With the end of club football last night with the Champions League final, all attention turns to the international stage. It is a busy fortnight with a lot up for grabs.
CONMEBOL WCQ
With Argentina already qualified, there are 5 places still up for grabs plus an inter-confederation play-off spot. 2 games this week, and it could be decisive.
Ecuador are second on 23 points despite a 3 point deduction, and 2 wins will send them to WC26. Thursday night sees them play Brazil, who are one of 3 teams on 21 points. The other 2, Uruguay and Paraguay meet in Asuncion on matchday 15.
Colombia are on 20 points and in the final Q place. They face Peru, who know a defeat will finally kill automatic hopes.
Venezuela and Bolivia look set to fight it out for the play-off place, and their meeting in MD15 could be decisive.
MD16 is next Tuesday, with Brazil vs Paraguay the stand-out fixture. Uruguay vs Venezuela could send the top 6 all through, while Peru vs Ecuador and Argentina vs Colombia are key in the top 6 battle. Bolivia vs Chile rounds up MD15 and could be big in the fight for 7th.
UEFA Nations League
The action reaches the final stages, and is now centralised in Germany.
On Wednesday Germany face Portugal and the second semi is 24 hours later between Spain and France. Sunday has the loser final before the final to find the 2025 Nations League Champions.
UEFA WCQ
12 groups, group winners qualify directly to the World Cup, 2nd place goes to the play-offs.
Still early days, and the Nations League semi-finalists still won't get their campaign going until September. That also means Scotland, Ireland and Northern Ireland are among the nations sitting out WCQ this week.
England face Andorra in their only Q this week on Saturday, while Wales play Liechtenstein on Friday before their big game against Belgium on Monday.
One of the more attractive games on paper sees Italy begin their campaign against Norway on Friday. The Norwegians have 6 points from their opening 2 games.
Croatia also begin their campaign and host an unbeaten Czech Republic on Monday.
AFC WCQ
The format in Asia is 3 groups of 6 teams. The top 2 qualify for WC26 while 3rd and 4th go into the 4th round. This fortnight sees the conclusion of round 3 and 4 places are up for grabs alongside Iran and Japan who have already sealed their places. We should see at least one nation qualify for their first ever World Cup.
Behind Iran in Group A, Uzbekistan have 2 shots at qualifying. First up is an away tie with 3rd placed United Arab Emirates, with a win or a draw sending the Uzbeki's through. Defeat will mean victory over 4th placed Qatar on Tuesday will be needed, with UAE away to Kyrgyzstan. Kyrgyzstan are 4 points behind 4th, so need to beat eliminated North Korea to stand a chance in the last game.
The top 4 in Group B are still in a fight for qualification. South Korea lead the way and know a win over Iraq on Thursday will seal the deal. On the same day, 2nd vs 4th meet with Jordan in Oman. 2nd placed Jordan could qualify with a win, if SK also win, while Oman could catapult themselves into second ahead of the final games where they are in Palestine. We could be set for a shoot-out between Jordan and Iraq as they meet, while South Korea host Kuwait.
Japan have won Group C, but there is a battle behind them and the final day fixture Saudi Arabia vs Australia could be the decider. Before then Australia host Japan and Saudi are in Bahrain. Bahrain are in a 3 nation battle for 4th, with Indonesia vs China being a major factor in that. Indonesia face Japan in the last game, while Bahrain go to China.
CONCACAF WCQ
It is a long process to find 3 teams to join the hosts US, Mexico and Canada at WC26. We find ourselves in round 2, with 6 groups of 5 teams. The top 2 advance to round 3. Unlike most Q group systems, each team only play the others in their group once. That means there is all to play for ahead of this weeks final 2 games.
OFC WCQ completed with New Zealand qualifying for the World Cup and New Caledonia going to the inter-confeds.
African WCQ has no fixtures this month.
International Break!!
posted 3 days, 3 hours ago
Yeah, I think that would be good.
posted 3 days, 3 hours ago
You think, instead of England playing Panama, Cape Verde and New Zealand in a group they could play Argentina, France in first round. As well as Panama, Cape Verde and New Zealand.
posted 3 days, 3 hours ago
Or how about everyone plays everyone but no teams go out? Then we'd get even more big matches between the top nations?
The watering down of the top tournaments now mean that the majority of matches, there is far less riding on them.
Group stages now are essentially to determine who finishes bottom and goes out.
Moving towards the two thirds progressing model instead of 50% makes individual matches less meaningful.
You will come back saying that more matches have something riding on them, but why not just do away with an actual world cup winner then and just give everyone a Dairy Milk bar for playing a match, then every match has something riding on it. Cos you get a dairy milk in every match not just one team at the end getting a trophy.
Could also change the knock out stage to the two thirds model. Winner of the first knock out stage goes through but the loser goes into play offs to play other losing first round knock out teams so from the last 16, 12 go through to the last 8. Then out of the 12 last 8 teams, 8 go through to the last 4. The final is a 4 team league and the top 3 from that group win the world cup.
posted 3 days, 3 hours ago
And Scotland would still go out in the group stage if they qualified.
posted 3 days, 3 hours ago
I'd actually change individual matches as well so that the winner only gets two points and the loser gets one. It would mean that losing a match wouldn't be as bad so teams would be more attacking.
Although a move towards one point each regardless of the result would result in more open games still and would mean that all group matches have something riding on them. Also if we did away with goals to score in, then games would be closer
Anything we can do to take importance away from individual matches, can only be a good thing.
posted 3 days, 3 hours ago
The day that Scotland qualify for the knock out stage is the day you can celebrate the success of your campaign to dumb down top level football competitions.
posted 3 days ago
It's the shіttest time of year to play international football.
posted 2 days, 21 hours ago
There you go
posted 1 day, 7 hours ago
Does the football season never end? Another month of boring International football. I can think of a thousand things I would rather be doing than watching Summer football, especially the International rubbish.
I shall return to football in August when the real champions of Europe will be decided when Tottenham play PSG on the 13th August.
posted 1 day, 6 hours ago
So the real champions of England will be decided in the community shield? 😂😂😂