How on earth did I miss Wales becoming decent at football? My Welsh best friend hasn't made a peep about it.

Comparing their rankings in FIFA versus ELO shows a gulf of difference. 10th in FIFA and 42nd in ELO <_<

Edited by Chris the Human
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It just shows that while they have only a couple of high-profile players, they've become more of a cohesive team than many other national sides. Similar to your point, though, I've just noticed that Romania are the fifth highest-ranked European team. When did that happen?

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The thing with Belgium though, until the Wales loss, they hadn't lost a competitive game (other than the WC game against Argentina) for a few years I think, hence the high position.

 

Sod's law mind we'll get a group of death.

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They were mainly teams they were expected to beat, although they did get an away win over France too. Then again, France have both lost and drawn against Albania over the last year, presumably helping to account for their position in Pot Two.

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