World Cup '26 qualifiers discussion

Fati_Future_BallonDor said:

Tough game today. Looks easy on paper but everyone who has watched them play knows Ireland is a super fighting team!

@Rebels Blaugranes @Temptation @Maradona37

this match shows it but you know as long as a Crisitano is on the field everything is possible, two fantastic headers to win the match, you guys can skip to 9:21

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I am trying to get a Portugal jersey.

and yes,I skipped to 9:21.

I totally get why some people think he's best ever.

Norway doing God's work

Israel with 2 own goals.

Will they blame Hamas?

Haaland also missed pen

Haaland with 11 goals in 6 games. The quality of these national teams in European qualifiers is embarrassing and what Penaldo built his NT goal record on. Hopefully Haaland can troll him and his petty fans in the future by following the same recipe and beat that misleading record.

There’s the hattrick too. 12 in 6 games. 51 in 46 games for Norway already. Still young. Coming for those Penaldo records in the future.

ThwiX said:

There’s the hattrick too. 12 in 6 games. 51 in 46 games for Norway already. Still young. Coming for those Penaldo records in the future.

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I need him at Barca with Lamine and Raphinha.

Damn what a shot from CR7, left foot, 20m bro makes a power shot vs the post

Spain 1-0

Turkey 1-1...

That foot save from Kelleher

done-arumma

Finally. Boring 10-man low block by Ireland vs Portugal broken in extra time.

ThwiX said:

Haaland with 11 goals in 6 games. The quality of these national teams in European qualifiers is embarrassing and what Penaldo built his NT goal record on. Hopefully Haaland can troll him and his petty fans in the future by following the same recipe and beat that misleading record.

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some truth there, 36 year old Arnautovic made 4 goals against San Marino

Let's just say (and this is worst case scenario for Norway, other than the nightmare of not actually beating Estonia) that Norway beat Estonia 1-0 and Italy beat both Israel and Moldova 5-0 (I think realistically Norway will win by more and Italy will not rack up that many goals, but bear with me). That would put Norway's goal difference on +28 and Italy's on +17 - meaning Italy would need to beat Norway in the final game and there would have be a 12 goal swing i.e Italy winning by 6 clear goals. And this is the worst case scenario for Norway - assuming they win marginally and Italy rack up the goals in their final three games. They'd both finish on identical points - won 7 games and lose the away game to each other.

So, yeah, a win over Estonia by any margin and Norway are 99.99 percent qualified. They have already done the hard work building their goal difference. What @ThwiX has said is right - Haaland is like Ronaldo, a falt-track bully who beats up on poor teams in qualifiers, which is perfect when the tiebreaker is goal difference (though to be fair even if the tiebreaker was head to head, they beat Italy 3-0 in the home game).

Hence, beat Estonia, and we will be seeing Norway at their first World Cup since 1998.

Also, due to the weird three game group format (used at World Cups in latter stages of the 70s and 80s), UAE only need a draw against Qatar on Tuesday to qualify. UAE came back to beat Oman in the last 15 minutes, otherwise it would have been Oman in a great position.

These are the group of teams who couldn't qualify in the original Asian groups.

Small groups like that show how things can swing radically. The bad news for the UAE is that the group is being hosted in Qatar, but Qatar already failed to beat Oman so there is hope.

In the other group, held in Saudi, it's going just how the Saudis want it - 0-0 between Iraq and Indonesia in the second half. Saudi already beat Indonesia so that would mean they'd just need a draw against Iraq on Tuesday to qualify.

Oh and the runners-up of the groups play-off to decide the Asian qualifier for the inter-confederation play-offs. It's very convoluted.