Internationals thread where we moan about England lots

[Sanguine]

How many will Montenegro win by on Tuesday?

We'll win 1-0.

[Stranded]

Thats the way the cookie crumbles

Would you have rather faced Brazil, Germany, Spain, Croatia in the qualifiers?

You could forget a trip to the finals


The likes of Andorra, Faroes and San Marino etc have as much right to take their chances as we do.

They do indeed but putting them into an earlier round similar to most other Continental qualification tournaments doesn't take away that chance.

With over 50 nations trying to qualify having more than round makes sense.

[TBM]

Finland held Spain to a 1-1 draw in Spain

[parky]

How many will Montenegro win by on Tuesday?

We'll win 3-1

[Stuka]

By the way the Croatia/Serbia games will both be home fans only by agreement of the respective FA's.

Last night's game 40,00 Croats sang songs glorifying the SS legions during the war. Lovely people.

[barelylubedcock]

The sizes of the smallest nations means that they're never realistically going to compete.

There are currently 53 UEFA members, the bottom 12 are basically all the smallest and the poorest. 4 group prequalification, 4 winners join the other 41, to give 9 groups of 5. Smallest teams get 6 guaranteed games plus the chance of actually scoring a goal. Sam Marino won their 5th corner of qualification last night. Fooking .

[Barry the bird boggler]

Surely you include everyone but have 13 or 14 groups of 4 or whatever and the winner of each group qualifies. This also has the added benefit of reducing the number of international dates required so the domestic leagues get some dates back for themselves to be able shorten their seasons.

[bobbybottler]

The sizes of the smallest nations means that they're never realistically going to compete.

There are currently 53 UEFA members, the bottom 12 are basically all the smallest and the poorest. 4 group prequalification, 4 winners join the other 41, to give 9 groups of 5. Smallest teams get 6 guaranteed games plus the chance of actually scoring a goal. Sam Marino won their 5th corner of qualification last night. Fooking .

The bottom 12 includes Northern Ireland who qualified for consecutive WCs in the 1980s and produced the UKs greatest player, and Wales who have reached a WC QF and were unfortunate not to go further.

Both of these erm nations plus Macedonia and Montenegro are well capable of producing a golden generation in my lifetime, never mind yours, the word "never" in your assertation is way off the mark.

[AthleticoSpizz]

spot on Bob

and after all, it is the World Cup

The world includes countries that dont deserve our superior football teams precious time

[barelylubedcock]

The sizes of the smallest nations means that they're never realistically going to compete.

There are currently 53 UEFA members, the bottom 12 are basically all the smallest and the poorest. 4 group prequalification, 4 winners join the other 41, to give 9 groups of 5. Smallest teams get 6 guaranteed games plus the chance of actually scoring a goal. Sam Marino won their 5th corner of qualification last night. Fooking .

The bottom 12 includes Northern Ireland who qualified for consecutive WCs in the 1980s and produced the UKs greatest player, and Wales who have reached a WC QF and were unfortunate not to go further.

Both of these erm nations plus Macedonia and Montenegro are well capable of producing a golden generation in my lifetime, never mind yours, the word "never" in your assertation is way off the mark.

Montenegro aren't in the bottom 12 (actually, nor are Wales or Northern Ireland currently, but Wales were at the time of the draw so I'll ignore the fact that their World Cup final appearance was over 50 years ago when UEFA had half as many countries as it does now).

At the time of the draw, the bottom 12 countries were San Marino (population 32,000), Andorra (85,000), Malta (411,000), Luxembourg (514,000), Kazakhstan (17 million), Iceland (315,000), Liechtenstein (37,000), Wales (3,063,000), Faroe Islands (49,000), Azerbaijan (10 million), Macedonia (2,087,000) and Armenia (2,974,000).

So basically all but one of the eight countries with populations less than a million, a country that isn't a country and three of the four nations the other side of the Black Sea. The only one that doesn't fit this is Macedonia but they're the 10th or 11th smallest anyway. But look at those numbers again and see how small these countries really are. I was fairly down on the "throw them in together, it's inclusive" until I bothered to look up some of the numbers involved.

Montenegro (population about 600,000) are bucking the trend but that's kind of the point of prequalification - chance to win games, chance to play more competitive fixtures and develop. Plus, sadly, I expect gravity to kick in within two or three tournaments there.

And yes, sometimes, more historically successful nations might slip into this group.

But that would be funny.

[Ian Royal]

spot on Bob

and after all, it is the World Cup

The world includes countries that dont deserve our superior football teams precious time

Oh right, so teams that compete in the FA Cup preliminary rounds aren't competing in the FA Cup then?

An additional qualifying round for smaller nations does not mean that it stops being a World Cup. If they do well enough in the preliminary qualifying round, they'll still compete with the likes of Spain, Germany, France, Italy and England. If they do well enough in that group they'll still make it to the World Cup finals.

[Stuka]

Anyone going to England v Ireland in May?

[Dr.dee]

Anyone going to England v Ireland in May?

Depends how much it costs.

[creative_username_1]

Jesus wept, when we gonna stop playing these third world countries

[Wax Jacket]

Jesus wept, when we gonna stop playing these third world countries

'greed

it should be done on some sort of development index, %age of car drivers who indic8 when turning, that sort of thing

[creative_username_1]

I have no idea how we could drag Ireland into the first world.

[Stuka]

I have no idea how we could drag Ireland into the first world.

Cancel Home Rule

[Pepe the Horseman]

Actually looking forward to the game tonight, think it should be quite feisty.

[Dr.dee]

Who is going to the england vs scotland game in august.

[brighton_royal]

Montenegro v England, Group H World Cup Qualifier
Venue: Podgorica City Stadium
Date: Tuesday, 26 March
Kick-off: 20:00 GMT

England

01 Hart
02 Johnson
03 Cole
05 Lescott
06 Smalling
04 Gerrard
07 Milner
08 Carrick
11 Cleverley
09 Welbeck
10 Rooney

Substitutes

13 Foster
23 Forster
12 Walker
14 Baines
15 Caulker
16 Lampard
17 Parker
18 Osman
19 Oxlade-Chamberlain
20 Young
21 Defoe
22 Sturridge

We should win obviously, but then we are often pretty shit, so we might not. Hope this helps.