FIFA World Cup 2014 Qualifying

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Belgium certainly has a shot at advancing to the play off. Croatia starts out as a slight favorite to win the group but this is still one of the most wide open - if not the most - of the groups. Even Scotland could advance to the playoff.

I'd be very, very surprised if Scotland came second.

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Anyone actually want to do a tipping competition for September?

I'd join it, but it would be very difficult to organise, if we could get the numbers though...
Probably a better competition to do one for (ie not so many teams all at once and in short bursts) would be the champions league, although I'm not sure there would be enough competitors (or a willing organiser).

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Capello is the new Russian coach.

This is sort of tangential but I was just reading a great book called soccernomics and it said that despite what the press said, Capello was the only England manager who got England to perform at a level significantly above average. So you can now expect Russia to do very well. You heard it here first

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Craig Levein is a joke, if losing to Macedonia means he gets fired, it might be worth it.

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Next up for us is a not-quite-must-win-but-certainly-best-not-to-lose game away against Iraq :/

Better hope that your team players come home in 1 part ...

More likely to be killed here after losing to Jordan 2-1.

Only if people knew who the team was.

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Not really (or at all) world cup related but this seems to be the generic international thread, so:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/20631963

Seems like they didn't like any of the bids, although its a shame they didn't choose Scotland.

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There's always euro 2016.

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The England Italy game will be at 02:00 British Summer Time- it's a good thing I've finished school by then