Pot two for England, Wales and Scotland. Pot three for the Republic of Ireland and pot five for Northern Ireland. Nations League pot (top seeds that have to go in smaller groups): Netherlands, Croatia, Spain, Italy. Pot 1 (the other top seeds): Denmark, Portugal, Belgium, Hungary, Switzerland, Poland. Pot 2: France, Austria, Czech Republic, England, Wales, Israel, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Scotland, Finland. Pot 3: Ukraine, Iceland, Norway, Slovenia, Republic of Ireland, Albania, Montenegro, Romania, Sweden, Armenia. Pot 4: Georgia, Greece, Turkey, Kazakhstan, Luxembourg, Azerbaijan, Kosovo, Bulgaria, Faroe Islands, North Macedonia. Pot 5: Slovakia, Northern Ireland, Cyprus, Belarus, Lithuania, Gibraltar, Estonia, Latvia, Moldova, Malta. Pot 6: Andorra, San Marino, Liechtenstein. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/63035627
Three other Euro 2020 qualifiers in our group then, yikes We’ve done well with our fifth seed though- Malta is a lovely country to visit and a great night out
Scotland got Spain and Haaland. Good luck with that! Mimd you not as bad as for the Republic. More Italy /England battles and some lower ranked countries we haven’t faced for a which is nice I think . Wales and Turkey to battle for 2nd place behind Croatia but could have had worse top seeds .
Turkey out of pot 4 isn’t great but we comfortably beat them at Euro 2020. Bit of a mercurial side though so hard to predict. Otherwise that’s a decent draw overall, some great places for fans to to visit too.
Tough start for Eddie Howe with Italy , Ukraine , North Macedonia & Malta in his first qualifying competition as England manager . I may be wrong .
ROI were due a tough draw, but that is horrendous! We got as good a draw as we could hope for. Denmark will probably give us a beating, but I feel we can compete with the others.
Seems like Croatia have a bit of an ageing team, at least in terms of their ‘star players’. As do we. But we also have decent younger players coming through so hopefully we can catch them in a transitional period, and/or with a crop of players who are past their best.
Can't ever remember playing Malta. I remember Peter Crouch scoring against Macedonia in the mid 2000s sometime in a qualifier, was watching it in a pub . Italy is a tough top seed though.
Yes - not the most convincing of records against them! https://www.11v11.com/teams/england/tab/opposingTeams/opposition/North Macedonia/ Seems we did play Malta recenelty. Cannot remember that at all like you say. https://www.11v11.com/teams/england/tab/opposingTeams/opposition/Malta/ Again hardly the most convincing 4-0 you'll ever see. Malta 0-4 England
It was ‘only’ 2-0 against Malta at Wembley too, albeit both first half goals on that occasion. Gareth Southgate’s very first game in interim charge. That World Cup qualification campaign was a real slog.
