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Just now, Yorkie said:

Never agree with this 'feeling sorry for' San Marino. :lol:

 

'Heartbreaking,' man. I'd give my left nut to have a kickabout at Wembley with Harry Kane ffs. 

I dunno getting hammered 10-0 feels horrible no matter the level and potentially going your entire international career with 0 wins I'm impressed they keep bothering tbh. 

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13 minutes ago, jdckelly said:

I dunno getting hammered 10-0 feels horrible no matter the level and potentially going your entire international career with 0 wins I'm impressed they keep bothering tbh. 

They should pre qualify

 

then also it’s great for them players to have a chance to play against big teams so would effectively kill them off forever if they did that

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1 minute ago, Yorkie said:

See Brazil and Argentina have been pretty emphatic in their qualification. Any chance at all either of them win the World Cup or standard European win again? 


The standard of the other teams has been a lot lower than usual so it’s a probably a bit misleading. I’d say Argentina are slightly better than what they were at the last World Cup as they can almost defend and have a proper keeper but Messi is on a older. Brazil are Brazil, always have a chance to win or collapse in hilarious fashion.

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12 minutes ago, Yorkie said:

Rather than binning off the bottom end you could promote the top end instead. For eg everyone who makes it to the last 16 of the World Cup/Euros automatically qualifies for the next one. (Not my idea) 

 

Not wanting to cross the streams but they do something very similar in rugby for their World Cup, although that might work better/differently because there are generally fewer higher level nations compared to football so the same old countries will always qualify anyway through the World Cup rather than qualification. 

 

I suppose it's six and two threes really. Someone like Germany or Brazil are pretty much always going to qualify, whether that's because they'll usually reach the knockouts or inevitably just sail through qualifying. Could maybe help the lower nations, I guess, but I think that was the thought behind linking Nations League progress with Euro and World Cup qualifying in terms of giving them a playoff spot to put in their back pocket in case main qualifying doesn't go so well. 

 

Who knows what'll happen when Wenger gets his way and there'll be qualifying for the next World Cup midway through the current one in some multi group format where the top two in each group qualify for a World Cup in odd years and the next two for a World Cup in even years and the bottom teams qualify for the Euros. 

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I really like the Nations League for how it presents the smaller nations with more opportunities for more competitive matches, for the betterment of their own progress and to increase competitiveness of the wider network. But when it comes to teams at the scale of San Marino, Andorra, Liechtenstein, Gibraltar - I really do wonder if there's any requirement to make a concerted effort to improve their fortunes.

 

If the likes of Luxembourg, Moldova, Armenia and teams of that ilk are benefiting from more 'localised' competition (in an ability sense), then that's a good thing and it's measurable. But those tiny ones are so far from being competitive that I don't really see how being gifted the opportunity to share a pitch with Kane and Lewandowski et al is a 'waste of time'. If I had a day job whilst knocking about in the San Marino division and Serie D, I'd see those occasions as a huge pleasure. 

 

What England etc get out of it is another discussion, obviously. 

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I think the San Marinos etc are a beautiful part of European international football and I'd be really sad to see them taken out of the main competition. Is a couple of games against these teams every now and again really such a problem? England are in the unusual situation of having both Andorra and San Marino in this group. The Faroes would've been one of these teams before and are half decent now, coming above Moldova in Scotland's group - so Scotland didn't have any games against totally hopeless teams this round, and often don't.

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