E and maybe B are the only other groups that have a decent chance at drama, looks like. I’d agree with you there.
Enjoy the current format while you have it! Things get a little strange next year when it goes from 32 to 36 teams.
The 36 teams will be divided into four pots of nine. Pot 1 will have the titleholders of the UCL and the eight clubs with the best coefficients. The champions of the top domestic leagues and the UEL titleholders will no longer be prioritised for Pot 1. Pots 2 to 4 are ordered on club coefficient.
Each club will be drawn to play two teams from each pot – one home, one away. So, unlike in the current format, a club in Pot 1 will play a game against two other clubs from Pot 1.
Wow, that’s a lot of qualifying rules, it’ll take me a cheatsheet to keep track of it all. But it’s a pretty creative way to design a tourney for a fairly odd number like 36.
And a bad draw shouldn’t be a killer; a good team only has to finish in the top two thirds of preliminary play to stay alive for the knockouts.
Qualifiers for the 2026 World Cup started today, a match against Ecuador for Argentina, things were getting hairy, Ecuador defended very well and hurt us with counterattacks and taking advantage of some imprecisions in Argentina’s passing.
Then there was a free kick near Ecuador’s box… time for…
Messi → free kick → Argentina 1- Ecuador 0, match done.
German football association DFB have fired Hansi Flick as head coach of the men’s national team. Yesterday’s embarrassing 1-4 loss in Wolfsburg to Japan was the final straw after a string of disastrous results in the last 18 months or so, including not ascending from the group stage at the WC. It’ll be interesting to see whom they will hire as his successor. The DFB has a tradition of always hiring coaches who have a past in the association (as a player and/or assistant coach or in any other function), but this time I see nobody with this profile fitting to do the job. Whole Germany’s dream national coach would be Jürgen Klopp, but that’s impossible. The most frequently mentioned name is Julian Nagelsmann, but he’s too young and also too arrogant for the job IMHO.
ETA: today’s a historical day in German sports history. Just when Flick’s dismissal was announced, the German basketball team won their first WC title ever against Serbia, after having eliminated the USA in the semi-final with Germany’s first win over the US team ever! Maybe we’re a basketball nation now after 120 years as a football nation.
Unbelievable to read this is the first time Germany have ever sacked their football coach.
Yeah right, but it’s true. Hansi Flick was only the 11th national coach since 1926. Hire and fire never was in the books for the DFB. Germany also never had a foreign coach. Here’s the short complete list:
I know they like him, and it can’t be much worse than this.
He does still make more than Flick did, but I have to think Bayern would be glad to get him off the payroll and let him go without a transfer fee (though apparently they did demand a transfer fee over the summer when PSG came calling).
Bayern could make a big PR coup by generously letting Nagelsmann take the job without claiming a transfer fee and declaring it’s for the sake of German football. They’ve always liked to be regarded as the saviors of German football, and they can afford it.
ETA: Nagelsmann wouldn’t be the popular choice, though. Most football fans don’t like him, he’s too snobbish, not a man of the people. Hard to see him as head coach of the German national team, which is a position maybe more important than chancellor here.
Hmmmmmm. It’s very difficult to imagine a non-German manager, but I like him a lot.
Interesting idea, but he’s too old. We need a complete overhaul by someone with fresh ideas. It must be a motivator.
According to Wikipedia, it seems like quite a few were either sacked or resigned in circumstances when they would very likely be sacked very soon.
At various points I thought Voller and Klinsmann were on the verge of getting jettisoned well before their actual exits.
What would be kind of funny (but not going to happen) is if Southgate left England to join Germany and got them winning things. He may be the best manager England have ever had, but he gets nothing but hate from the fans. It would be a kind of ironic schadenfreude.
Van Gaal? Southgate? Come on, next somebody is going to suggest Mourinho!
Or maybe the DFB can convince Giovanni Trappatoni to come out of retirement. Or Otto Rehhagel.
Did Beckenbauer manage to get his Trainerschein by now or would he still be called Teamchef if he came back? Though Traps would be funnier, that is obvious.
Well, Rudi Völler also never had a licence and will sit on the bench tomorrow against France. But unfortunately, I think the Kaiser is toast, not a peep from him for years now.
I understand the interest in the German national team but I am more interested in the steady improvement by the Japanese. Their players are popping up all over Europe these days and the national lineup is very quick and industrious. Fun to watch in international play.
I think they are probably going to be the first non-european, non-southamerican team to win the world cup, hopefully long after I’m dead and gone (I hate changes in football, as I said some hundreds of posts ago I still resent the French and Spanish for breaking into our select group of WC winners)