Where Football Sits in the World

Day -985. WorldCup2018‬.

Today was the day that:

• Russia held it's own press conference offering a different version to what was going to be presented a few hours later in the Dutch Safety Board that showed that a Russian missile is what brought down the Malaysian Airlines plane over Ukraine
• US and Russia held talks over the safety of their fighter jets over Syria after they came a little too close to each other in their bombing runs over Syria. The Americans will not associate with Russia's approach to Syria because it is "wrongheaded and strategically short-sighted".
• Syria beat Afghanistan 5-2 in World Cup qualifying to stay well in contention

It is also the day that I thought: is politics going to finally catch up with, and take over the World Cup by 2018? Just imagine, in less than three years from now, the US, Syria and Ukraine all coming together for a football tournament in Russia. And who knows where Fifa will be: in a better place or completely redundant, unable to keep the politics out of football?
 
(updated thought: the optimist in me who always believes football can solve the world's problems thinks that maybe the US, Syria and Ukraine coming together for this little football tournament in Russia would be a good thing).

ps. (these countries may still dream of being in Russia) Turkemenistan-Guam 1-0, not good for the Guam dream
Lesotho-Comoros 1-1. Comoros are through (on away goals) to the next round for the first time ever, yet they still have not won a World Cup match. They play Ghana in the next round. It was fun while it lasted.......