I presume they’ll bring Mikael Lustig and Seb Larsson back in for the tournament itself if they qualify
North Macedonia also beat Germany away from home in the qualifiers last March.
Jack Charlton used to hate March but the Macedonians love it.
I would presume that North Macedonia are the first team to beat Germany and Italy away from home in the same qualifying campaign. I don’t even recall any team beating Germany and Italy at the same World Cup finals.
Very well put. It just seems all wrong. I was wondering if the war was overshadowing these games myself, but it’s the other things you mentioned too…the pandemic and the timing. I didn’t even get a sense of urgency from Austria and Czech Republic when they were both a single goal behind in the latter stages. Granted I didn’t see the drama in the Italy game, but the first two sides I mentioned seemed to have a friendly mentality and accepted defeat without much fight.
Their opponents tonight the Czechs were probably the best team at that tournament. Portugal, England and I suppose at a push Greece, seeing as they won the damn thing, were probably the best also rans.
It was a shite tournament.
North Macedonia scored as I was finishing the last few words of that post. I looked up to see the ball nestling in the net. Didn’t even get the shock of seeing the goal out of tonight.
The shite thing is that Portugal v Italy would have been big and now we won’t get that.
It’s all very well having shocks like France and Argentina going out in the first round in 2002 but that led to the dirge of Turkey v Senegal in the quarter-final instead of a last 16 tie between France and Argentina.
Germany going out in the first round last time meant the dirge of England v Sweden rather than England v Germany.
I want the 2026 World Cup to have the following quarter-final line up:
Germany v Italy
France v Brazil
Argentina v Holland
Ireland v England
That was some header by Diogo Jota for Portugal goal number 2.
Yerra the whole thing being in Qatar at christmas has made a fuck of it
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Czechs were best, Sweden 2nd rest much of a much Portugal and Holland the pick of em
‘‘‘Twas a shite tournament alright but featured best game I’ve seen . The Dutch Czech game
Yet if there is a Japan v Croatia group game at lunchtime while we WFH, we’ll be watching it 100%
Holland were shite. Sweden weren’t any better.
Portugal v England was the only knockout match that delivered. England left that tournament behind them. It was the only tournament where that generation of players actually put in some convincing performances.
Go home to your sexy wives was peak joe.ie gas craic bantz.
Jesus… That was cringe level above the shit that was on the flags…
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The argument can be put forward that Italy won a very weak Euros
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England got the final, I thought that was acknowledged by all
Spain should have beaten them in the semis
The Italian football team are very like the Irish rugby team. They look very good between World Cups, but they flop when it really matters.