But it won’t really, will it. With the way the seedings work, England will get an easy group again and probably only one other country who may be competitive.
I get the reasoning though. Playing friendlies, even if you get them against the top nations in their spare game slots, will never truly rest you in the build up to a tournament.
England haven’t done too badly the couple of times they’ve hosted/automatically qualified for a major tournament before!
But it won’t really, will it. With the way the seedings work, England will get an easy group again and probably only one other country who may be competitive.
I get the reasoning though. Playing friendlies, even if you get them against the top nations in their spare game slots, will never truly rest you in the build up to a tournament.
Not so sure, not an instant given... Qualification now, tends to be based on the Nations League performances which is why its important to take those seriously.
We're in League B now after we got relegated after the last competition.
So when the draw for the 2026 World Cup gets made, we definitely won't be in Pot 1, and may not even be in Pot 2.
You'd expect us to get promoted back for League A for the 2026/27 iteration, meaning we'll be guaranteed to be in Pot 2 at the very least... But no guarantees of us getting promoted, given how poor we were last time around.
I don't see Southgate being around beyond next summer, and have always been surprised at the fan "trust" in the FA to get his replacement right.
But it won’t really, will it. With the way the seedings work, England will get an easy group again and probably only one other country who may be competitive.
I get the reasoning though. Playing friendlies, even if you get them against the top nations in their spare game slots, will never truly rest you in the build up to a tournament.
Not so sure, not an instant given... Qualification now, tends to be based on the Nations League performances which is why its important to take those seriously.
We're in League B now after we got relegated after the last competition.
So when the draw for the 2026 World Cup gets made, we definitely won't be in Pot 1, and may not even be in Pot 2.
You'd expect us to get promoted back for League A for the 2026/27 iteration, meaning we'll be guaranteed to be in Pot 2 at the very least... But no guarantees of us getting promoted, given how poor we were last time around.
I don't see Southgate being around beyond next summer, and have always been surprised at the fan "trust" in the FA to get his replacement right.
We were in pot 2 for the current Euro qualifiers and still got a relatively easy group, and with 24 teams qualifying it's probably harder to not qualify. I highly doubt we're going to fall down into pot 3.
There's also so many restrictions on who can be in the same qualifying groups that i think we'll tend to get a fairly easy draw anyway.
But it won’t really, will it. With the way the seedings work, England will get an easy group again and probably only one other country who may be competitive.
I get the reasoning though. Playing friendlies, even if you get them against the top nations in their spare game slots, will never truly rest you in the build up to a tournament.
Not so sure, not an instant given... Qualification now, tends to be based on the Nations League performances which is why its important to take those seriously.
We're in League B now after we got relegated after the last competition.
So when the draw for the 2026 World Cup gets made, we definitely won't be in Pot 1, and may not even be in Pot 2.
You'd expect us to get promoted back for League A for the 2026/27 iteration, meaning we'll be guaranteed to be in Pot 2 at the very least... But no guarantees of us getting promoted, given how poor we were last time around.
I don't see Southgate being around beyond next summer, and have always been surprised at the fan "trust" in the FA to get his replacement right.
We were in pot 2 for the current Euro qualifiers and still got a relatively easy group, and with 24 teams qualifying it's probably harder to not qualify. I highly doubt we're going to fall down into pot 3.
There's also so many restrictions on who can be in the same qualifying groups that i think we'll tend to get a fairly easy draw anyway.
We were in Pot 2 though, because that was still based off us being in the top tier of the Nations League.
Need to factor in how many Qualifying Groups there will be as well, but the only League B Nations to be included in Pot 2 for the current Euro Qualifiers were the four teams promoted to League A - So yeah if we win our next Nations League "Group" we should be fine, otherwise we would drop to Pot 3
We should be fine regardless though as its the top two from each Group that get an automatic spot in the Euros - Its Qualification for the next World Cup that could be interesting, as previously, only the top team from each Group qualifies automatically, so being out of Pot 1 could make our lives harder for that
I don't think Europe are getting many more slots either with the expansion?
But it won’t really, will it. With the way the seedings work, England will get an easy group again and probably only one other country who may be competitive.
I get the reasoning though. Playing friendlies, even if you get them against the top nations in their spare game slots, will never truly rest you in the build up to a tournament.
Not so sure, not an instant given... Qualification now, tends to be based on the Nations League performances which is why its important to take those seriously.
We're in League B now after we got relegated after the last competition.
So when the draw for the 2026 World Cup gets made, we definitely won't be in Pot 1, and may not even be in Pot 2.
You'd expect us to get promoted back for League A for the 2026/27 iteration, meaning we'll be guaranteed to be in Pot 2 at the very least... But no guarantees of us getting promoted, given how poor we were last time around.
I don't see Southgate being around beyond next summer, and have always been surprised at the fan "trust" in the FA to get his replacement right.
We were in pot 2 for the current Euro qualifiers and still got a relatively easy group, and with 24 teams qualifying it's probably harder to not qualify. I highly doubt we're going to fall down into pot 3.
There's also so many restrictions on who can be in the same qualifying groups that i think we'll tend to get a fairly easy draw anyway.
We were in Pot 2 though, because that was still based off us being in the top tier of the Nations League.
Need to factor in how many Qualifying Groups there will be as well, but the only League B Nations to be included in Pot 2 for the current Euro Qualifiers were the four teams promoted to League A - So yeah if we win our next Nations League "Group" we should be fine, otherwise we would drop to Pot 3
We should be fine regardless though as its the top two from each Group that get an automatic spot in the Euros - Its Qualification for the next World Cup that could be interesting, as previously, only the top team from each Group qualifies automatically, so being out of Pot 1 could make our lives harder for that
I don't think Europe are getting many more slots either with the expansion?
I'm not sure we should be very concerned even if we did end up in a pot 3 to be honest - what teams would be in a potential pot 2 in that scenario ? Scotland? Switzerland? Austria? the type of team we should be beating anyway.
But it won’t really, will it. With the way the seedings work, England will get an easy group again and probably only one other country who may be competitive.
I get the reasoning though. Playing friendlies, even if you get them against the top nations in their spare game slots, will never truly rest you in the build up to a tournament.
Not so sure, not an instant given... Qualification now, tends to be based on the Nations League performances which is why its important to take those seriously.
We're in League B now after we got relegated after the last competition.
So when the draw for the 2026 World Cup gets made, we definitely won't be in Pot 1, and may not even be in Pot 2.
You'd expect us to get promoted back for League A for the 2026/27 iteration, meaning we'll be guaranteed to be in Pot 2 at the very least... But no guarantees of us getting promoted, given how poor we were last time around.
I don't see Southgate being around beyond next summer, and have always been surprised at the fan "trust" in the FA to get his replacement right.
We were in pot 2 for the current Euro qualifiers and still got a relatively easy group, and with 24 teams qualifying it's probably harder to not qualify. I highly doubt we're going to fall down into pot 3.
There's also so many restrictions on who can be in the same qualifying groups that i think we'll tend to get a fairly easy draw anyway.
We were in Pot 2 though, because that was still based off us being in the top tier of the Nations League.
Need to factor in how many Qualifying Groups there will be as well, but the only League B Nations to be included in Pot 2 for the current Euro Qualifiers were the four teams promoted to League A - So yeah if we win our next Nations League "Group" we should be fine, otherwise we would drop to Pot 3
We should be fine regardless though as its the top two from each Group that get an automatic spot in the Euros - Its Qualification for the next World Cup that could be interesting, as previously, only the top team from each Group qualifies automatically, so being out of Pot 1 could make our lives harder for that
I don't think Europe are getting many more slots either with the expansion?
I'm not sure we should be very concerned even if we did end up in a pot 3 to be honest - what teams would be in a potential pot 2 in that scenario ? Scotland? Switzerland? Austria? the type of team we should be beating anyway.
Had we been in Pot 3 for Euro 2024 Qualifying, then worst case scenario we could have been in a Group with Spain / Italy / Netherlands / Belgium / Portugal (Pot 1) and France (Pot 2)
We shouldn't be concerned anyway, we probably have the second best team in Europe - But the Group wouldn't be as easy as it usually is
Comments
We're in League B now after we got relegated after the last competition.
So when the draw for the 2026 World Cup gets made, we definitely won't be in Pot 1, and may not even be in Pot 2.
You'd expect us to get promoted back for League A for the 2026/27 iteration, meaning we'll be guaranteed to be in Pot 2 at the very least... But no guarantees of us getting promoted, given how poor we were last time around.
I don't see Southgate being around beyond next summer, and have always been surprised at the fan "trust" in the FA to get his replacement right.
There's also so many restrictions on who can be in the same qualifying groups that i think we'll tend to get a fairly easy draw anyway.
Need to factor in how many Qualifying Groups there will be as well, but the only League B Nations to be included in Pot 2 for the current Euro Qualifiers were the four teams promoted to League A - So yeah if we win our next Nations League "Group" we should be fine, otherwise we would drop to Pot 3
We should be fine regardless though as its the top two from each Group that get an automatic spot in the Euros - Its Qualification for the next World Cup that could be interesting, as previously, only the top team from each Group qualifies automatically, so being out of Pot 1 could make our lives harder for that
I don't think Europe are getting many more slots either with the expansion?
8 from Asia
9 from Africa
3 from N&C America
6 from South America
1 from Oceania
16 from Europe
2 from an Intercontinental playoff involving 1 team from Asia, 1 from Africa, 1 from South America, 1 from Europe and 2 from N&C America
That's the 48, so if one of the European teams gets through the playoff then we could have 17 slots in total, up from 13 in the last world cup
We shouldn't be concerned anyway, we probably have the second best team in Europe - But the Group wouldn't be as easy as it usually is
I'm yet to be convinced.