WC 2018 Playoffs

[subway14]

It's just an example. I'll very much enjoy watching Panama in the World Cup, and they finished 3rd above Honduras and the USA, they'd qualify even if CONCACAF had only 3 spots.

Still, I prefer seeing underdog stories where the underdog actually achieved some unexpected success, like Northern Ireland winning a qualifying group or Iceland reaching the EURO quarters after beating England. If you just hand Iceland a place in the quarters, it just devalues the competition. With the possible exception of Peru, both Sweden and Italy would probably beat any of the other continent's playoff teams (and in those continents wouldn't even need the play the playoffs...). It's unfair one of these teams has to miss out so one of Honduras or Australia make it. And this is now with the 32 team WC, it gets more ridiculous with the 48 team one.

well I don't like the "it's unfair that team A qualifies and B doesn't" thinking, if some team doesn't qualify it's because they weren't good enough

Simply not true. They weren't good enough to qualify with the path they were given, but that path could be unfair. If the goal is to qualify the best 32 teams, that is. Sweden had France and the Netherlands in their group, Italy had Spain. Not winning their groups was normal and now they're facing each other. Can you truly say tonight's loser isn't as strong as Saudi Arabia?

it is a normal thing that in Europe it's harder to qualify than in other continents, and in the last 2 world cups Italy didn't even advance from the group stage, why should they deserve to be there

[Thunder_PT]

it is a normal thing that in Europe it's harder to qualify than in other continents

That's where we disagree. It shouldn't be. At least not this much more difficult.

[Michael S Collins]

FFS Italy.

[Thunder_PT]

5 minutes of time added on.

[Dragonite]

SWEDEN!!

[THEPOSH]

By bye Azzuri

[Michael S Collins]

End of the World.

Bah humbug.

[Michael S Collins]

PS Congratulations to Sweden.

[Thunder_PT]

Congratulations Sweden!

[THEPOSH]

End of the World.

Huh?
Italy just isn't good enough. So what?

[nogomet]

I feel sorry for Italy, but this means Croatia is in Pot 2.

So...

WE CANNOT DRAW MEXICO

[subway14]

it is a normal thing that in Europe it's harder to qualify than in other continents

That's where we disagree. It shouldn't be. At least not this much more difficult.

so what do you wanna do then, if you have more good teams in Europe than in other continents it's always gonna be harder to qualify from there

[Lorric]

0-0 FT. 0.778 goal per game average for the playoffs now. Though this was down to the referee not giving the penalties.

Italy were just weak. I was waiting for the moment to come where they were just going to go balls out and give it fucking everything, and it just never came.

This was worse than England vs Croatia for Euro 2008. Significantly. In that match, even though England went out and I can talk about what they did wrong there, they tried. They really tried to turn it around and get the result they needed. It didn't seem to matter much to Italy at the final whistle either. The better team has advanced.

[Di_Gule]

There will be partying tonight.

You have made the Whole of Sweden proud well done Blågult .

[Firnen]

Since Euro 16 and with a climax (?) in the play-offs now (how many 0-0 do we have?), we see national teams unable to break multi-men defenses unless the defenses or the goalkeepers gift them something. I wonder how far this will go.