San Marino 0 Germany 13 - Surely time the ruling bodies woke up and had a pre-qualifying round for countries like San Marino, the Faroes, Luxembourg, Malta & co.

Also, are countries like Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan actually in Europe and if not why do they play in the European championship?
Come to think of it, why are Israel included too?

Israel are in because UEFA is the only governing body that would take them without it getting geographically ridiculous - nobody would let them in the Asian one for obvious reasons, and they didnt like being in the Australasian one because of the travelling and suchlike. Kazakhstan were in the Asian one but chose to join UEFA, probably for the money.

Some weird events 2nite. Sweden got a shock when Liechtenstein equalized, Czech Republic against Slovakia, Holland struggled against Belarus for a while, Northern Ireland winning after a shocker on Saturday against Espana.

The Mannschaft definitely showed what teams should do aaginst minnows, it looked so easy. Georgia made Ukraine sh@@e themselves.
England against Macedonia.


I think that there could be a few surprising results in the coming months that automatic qualification for certain favourites is not that certain anymore and some unexpected qualifier(s) crop(s) up.

Scotland ??????????????

Sorry but I dont agree Jeff. How would you like it if East Fife had to play a qualifying tie to get into the Scottish Cup? Realistically we're never going to win it again, and Rangers or Celtic could conceivably put 13 past us.

We are the last nation on earth who should be getting cocky and slagging off the minnows.

Not too sure about that either Jeff. It's a bit like The so called Champions League, where you may have won your domestic league but failed to qualify for group stages and a team who finished say 4th in their domestic league wins it. All to do with money and nowt to do with proper fair competition.

There is one thing though, if UEFA were tougher on the state of some grounds in Europe(Lithuania included) they shouldn't be allowed to compete in Euro qualifiers.

Don't agree either.
It would deny us the pleasure of momentary joy such as when the wee team (Monaco?) went 1-0 up against englandshire.

That was San Marino as well.

I remember it well!

We do have to play qualifying rounds in the Cup to get to play the likes of the Old Firm - they're called the 1st and 2nd rounds. They give low league life like ourselves the chance to play them if we get through and I don't see how that can't be introduced for World and Euro qualifiers. These sorts of teams won't be excluded and they actually might enjoy having a few competitive games against one another.

I see Gibraltar are applying for full UEFA membership. That could mean another minnow joining the show and more pointless games. Do you really think the public enjoy seeing 13-0 tonkings?

You do if you are the ones winning 13 he-haw !!

So you want to do away with the groups then?
Have rounds? What a thoroughly pish idea. What if Scotland got put out in the second round? We'd end up playing about 4 competetive games in a timeframe of 2 years! Hardly healthy for the game..

I can see where you're coming from, but if the rules changed, we'd probably be the ones suffer.And I doubt that the fans would complain about the travel opportunities to these wee piddly countries.

Sparkle Motion. EF & all 2nd & 3rd div teams have to prequalify for the Scottish Cup. Thats what rounds 1 & 2 are! We have to prequalify to meet the "big boys" who only come into it in the 3rd round!
I think the minows should have to prove their right to be there! San Marino v Germany was an accident waiting to happen

Does that mean we would have had to pre qualify when our position was so low when Vogts was manager?

We're all pre-qualifying to get to the finals anyway.
What I was suggesting in the original post was maybe there should be a pre pre-qualifying group for the 4 or so lowest ranked nations?
That way San Marino, Andorra, Faroes and the like would have to earn the right to get there and maybe save themselves from some of these embarassingly one-sided affairs. Might also give whoever is in there the incentive to improve and progress.

It also would deny them of some decent revenue from drwaing bigger teams though. I'll stick up for the minnows of this world! I enjoyed watching Germany rattling 13 past San Marino but equally I enjoyed when they scored in 30 secs against England something we may not have seen if pre-qualifying was in place.