Craig Burley

You have that group.

wales england and and iran i say yeah england should win the group and the u.s should go through second i'll put them under that pressure against wales and iran yes they should go through that with this group yes with three what eight of the 12 third places going through it would be an utter disaster in this group if the u.s don't go through but they haven't shown me consistently under pochettino

that it's a given.

Do you know what gets me now about this?

About the World Cup, and we're going to cover it extensively and be hopefully quite excited about some of the games, but the qualification and the... It's almost like FIFA are making it like the school race where the little kid...

The little boy or girl comes last by quite some way, but they get a medal because they don't want them to be upset.

And it's like that.

I mean, take Sweden, for example.

Sweden finished bottom of the group in qualification.

And because of this stupid Nations League throughout the World Cup, they finished at the bottom of the group.

And the word for the group is called qualification.

And yet they were given a parachute and a pathway through another tournament to get to a World Cup in which you could finish third.

For example, Scotland might only have to beat Haiti and might get dropped by Brazil in Morocco and they're getting through.

It really boggles my mind.

I think it devalues the tournament.

It does.

It devalues qualification and it devalues the tournament.

where I'm a big believer in, okay, you worked hard to get there.

Excuse me.

And if you get out of your group, then you've damn well earned it.