Bobfoc

For what little it's worth, in my Football Manager saves, qualifiers I've seen have included Guinea-Bissau, India, The Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, Congo (both versions), India, Oman, Syria, Curacao, The Gambia and Suriname.

My main takeaway from this is that we'll still see a fair few decent European teams miss out. New Zealand, ranked 101st, will probably qualify every time unless Australia rejoins OFC. You can expect teams like Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and Panama to be decent contenders each time as well. I think it gets particularly interesting when you look at the Asian nations. Japan, South Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Australia ought to be lock-ins, but you've then still got three other qualifiers left over. It's a chance for the likes of China, Qatar Bahrain, UAE and Iraq, with the likes of Kuwait, Syria and Oman possibly in the frame. I imagine FIFA is hoping that India gets in on it as well because that's a potentially massive audience.

I've found that the Lego cutscenes are mostly divorced from the actual gameplay, so watching them without playing the games makes sense to me.

I think I'll just watch the cutscenes on Youtube. That's about the extent of my interest in the game.

In all likelihood, that is the reason it changed. West Germany played Austria in 1982, both knowing that a 1-0 win for West Germany would see both of them through to the next round. West Germany scored after ten minutes and both teams then just decided to have a lazy kickaround for the rest of the match.

I strongly dislike the 48-team format, but it's a bit less confusing than the 24-team format that the World Cup used to have and the Euros have now. The top two teams from each group qualify, with the group winners playing the runner-up of the corresponding group, and vice-versa. Just like the 24-team competitions, two thirds of the teams get out of the groups, which is a lot, but at least you don't need a supercomputer to work out all the permutations in the final group matches.

It is rather interesting that only one defending champion has got past the group stage this century. France meeting the same fate would make things interesting. It would be good to see a new winner this year. Belgium and Portugal would probably be the most likely first-time winners, but it would be amazing if a team outside Europe or South America did it. I'd rather it wasn't the USA, though, because they win enough sports competitions as it is.

Alcaraz seems like the real deal. He ought to be challenging for Grand Slams over the next couple of years, and perhaps earlier if Djokovic keeps being silly. The male game has seen a lot of promising youngsters never quite reach the level of Federer, Nadal and Djokovic (and Murray to a lesser extent) over the last fifteen years or so. Tsonga, Dimitrov, Nishikori, Monfils and Gasquet all made it towards the business end of Grand Slams, but couldn't quite get there. Zverev hasn't seemed to make the step-up in Slams yet either.

Cameron Norrie has reached the top ten. It's good to see an unheralded player climb the rankings through hard graft.

Ron Gilbert's studio is making it.

And with the matches all taking place over such a small geographical area, fans could feasibly attend more than one match a day.

I think Scotland or Wales would fancy their chances in that group.

That's a fascinating group no matter which of the three play-off teams qualify.

I think I'm right in saying it's either Cameroon, Ghana or Euro Play-off in England's group.

England v Iran on the first day of the tournament.

If Australia and Senegal or Serbia go into that group as well, we could have a repeat of that silly "EASY" acronym one of the tabloids came up with in 2010.

Why do they have to bother with these red balls if all the Pot 1 teams are going to be in position 1 anyway? Seems like a waste of time.

That was a rousing and inspirational propaganda video.

They've talked quite a bit about the social and political issues on BBC.

I think I'm looking forward to the draw more than I am the actual tournament.

And Ukraine-related.

I didn't realise the draw was tomorrow. I can't remember them doing it before all the qualifiers were confirmed in the past.

I hope they get this right. With good dialogue and acting within the plot that's already been established, this could be a very strong show, but it would be really easy for it to fall into the spectacle-driven Hollywood bombast that Game of Thrones became.

I'm talking about it more in a theoretical sense, but I'm happy to add those other teams to the list. The idea that any team could finish as low as sixth in their league, get eliminated at the earliest opportunity in all their cup competitions and still get into the Champions League is silly.

The Senegalese fans using laser pointers to distract the Egyptian penalty takers were disgraceful.