Malta v England

Ing-er-land!

Alrite, you don't know what you missed.

Is there any point to these ridiculous matchups?

Why not seed all these teams like Malta together until they are mostly weeded out and then give us some really competitive games instead of timewasters whereby many players can really earn England caps against proper opposition.

At least international football still retains an element of a level playing field that has been completely eroded in the club competitions.

I think it's great that players from Malta, Faroes, Liechtenstein etc get to play against players from Germany, France, Spain etc.

I wouldn't get too self-righteous about England given how they have struggled in the past, knocked out of the Euros by Iceland. I'll always remember the joy when the Faroes beat Austria that time, I'm sure it meant a lot to the people there and I'd be loath to pander to the "big" countries and take that away.

Haven't we learnt that the way to improve football is through money and Malta vs The Faroes is a far less likely cash-cow than either vs England, not to mention Harry's all-conquering international record goal scoring.

Sorry, was that the sound of turning in graves, or just the odd spin?

Nothing to do with England, but just watched "Big Match Revisited" and Derby v Everton from November 1977 featured.

I didn't remember the game, the score or the fact that the floodlight's failed with 10 minutes remaining. When the lights came back, on Mike Lyons scored the winner with a header from a free-kick.

I remember most games from that period, particularly Derby away but for some reason, this one escaped my memory.

I watched a bit of it, but got bored to be honest.

Can they not follow something like the FA Cup model?

That starts off at low tiers of English football (level 8 or 9 as I understand) even before clubs hit the first round.

A qualification round. First and second rounds and then the Premier League and Championship joining in the third round.

Why not have something similar?

Tom # 3………….isn't that why the UEFA Nations League was introduced, so that the so called smaller nations were all placed in groups together, therefore not only giving them the chance to win a few games in an international competition, but also to give them the opportunity to work their way up the ladder with promotion.

I do agree however, that it is a useless, and time consuming competition. I bet not many people know the final for this year's competition is tomorrow night between Spain and Croatia.

Danny(#7); Don't under estimate national pride or how it may be viewed in Wales, Northern Ireland and the like and if that then leads to several levels (qualifying rounds) as per the FA Cup and how you decide who constitute the elite at the third round equivalent. Next it will be a tennis like seeding system to almost guarantee the money goes to those who need it least, although that may be the case now.