Cricket-Match-Special ... A forum for discussion

Ukraine and Italy have to play each other still and so couldn't both get the points needed to push England to 3rd in the table unless England lost today. Didn't matter in the end. A better second half from England sees them to a 3-1 win

England tightened up defensively in the second half and this was improved by the introduction of Guehi for Stones, because he wasn't interested in playing footie ping pong with Maguire and so when Maguire passed to him, he played the ball forward. He did well, Guehi. England were much tighter at the back when he came on. A couple of gear changes and a couple of moments from Rashford, Bellingham and Kane and the job was completed comfortably in the second half.

Italy now have to play N Macedonia at home and assuming they win that, they go into the final game on the same points as Ukraine for a winner takes second place knock out match

Henderson didn't get booed today when he came on for Phillips, so that's progress of a sort. Real progress would see Henderson left out of the side all together

The playoff qualification process is bizarre, to say the least. Based entirely on the Nations League rather than performance in qualifying, and the three pools and ranked equally, and the winner of group D gets precedence in the event there aren't enough teams from one pool?

I guess most of group A is going to qualify anyway, by its nature, but it still seems odd.

Means Italy will be guaranteed a playoff spot if they don't beat Ukraine, and Ukraine will almost certainly get a play off spot (it's too convoluted for me to be able to work out if it's mathematically guaranteed, but it would require a very odd set of circumstances for them not to).

I see Sweden are saying they don't want the tie with Belgium replayed, given there's nothing for either team to play for.

The whole thing is just horrible.

indeed

Australia pull out of the bidding process for WC 2034 leaving Saudi Arabia as the sole remaining bid. I think many of us were wondering this after the Qatar experiment last year. Not surprising really, they've been pulling out of everything they were going to bid for

It's an odd thing, but it feels like a set up by FIFA. They announce a 3 continent WC in 2030, effectively eliminating all but 2 continents Oceania and Asia, bring forward the bidding process for 2034 by 3 years leaving bidders from those two continents just 26 days to submit their bid, and then acknowledge receipt of a bid from Saudi Arabia literally within hours of the announcement. I can definitely smell a stitch up

All that being said, I liked the concept of the winter world cup and I liked the absence of alcohol at these events. I think both led to a better tournament

Got to say, I am not remotely happy, firstly that Australia seems to have been totally stitched up by the process, and secondly that another world cup has gone to a country with an appalling record of human rights abuses for the sake of its sportswashing agenda.

FIFA truly is a rotten organisation.

Seemingly, FIFA prefer uncontested bids. They think it reduces corruption during a lengthy bidding process, but it looks to me as though these days the brown envelopes and unmarked bills change hands before the bidding process is even announced

I read somewhere that FIFA recently reduced the minimum stadium requirement from 7 to 4, which makes me wonder if Saudi Arabia perhaps only has 4 suitable stadiums.

Durhamfootman wrote:I read somewhere that FIFA recently reduced the minimum stadium requirement from 7 to 4, which makes me wonder if Saudi Arabia perhaps only has 4 suitable stadiums.

Apparently that is indeed the case. Staggering coincidence.

most fortuitous

not hard to see why Australia perhaps didn't feel it was worth spending loads of money on their bid

Malta.... played 7, lost 7.... 2 goals for, 18 against

I'm not sure but perhaps Sir G will need to err on the side of caution and play 2 defensive mids in front of the back 4..... just in case

I've often wondered what walking football looks like, so it's nice that England are very kindly showing me

England have been completely static in this first half and it isn't even as if Malta have parked the bus with 2 ranks of 5. To be fair to them they've had a bit of a go.... and why wouldn't they, England haven't even remotely stretched them at the back, so they are probably growing in confidence. Had it not been for an unfortunate own goal, they would still be all square. England have managed to play at Malta's level instead of imposing themselves on the game

Football to nod off to

Dull, dull, dull, dull

bog standard 2-0 win against a much lower quality side. If we set aside the unfortunate OG, England won the match with the only quality move that they produced all night.

2 moments summed up the performance for me. Firstly, Rashford and TAA running headlong into each other chasing the same ball and secondly the enthralled England fans who were so engrossed in the game that they started making paper aeroplanes out of their match programmes and spent the second half throwing them on the pitch. Paper aeroplanes all over the place

It was desperate stuff

will I bother watching the game in N Macedonia on Monday? I'm not so sure