Scotland in possible World Cup qualification shocker!

[Brandane]

Surely, even Scotland will be able to qualify for the finals of the FIFA World Cup competition, which is being expanded to 48 teams from 2026. BBC link.
We will of course be going home long before the more advanced stages of the finals, but not before a heroic display and going out on goal difference. Perhaps we can share a flight home with the humiliated England team?

 

[srw]

They regularly qualify for the World Cup, most recently in 2015.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotland_at_the_Cricket_World_Cup

 

[Brandane]

They regularly qualify for the World Cup, most recently in 2015.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotland_at_the_Cricket_World_Cup

I'm sure I saw the Scottish Cricket Supporters Club tandem taking the full contingent of fans to that.

 

[Oxo]

Surely, even Scotland will be able to qualify for the finals of the FIFA World Cup competition, which is being expanded to 48 teams from 2026. BBC link.
We will of course be going home long before the more advanced stages of the finals, but not before a heroic display and going out on goal difference. Perhaps we can share a flight home with the humiliated England team?

There is no surely about it, the best you can hope for is a faint 'possibly'.

 

[Brandane]

There is no surely about it, the best you can hope for is a faint 'possibly'.

I'd prefer if they didn't, TBH.. We'd just be making up the numbers anyway.
World Cup competitions are for laughing at England coming undone. We can't really do that if our own team, despite the lesser expectations, are on the first plane home .

 

[Oxo]

Expanding the competition is just commercial greed. Imagine the kind of mismatch you will get when, for example, England play one of the smaller countries such as Iceland.

 

[potsy]

It's 48 not 148

 

[Big Dave laaa]

The qualifiers are zoned anyway so it just means that more countries from Asia and Africa and other southern hemisphere teams will get in.

 

[AndyRM]

We made a total bollocks of qualifying for an expanded Euros. I expect nothing less from a World Cup campaign.

The last time I had any hope for us was in 2007 when we did the double over France. We've been pretty useless ever since. Ikechi Anya looked good for a bit recently, until Strachan decided he was a defender...

 

[martint235]

One of the questions on Pointless yesterday was "Scotland are ranked 51st in the world by FIFA, can you name any of the 50 teams above them?". So if the rankings are correct, it doesn't really help you.

 

[twentysix by twentyfive]

One of the questions on Pointless yesterday was "Scotland are ranked 51st in the world by FIFA, can you name any of the 50 teams above them?". So if the rankings are correct, it doesn't really help you.

Pah - statistics

 

[Vapin' Joe]

The qualifiers are zoned anyway so it just means that more countries from Asia and Africa and other southern hemisphere teams will get in.

That's the trouble with the tournament, too much cannon fodder in the final rounds for political reasons. The World Cup should be about the elite.

 

[Brandane]

The World Cup should be about the elite.

A competition only involving Brazil, Argentina, Spain, France, Germany and Italy might get a bit tedious.

 

[Brandane]

The last time I had any hope for us was in 2007 when we did the double over France.

The last time I had any hope for us was in 1978 when the team did a lap of honour around Hampden in an open topped bus - BEFORE they left for the finals in Argentina!
It was brilliant marketing and hype, or maybe I was just an impressionable teenager, but I actually thought we had a sliver of a chance. They were certainly a good team on paper. I can still name most of them, whereas I would struggle to name any more than 3 of the current squad.

 

[AndyRM]

The last time I had any hope for us was in 1978 when the team did a lap of honour around Hampden in an open topped bus - BEFORE they left for the finals in Argentina!
It was brilliant marketing and hype, or maybe I was just an impressionable teenager, but I actually thought we had a sliver of a chance. They were certainly a good team on paper. I can still name most of them, whereas I would struggle to name any more than 3 of the current squad.

I could name about half of them. Gives me the fear.