Minnows in Qualifiers...

This was originally going to be my post yesterday, but some orange man went to Spain.

Andy Townsend brought up the issue on Wednesday night after the England game. Should weaker teams, such as Andorra, Kazakhstan etc have to pre-qualify to be in the qualifiers?

The argument of yes. In England's case, this is 4 extra games they will have to play in a season in order to qualify. 4 more cases for managers to worry about their star players getting injured and tired, in games where a win is almost guaranteed. We are now the best part of 3 weeks after the last game of the season, within touching distance of pre-season at some clubs and some players would not have had any decent rest whatsoever. Theo Walcott for example, is now away for the U21 Championships for another few weeks. In my opinion, the other side of the argument is far more interesting...

No. Qualifiers. It does exactly what it say on the tin. Critics seem to forget that these are the QUALIFIERS for the World Cup. A bigger and better tournament. Every team that is registered with FIFA should have the equal right to qualify for the same reason we all started playing football. Its all well and good to ask this question when the national team is of prominence, but people forget to realise that England didn't even qualify for the last Euros, because we played so poorly in the qualifiers. What if someone had said that about us? There would have been outrage!

Look at cup football. The FA cup would be nowhere near as exciting if there weren't the odd major scalp every season, and that truly is the beauty of football. Anything can happen. These teams deserve a bit of glory and to be able to live a dream out as well.

Verdict: LET THEM PLAY!!!!