If it stays the same way, give me

Iran
Saudi Arabia
Australia
Qatar
China
Thailand (for the away trip of course)

Please.

Quite some movement in the FIFA rankings means the pots for the draw will be a bit different:

Pot A: Iran, Australia
Pot B: South Korea, Japan
Pot C: Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan
Pot D: United Arab Emirates, China
Pot E: Qatar, Iraq
Pot F: Syria, Thailand.

Draw on Tuesday.

Draw will start in ~90 minutes and will be streamed on Youtube:



I will post the results afterwards.

Group A: Iran, South Korea, Uzbekistan, China, Qatar, Syria

Group B: Australia, Japan, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Iraq, Thailand.

Top two of each group to Russia, one of the third-placed teams will play CONCACAF#4 for another spot

all those teams are so bad

Bobbo with the most accurate he's ever been (and probably ever will be) in assessing football teams' strengths.

USA is Altidore
Asia is Sturridge according to bobo

Kosovo and Gibraltar just became members of FIFA and will participate in the WCQ to Russia'2018. So after all the shenanigans to put the "big" nations into groups with 6 teams, that resulted in Italy paired with Spain, now they'll have an additional draw to put the two new "nations" into groups G and H, and all groups will have same number of teams.

UEFA is now once again the most numerous confederation, as far as i can tell.

I just read a bunch of articles on that, and it's still unclear if they are gonna enter Groups H and I, given Russia is unofficially in Group H (for test matches).

AFC is actually a super exciting qual process. The teams are incredibly equally matched and the travel is brutal. Australia to Qatar ain't no short trip. That said, group A is tougher top to bottom whereas group B should be a top 3 bloodbath. Uzbeks are a tough out, Qatar is busy trying to legitimize foreigners and you never know if and when China will get their **** together. Japan better not sleep on their group as well. They could easily come third.

Update on UEFA / CAF / OFC:

UEFA

Gibraltar and Kosovo have been admitted as FIFA members about a month ago. Therefore, they were eligible for World Cup qualifying, but the draw had been done earlier. So FIFA had to decide where to put them:

Gibraltar has been added to Group H (Belgium, Bosnia, Greece, Estonia, Cyprus).
Kosovo has been added to Group I (Croatia, Iceland, Ukraine, Turkey, Finland).

Now all nine groups have six teams.

OFC

The OFC Nations Cup is currently running, with the group stage also being part of WC qualifying.

Through to Round 3 (Two groups of three teams) are: New Zealand, New Caledonia, Papua Newguinea, Solomon Islands, Tahiti and Fiji.

The draw for Round 3 will be after the OFC Nations Cup. The final between New Zealand and hosts Papua New Guinea will be tomorrow at 8am CET. The winner also qualifies for the Confed Cup in 2017.

CAF

The pots for the final round draw on the 24th of June are now confirmed:

Pot 1: Algeria, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Senegal, Tunisia
Pot 2: Cape Verde, Egypt, DR Congo, Nigeria, Mali
Pot 3: Cameroon, Morocco, Guinea, South Africa, Congo
Pot 4: Uganda, Burkina Faso, Zambia, Gabon, Libya

Not calling up Marcelo is also inexcusable.

Nigeria in pot 2 why?

It's based on the FIFA rankings after the African Cup qualifiers. Nigeria didn't do particularly well in these, but it's all very close (Nigeria is 57th, Mali 58th, Cameroon 59th). Tunisia is 45th fwiw.

CAF DRAW for Round 3

Group A: Tunisia, Libya, DR Congo, Guinea.
Group B: Zambia, Cameroon, Algeria, Nigeria.
Group C: Gabon, Mali, Ivory Coast, Morocco.
Group D: Senegal, South Africa, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde.
Group E: Ghana, Egypt, Congo, Uganda.

Five group winners qualify for Russia.

Group B seems like the Group of death, A and D rather soft.

Fresh off, the first matchday in the "final" round of AFC was played: No surprises except Japan losing to UAE, which is pretty big.

Group A:

South Korea - China 3-2
Iran - Qatar 2-0
Uzbekistan - Syria 1-0

Team	Played	GoalDiff	Points
Iran	1	+2	3
South Korea	1	+1	3
Uzbekistan	1	+1	3
China	1	-1	0
Syria	1	-1	0
Qatar	1	-2	0

Group B:

Australia - Iraq 2-0
Saudi Arabia - Thailand 1-0
Japan - United Arab Emirates 1-2

Team	Played	GoalDiff	Points
Australia	1	+2	3
UAE	1	+1	3
Saudi Arabia	1	+1	3
Japan	1	-1	0
Thailand	1	-1	0
Iraq	1	-2	0

(top two to Russia, third-placed teams will have a playoff to meet 4th of CONCACAF for another spot.)

Later today, there's also a CONMEBOL matchday.

Interesting that AFC expanded the final round. Last cycle it was two 5-team groups. With 9 games to play a loss or two isn't massively detrimental to qualification chances. Australia only won one of their first six games last time and still edged 2nd with a game to go lol.


CAF's format is such a crap shoot and way too dependent on the draw. That Algeria/Nigeria/Cameroon group is gonna be a battle. Massive equity flips for the Ghana vs Egypt matches too.

In South America, it's still early but Brazil (@Ecuador, Colombia) and Paraguay (Chile, @Uruguay) could find themselves adrift of the top 5 with a poor round. Everyone else except Uruguay who top the table get a shot at Bolivia/Peru/Venezuela with Paraguay the only team to have dropped any points to the bottom 3.

Is this Gabriel Jesus dude the real thing and we should pay attention or did he just run like God today?

**** I dont know anymore. I think he has a big future but right now he still has a lot to improve like decision making and passing. But he's young I guess that is to be expected.

He was sold to City so from January onwards everyone will see him more often.

Winning in Quito is very rare for Brazil so great stuff for Tite's first game in charge.

So it's basically impossible to ever watch Messi without having to listen to that **** Ray Hudson?

Apparently Japan got super duper robbed. Clear goal not given and multiple pens not awarded.

Messi bossing all over the pitch against Uruguay and the crowd is loving it.

LOL Torres Nilo. Must be on the take.

https://www.theguardian.com/football...r-league-clubs

12/20.