Scotland v England

Bertie Bassett wrote:Aye, there are some strangely weak groups

Mind you if you look at some of the teams qualifying form elsewhere; such great footballing nations as:

Saudi Arabia
Panama
Senegal
Iran
Egypt
Costa Rica (shudder)
Oh and lets not forget the Solomon Islands although I believe they have narrowly lost out to New Zealand

Its a shame that so many good teams from Europe will be missing

And it looks like Slovakia didn't manage to get into the playoffs as one of the eight highest runners up - so only England qualify from our group.

To be fair Senegal have qualified before and did OK. A few of their players went into top European leagues including the EPL

Costa Rica were poor when they beat us but aren't a bad side these days. Egypt gave us a pasting in a friendly not too long ago... Wasn't Kachloul from Egypt?

I said earlier that Slovakia were going to miss out, what's frustrating is that had we won we would have made the play offs.

Bertie, Kachloul was from Morrocco if I remember right.

My apologies, you are correct CH; but the point remains, Egypt are no mugs at international level. In fact from Durnford's list, only Panama have not qualified before. The others mentioned may not be recognised as world powers in football but they are regularly amongst the best in their confederation.

Egypt certainly aren't gonna be easy to roll over...with players like Mo Salah, El Nenny and Ahmed Hegazi plying their trade in the Premier League. Currently sitting 30th in the world rankings too so no slouches.