Portugal and Poland Qualify for 2022 World Cup

30th Mar 2022

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With the Premier League taking a break the focus has been on Qatar 2022 and the World Cup. There were two play-off finals to get our teeth into and Portugal and Poland have won their respective matches and have qualified. Portugal beat North Macedonia in their game winning 2-0 in the end as Bruno Fernandes scored both goals. The fact that the Portuguese were not playing Italy in the final was a huge surprise but North Macedonia had beaten Italy in their semi-final stunning the European champions in the final minute of injury time.

So Cristiano Ronaldo will play in his fifth World Cup and surely his final one but spare a thought for North Macedonia. Having to beat both Italy and Portugal just to reach the World Cup finals was a tough ask and then adding that both of their games were played away from home almost made it impossible for them. One has to wonder if FIFA made the right decisions in having 'home' ties for a play-off final and perhaps a neutral venue would have been fair. It was the same for Sweden who had to play such an important game away from home and they exited too. Wales will be at home when they play either Scotland or Ukraine and Gareth Bale's side will surely start as the favourites to make it to their first World Cup finals since 1958.

The European champions will not be playing in the World Cup in what are strange times for Italy. This is also the 2nd World Cup in a row that the Azzurri will not be a part of. Italy completely dominated their game against North Macedonia and yet lost, and that will come down to their lack of killer instinct in front of goal although any team missing the services of Federico Chiesa is going to suffer. England who of course lost to Italy on penalties in last year's European Championships had already qualified for the World Cup so they played two friendly games instead. Gareth Southgate's team had little trouble in both as they beat Switzerland 2-0 and Ivory Coast 3-0. Despite that Harry Maguire was booed by his own fans even though his display was good. It seems like some of his form for Manchester United this season is irking supporters but by booing Maguire one has to wonder where does that get anyone?

To win the World Cup: Brazil 6.00, France 7.00, England 8.00, Spain 9.00, Germany 10.00

 

Last year when the announcement that a Super League could take shape, football pundits, fans and even players were against the idea. But this also made UEFA look good, to be clear are UEFA really the good guys even if proposals for the Super League were flawed? This week it has emerged that UEFA have made a significant step forward to using a co-efficient ranking system that would create a further 10 places in the Champions League, basically two more positions for clubs who have failed to finish in the top 4. It guarantees so to speak that the biggest clubs will not be missing out on Champions League football from the 2024/25 season. It means that the hotly disputed race for top 4 which this season for example is one of the most exciting and could well go down to the wire won't have the same impact any more. In short this is a blow to football. The football authorities in their tiny way just won't leave well alone and of course they won't because of the threat of clubs pulling away from them. But this just feels like blackmail and it is why we should have taken the hate towards a Super League with a pinch of salt. What the Super League proposals got wrong is that you can't have a closed shop, there had to be relegation and promotion. There was also an aggressiveness to the situation with the project announced so quickly and the fact that once it was, the start date was then going to be in a few months. It really did make UEFA look like the victims, but glass houses and all that, it seems that UEFA can't be trusted so much either. So if Manchester City, Liverpool or Chelsea have a poor season, they will now have the safety net of ranking points from previous seasons and still qualify for the competition. And you thought football games were won on the pitch.



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