Football 2014 FIFA World Cup Qualifying Thread

Still can't believe the tactics that Chris Coleman used against Belgium last night. Why on earth they lumped it up to Steve Morrison who was up front on his own when, he was up against Vincent Kompany and Thomas Vermaelen was beyond me.
 
I agree but I'm not sure if a qualifying tournament to qualify for the qualifying tournament is the best system either. Maybe if you extended it to bottom 32 teams I'd be in support of it. But lets just leave it at we agree that its a poor system but disagree on what would fix it.
 
Europe does seem to be the only nation to throw its minnows into the shark pit, although maybe that's because Europe has a relatively large number of reasonably good teams and a relatively massive number of places in the tournament.

CONCACAF and Asia would see 2-3 really good teams each (USA, Mexico; Japan, S. Korea, Australia) facing a whole lot of mind-sappingly dull victories against small Carribean islands and random Central Asian no-marks respectively, while Africa would need 10 team groups to throw 'em all in, while South America and Oceania have so few countries (of vastly different qualities, I might add.)

Its only really feasible in Europe, but I would certainly say that San Marino, Liechtenstein, Andorra, the Faroes, Malta and Luxembourg don't need to be all in that Group stage. Maybe a seeded one-match eliminator against the next six like Asia do to half the bloody continent.
 
It was a good start from England on Friday evening though. In the recent past England sides would have tried to make that fixture look as difficult as possible, and with high profile injuries in the squad, it being the start of the season and playing away, it's easier said than done to win.
 
Well it's Macedonia tonight.

Can I just say that I want Levein to go if three things happen tonight:

1. He plays one man up front with a line of five across the midfield.
2. That one man up front is Kenny Miller.
3. We don't win the game.

Actually if just the first two things happen and we scrape a 1-0 I'll feel the same way.
 
Miller is the lone striker again. I seriously think the guy's got some dirt on Levein. How else can you explain the fact that a guy playing for the Vancouver Whitecaps is leading the line to try and get us to the World Cup!
 
Miller is the lone striker again. I seriously think the guy's got some dirt on Levein. How else can you explain the fact that a guy playing for the Vancouver Whitecaps is leading the line to try and get us to the World Cup!
ROFL Go Whitecaps!

Canada only needs 4 more points to make it to the final round, another win against Panama will give us the boost we need and then it'd be a matter of tying Cuba or Honduras. It's doable.
 
Northern Ireland failed to defeat Luxembourg at home; not a good night for the home nations.

England look set to sneak through on the basis that Ukraine, Poland and Montenegro will take points off of each other.
 
San Marino seem to be playing the 10-0-0 formation. Very tough to break down. They might as well all just stand in front of the goal
 
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