2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar - UEFA Qualifiers

[CryptocurencyKing]

Some dramatic matches happened yesterday as it is often the case on the last matchday of a group stage. Portugal was very unlucky yesterday and it will probably take some time to recover from that last minute shock against serbia. That being said i think serbia deserved to score that goal as they were the better Team, especially in the first half. As others already said, i also think that Portugal will still qualify for the World cup but of course it wont be easy.

After watching both games against Republic of Ireland and Serbia, in my opinion I believe the approach was wrong. Portugal against Ireland played a weaker line up I guess figuring they could still win or at least draw which they did, and that still leaves them top of their group, needing only a draw to go through against Serbia, which didn’t work, so now they face having to qualify through the playoff route.  I would have preferred to load up against Republic of Ireland and win. Then Serbia would have to not just win against Portugal but win be a few goals, which I don’t believe they would have been able to do.
Now they down for the playoffs and with the disappointments on the faces, I think they will not relent this time.

[W Jr.]

England beat San Marino 10-0. incredible score. San Marino is a weak team, of course. But professionally conceding 10 goals in an international match must have been a very bad feeling. Scotland beat Denmark 2-0.  However, Denmark should have played with a slightly weaker squad as they have won all their previous matches. Poland unexpectedly lost 2-1 at home to Hungary. However, his ranking did not change.

[Cnut237]

All the teams of the really small countries are amateurs.I don't know why do they have to play against professional players?No disrespect for the small countries,but why do they have to participate in these tournaments,since they have zero chance of qualifying for a World Cup or Euro Cup?

It does seem like there should be a preliminary stage, where the smaller teams play each other first. Even in a shortened calendar there should be time for this, the preliminary stage could take place at the same time as a major tournament, where the small teams aren't participating in any case.

I don't know how the San Marino players remain motivated. Imagine that you're the best player in San Marino. You break into the international team at age twenty... and then you know that you face a career of maybe 100 international games, where your team loses just about every single one, maybe very occasionally scraping a nil-nil draw. How do you deal with that?

[cryptofrka]

England beat San Marino 10-0. incredible score. San Marino is a weak team, of course. But professionally conceding 10 goals in an international match must have been a very bad feeling. Scotland beat Denmark 2-0.  However, Denmark should have played with a slightly weaker squad as they have won all their previous matches. Poland unexpectedly lost 2-1 at home to Hungary. However, his ranking did not change.

San Marino is not a team of professionals. It is a team of waiters, fishermen and factory workers that play recreational football. For me it is stupid that they even have to play these qualifying games, it makes no sense at all.

Regarding yesterday's results, the biggest shock is Italy's inability to win against Northern Ireland. They were better and deserved the win, but fair play to Switzerland - they took advantage of the Italians' performance and thrashed Bulgaria to claim the 1st spot. Italy and Portugal in the qualifiers - it will be tough for all the other second placed teams.

[Sithara007]

After watching both games against Republic of Ireland and Serbia, in my opinion I believe the approach was wrong. Portugal against Ireland played a weaker line up I guess figuring they could still win or at least draw which they did, and that still leaves them top of their group, needing only a draw to go through against Serbia, which didn’t work, so now they face having to qualify through the playoff route.  I would have preferred to load up against Republic of Ireland and win. Then Serbia would have to not just win against Portugal but win be a few goals, which I don’t believe they would have been able to do.
Now they down for the playoffs and with the disappointments on the faces, I think they will not relent this time.

First of all, in the UEFA region there are no weak teams (perhaps with the exception of Liechtenstein and Gibraltar). Serbia and Ireland are strong teams and from your post I get an impression that you are underestimating them. Perhaps Portugal also made the same mistake. I have no doubt that Portugal is stronger than either of these two teams. But at the same time, to an extent they are overdependent on Cristiano Ronaldo. On paper they have good players such as João Moutinho and Pepe. But you can check the record for matches Portugal played without Ronaldo, and you'll get an idea.

[CryptocurencyKing]

Congratulations to Serbia, a truly great performance yesterday. Portugal was terrible, their only shot on the whole game was that goal in the 2nd minute.

Rui Patricio was unlucky with that 1st goal from Tadić and Mitrović scored the winning goal in the near post so he'll take some of the blame for sure, but pointing fingers at him after their performance yesterday would be really wrong.

I'm so glad that this happened, Portugal decided not to play football and simply boringly grind for the result. They were punished for it, but they will still be huge favorites in the qualifiers and we'll probably see them in Qatar.

Honestly the fans pointing fingers at Rui Patricio is totally unaccepted. For God sake the first goal was a deflected shot from Danilo. He even managed to have touched it but it was quick. Talk is cheap, nowadays it is free. Football fans just want to say anything forgetting that football is hard. They had a bad performance and unacceptable but I do respect both Messi and Ronaldo because they have done so much in the world football. When you are a star and your team win all praise goes to you and when your team lose all criticism goes to you. It is sad.  I believe Portugal still have a good chance to qualify. It’s not the end of the world.

[W Jr.]

England beat San Marino 10-0. incredible score. San Marino is a weak team, of course. But professionally conceding 10 goals in an international match must have been a very bad feeling. Scotland beat Denmark 2-0.  However, Denmark should have played with a slightly weaker squad as they have won all their previous matches. Poland unexpectedly lost 2-1 at home to Hungary. However, his ranking did not change.

Regarding yesterday's results, the biggest shock is Italy's inability to win against Northern Ireland. They were better and deserved the win, but fair play to Switzerland - they took advantage of the Italians' performance and thrashed Bulgaria to claim the 1st spot. Italy and Portugal in the qualifiers - it will be tough for all the other second placed teams.

We will watch a Playoff where the teams that came second in the qualifiers are also strong. There are important matches in group G tonight and the Netherlands, Turkey and Norway are the 3 teams that still have a chance to win. If the second-placed team in this group plays against Italy or Portugal, it will regret second place. However, anything is possible in football.

[DU18]

England defeated San Marino by a huge 10-0 result today. Actually it is not a surprising result but it is still really big. England saw this match as an opportunity to improve their morale at a high rate I assume. And they reached their goal obviously.    Kane and Alexander-Arnold were the stars of the match. Kane scored 4 goals and Alexander-Arnold made 3 assists. They were already comfortable at the 1st place but they wanted to have a good final for the group stage seemingly.

Throughout the match, the English team played quite well and even dominated the match, besides that England managed to create 22 chances, with 13 of them on target, and quite different from San Marino which was only able to create 2 chances with 1 on target.
To be honest ,I'm just not too surprised by the results that the English team got, because indeed the opponent they faced was a very weak team and San Marino only ranked 210 and it was clear they were not a commensurate opponent for the English team.

[dwminer1]

In today's matches I bet on the victories of the national teams of Ukraine and Turkey. Both teams are awaiting difficult away matches, but only victories may will guarantee them play in the play-offs. They will certainly be motivated. The hosts of both matches have no chance of being promoted anymore, but they probably do not intend to make the tasks easier for their opponents. So I am counting on interesting matches.

[CryptocurencyKing]

England defeated San Marino by a huge 10-0 result today. Actually it is not a surprising result but it is still really big. England saw this match as an opportunity to improve their morale at a high rate I assume. And they reached their goal obviously.    Kane and Alexander-Arnold were the stars of the match. Kane scored 4 goals and Alexander-Arnold made 3 assists. They were already comfortable at the 1st place but they wanted to have a good final for the group stage seemingly.

Throughout the match, the English team played quite well and even dominated the match, besides that England managed to create 22 chances, with 13 of them on target, and quite different from San Marino which was only able to create 2 chances with 1 on target.
To be honest ,I'm just not too surprised by the results that the English team got, because indeed the opponent they faced was a very weak team and San Marino only ranked 210 and it was clear they were not a commensurate opponent for the English team.

It is just funny that in nations like San Marino, Albania, Faroe Islands, Andorra  and many in Europe that few players are boasting of tons of international goals. Great performance, yes, they were up against a poor team. if they hadn’t scored these many goals against them they would have been criticised by the Media anyways. That the English Media for you. Let us just look forward to the the competition as they have already qualified. I hope these team can replicate this performance as all players turned up with enthusiasm and determination to boost their records.

[DU18]

England defeated San Marino by a huge 10-0 result today. Actually it is not a surprising result but it is still really big. England saw this match as an opportunity to improve their morale at a high rate I assume. And they reached their goal obviously.    Kane and Alexander-Arnold were the stars of the match. Kane scored 4 goals and Alexander-Arnold made 3 assists. They were already comfortable at the 1st place but they wanted to have a good final for the group stage seemingly.

Throughout the match, the English team played quite well and even dominated the match, besides that England managed to create 22 chances, with 13 of them on target, and quite different from San Marino which was only able to create 2 chances with 1 on target.
To be honest ,I'm just not too surprised by the results that the English team got, because indeed the opponent they faced was a very weak team and San Marino only ranked 210 and it was clear they were not a commensurate opponent for the English team.

It is just funny that in nations like San Marino, Albania, Faroe Islands, Andorra  and many in Europe that few players are boasting of tons of international goals. Great performance, yes, they were up against a poor team. if they hadn’t scored these many goals against them they would have been criticised by the Media anyways. That the English Media for you. Let us just look forward to the the competition as they have already qualified. I hope these team can replicate this performance as all players turned up with enthusiasm and determination to boost their records.

I agree with you, when facing a team like San Marino, England are required to be able to show their best game, even though they won big in that match but don't expect England to get tremendous praise from football fans because the levels of the two teams are very different, and even If San Marino was able to score just 1 goal in the match, the English team would have received considerable big criticism from the British media because they were conceded by a team as weak as San Marino

[casperBGD]

~snip
True italy failed to qualify for the world cup in 2018 they were not doing well they lost to sweden in the play offs but this year was a bit shocking since they were doing really well, unbeaten for a long time plus they won the euro but after that they only won one game in the quallifications in their last five.

agree, Italy skipped world cup in Russia, but they were playing poor football then
they played very good football on Euro this year, taking the title in the end, but did not show same quality in Nation leagues final tour, and they are not showing that football in qualifications either, or to put it other way, Switzerland played better, both matches were draws between the two, but Switzerland won all the rest, and Italy failed to win in Northern Ireland

will be difficult in play-offs, there are three places, but Portugal is there as well, so draw could match them before the final

[KTChampions]

Funny news. I don’t want to discuss gender issues (since this is offtopic and for many people is a hot topic), I’m just wondering how is this even possible - uncertainty? I remember that 20-30 years ago there were scandals with the fact that many adult football players played in the youth teams of Nigeria, but now they cannot appear out of nowhere and information about age and gender can be traced until birth.

Yeah, sorry, it is perhaps slightly off topic, but these games are actually FIFA-governed games for AFC (which Jordan and Iran are members of), which actually determine qualification into FIFA World Cup, albeit for the women's version of the tournament, for which there is, unfortunately, no correct sub-thread for me to add this comment into (or is there and I can't find it?).

The keeper has played for her whole life as a woman, of course, as I'm finding out now. Just funny that a team only challenges the decision AFTER they lose a game. Go Iran!

As a side comment, I have followed women's football recently and they have vastly, vastly improved over the past 5/10 years. Technically speaking, they're quite high quality in some countries, which wasn't the case 10 years ago, based on my admittedly limited observation.

I think it's okay to discuss women's football here. This is one competition, after all.
Yes, I also don’t like the claims that are made after the match, it always looks like an excuse and an attempt to change the result and it doesn’t look fair, because if they got the result they want, then everything would be ok for them.

Okay,  he sure does look like a man and I honestly don't know what to say. I do not think it's something like that but my eyes are saying something different. And if it is something like that then I wanted how this happened and how this player got so far.

Appearance is often deceiving. For example, when I look at weightlifters, I cannot understand who is a man and who is a woman 

[masulum]

-snip-
I don't expect Italy to achieve something big in the World Cup.Usually teams that have won a World Cup or a Euro fail at the next World Cup or Euro.Spain was the only exception(and maybe France in 1998 and 2000).

This is a terrible myth. Italy is the seeded team in Group C, and is predicted to qualify easy, without having to play in the Play-Offs, it turns out that the prediction is wrong, Italy still has to wait for the draw and of course hopes to find an easy opponent on play-off. I don't know what's wrong with Mancini and the Italian players. They were so bad in qualifying this time. If they fail in the play-offs, it will be a bad surprise and add the victim of that myth.

[Altryist]

In today's matches I bet on the victories of the national teams of Ukraine and Turkey. Both teams are awaiting difficult away matches, but only victories may will guarantee them play in the play-offs. They will certainly be motivated. The hosts of both matches have no chance of being promoted anymore, but they probably do not intend to make the tasks easier for their opponents. So I am counting on interesting matches.

Finland played very well against Bosnia and thus deprived them of their chances to leave the group, even if they win today. But even if today Ukraine can beat Bosnia, it will still not give it a guarantee that they will make it to the playoffs. Because will be a match between France and Finland, and for France this match does not solve anything, even if they lose, they will remain in first place, and Finland today will be very motivated to win. I think that France will still want to win, although I repeat once again, Finland has a lot more motivation to win today and they is playing at home.

[Woodie]

England beat San Marino 10-0. incredible score. San Marino is a weak team, of course. But professionally conceding 10 goals in an international match must have been a very bad feeling. Scotland beat Denmark 2-0.  However, Denmark should have played with a slightly weaker squad as they have won all their previous matches. Poland unexpectedly lost 2-1 at home to Hungary. However, his ranking did not change.

Such score lines are not a surprise when big teams meet the likes of San Marino and by the way this was just a formalities match as there was no chance of the English team to lose to these guys. I think fifa must introduce a rule if you are beaten by more than 5 goals consecutively then you miss out on the next 5 matches so that you are given more time to train because this is a waste of time to be honest.

[Barcode_]

Japan have only managed to score 4 goals out of 5 matches played in Group B, I felt the performance of Japan is quite disappointing as they seems to face some problems in scoring goals at the moment. I think Japan will face a lot of resistance from Oman when they play this match away from their home stadium today and this game might ends up with a draw.

[3meek]

I really enjoyed the game of Northern Ireland, and it's a shame they couldn't score when Donnarumma made a mistake coming out of the gate! Also, for some reason I had no doubt that Hungary could beat Poland!
Today I think Bosnia and Ukraine will score against each other, as will Wales and Belgium! I don't know why the odds are so high on a Belgium win, but I think I'll take advantage of it!

[W Jr.]

In today's matches I bet on the victories of the national teams of Ukraine and Turkey. Both teams are awaiting difficult away matches, but only victories may will guarantee them play in the play-offs. They will certainly be motivated. The hosts of both matches have no chance of being promoted anymore, but they probably do not intend to make the tasks easier for their opponents. So I am counting on interesting matches.

In fact, Turkey has a chance of leadership, even if it is unlikely. Norway can become the leader if they beat the Netherlands and Turkey beats Montenegro. Of course, match results are important for this. If Norway takes the lead in average difference -there is 1 goal difference between Turkey and Norway- Norway can complete the group leader. Today is a day where Norway, the Netherlands and Turkey have a chance to lead. The most interesting matches of the day will be played.

[tomahawk9]

San Marino is not a team of professionals. It is a team of waiters, fishermen and factory workers that play recreational football.

you forgot goat farmers and shoemakers 😂 well, those teams have no problem getting battered in every match, the better teams have no problem getting 3 points for free against teams full of part time dentists, and UEFA and FIFA are more than happy to get some money from those matches (publicity and whatnot), so, we'll keep seeing those crazy scorelines for a very long time

anyway, Portugal, Italy, what other big team is gonna go to play-off? Netherlands? 👀 all pressure's on norway who need to go on the offence against the dutch. i think it's gonna be a very close game