Thursday, 6 October 2016

Iceland, oh Iceland

Day -616. WorldCup2018

We're off! Two days of warm-up qualifiers before the big Saturday event at Wembley Stadium started today.

Saudi Arabia's "heaving, abusive crowd" didn't do enough to earn a win for the team. They actually needed to come back twice to draw 2-2 with Australia. The big winners in Asia today were Syria. They beat World Cup 2050 winners China 1-0, in China. Unbelievably, Syria are in a very good position to at least be a third place team in their group and earn a play off spot.

In South America, Brazil continued their magical form after their Olympic gold medal. They beat Bolivia 5-0 and the transformation since that emotional Rio win is quite impressive.

In Europe, at 90 minutes of the Iceland-Finland match I was ready to start the "told you so" conversation. "Iceland were just a flash in the pan, it won't last. Maybe Finland will be the Iceland of Russia 2018". 90 minutes: Iceland-Finland 1-2. 91 minutes: 2-2. 95 minutes: Iceland-Finland 3-2. "Maybe Iceland have a good chance of qualifying for Russia. Finland? Nah, they're not good enough."

Thirty-six hours to go. Gareth Southgate, I hope your boys are shaking in their boots. Michael Mifsud did it at Old Trafford. He is ready to go one better at Wembley.

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