Having to endure watching Ireland play Armenia. Pub teams. And I mean pub teams. I hope England are better than this muck tonight. Left work early on the excuse of seeing the games.
The drama carries into the final window in the African qualifiers. Burkina Faso v Egypt ends 0-0 leaving Egypt 6 points clear at the top. A win in their next game against Djibouti will be enough to qualify for Egypt. Burkina Faso are going to have to win both their games and hope Egypt loses both of theirs if they want to qualify directly. A 1-1 draw with Nigeria also means South Africa are also going have to wait until the next international window but should qualify with Nigeria in 2nd on 11 points needing to win both their remaining games and South Africa to lose both their remaining games just to force a tie at the top of Group C. Benin (on 11 points) have 1 game in hand to be played this evening (against Lesotho) and can top the group with 2 wins and a draw if South Africa lose their remaining games. Rwanda (also 11 points) can also force a tie with South Africa if they win both their remaining games and South Africa lose both their remaining games. Other permutations are possible.
Wow Cape Verde beat Cameroon 1-0 which almost seals their World Cup debut!! 4 points ahead of Cameroon now and they’ve got Eswatini in their final game who are rock bottom South Africa hold off Nigeria so they’re in the driving seat in that group. If Benin beat Lesotho then Nigeria might not even make the play offs Senegal though 2-0 down against DR Congo and turned it round to win 3-2, sends them to the top of the group and a huge opportunity missed for Congo
Nigeria definitely look in real danger of finishing 3rd if Benin beat Lesotho (who've only won one match so far) as expected. Even if Lesotho win/draw with Benin it looks pretty precarious for Nigeria who can now only tie with South Africa and would need to massively improve goal difference.
If I've understood the African qualification process correctly, Nigeria are in big trouble. Win both their remaining games and they will finish on 17 points, which in theory could see them top the group, however South Africa have to be massive favourites to get the job done given their remaining fixtures. Assuming Nigeria end up finishing 2nd in the group, their issue is then that only the four best runners up advance to the intercontinental play off play off. Of the countries sitting in 2nd place in their qualification groups, six are currently on 15 points so Nigeria's maximum of 17 looks like it won't be enough...
Sterling Erling sets up his mate with a sitter that my 100-year-old auntie could have knocked in with her walker. …and now a goal of his own. Enough of this one.
Nigeria should be pissing qualifying every time given the resources and quality they have. Very poor from them.
Yep pretty much, would take a seriously fortunate set of results for them to scrape into the play offs. They already can’t surpass the points total of whichever of Gabon/ Ivory Coast finish 2nd in Group F
Norway 3 up. Just got to hold their nerve for two more matches after this and they're at the World Cup. Edit: 5-0 at half time
I'm pleased that they've gone that level up in this campaign. We've seen the likes of Eriksen, Pukki etc have really influential qualifying campaigns to help take those Northern sides to a tournament. I was hoping Haaland would do similar this time around.
They have a supporting cast as well. Obviously we know Odegaard but Ryerson is Dortmund's left full-back, Berge plays week in week out in the PL, Sorloth is a top foil to Haaland and Nusa is a prospect. Oscar Bobb and Sverre Nypan coming up too. 2026 shouldn't be their only venture at the World Cup.
I appreciate it's obviously still a team and there are other good players within that but it does feel like Haaland has really delivered in this campaign in the same way Eriksen did for Denmark in one campaign and Pukki did for Finland. I think Haaland has scored in every qualifier so far.
I think he's got a decent record in qualifiers anyway. He had 6 in 8 for Euro 2024 and 5 in 10 for the 2022 World Cup qualifiers. I'd argue it's those around him finally stepping up. They're 50 on the betfair exchange. Not going to win at all but I might get on it and see those odds tumble down and lay it off.
It is a decent record but I know a lot was made about his goals a couple of years ago and then Norway didn't qualify for the Euros which kind of took the shine off his record a little (for me at least). You look at the games he didn't score in as decisive. It looks like they'll qualify this time around which is a positive. You don't want a player as good as that to miss out on tournaments regularly.
Norway should run up the score here on lowly Moldova. If both Norway and Italy win out until their last-game showdown, and Italy win that home match, they’ll be tied on points. Group GD takes precedence over a head-to-head GD between the two nations in the tiebreak criteria.
