England qualify for the 2026 World Cup!

0:22it's wednesday everyone welcome back to the stadio podcast i'm Ryan that's Moosa how are you Musa? I'm good, very well indeed, very well yeah? Yes, yes Are you doing better for the fact that England qualified for the World Cup 2026? Yeah I am, I'm feeling good It's looking dicey for a minute man, that defensive record Oh no, oh no, all going to implode It must be really, really difficult trying to create narrative around this qualification process I mean they found some with the Bellingham stuff of course but other than that it's been pretty uneventful I would say Well we'll chat all about that in a little bit but first of all we hope everyone staying safe and well.

0:58Back to back Stadio is because we did our first podcast of the week on Tuesday instead of Monday. If you want to go back and listen to that, that's available in full on the free feed. Ad free and in full to Patreon members. If you're listening to this clip on the free feed, why not sign up for Patreon? Listen to all the podcasts in full ad free, patreon.com forward slash stadio and another reminder for anyone in London, go and get your tickets for our first live show at the South Bank Centre in December. Tickets are in the description. The other show this week we'll be doing Friday. So that'll be our three shows this week.

1:35And one final reminder, if you want to sign up for the Stadio Social Club, you might be able to in time. There's a few Stadio Social Club meetups going on this weekend. There's one in London. There's one in New York City. I need to check if there's anywhere else. But yeah, some Stadio Social Club members are meeting up and watching Bayern Dortmund game and a couple of other games that are on around that time so if you want to get involved and chat to everyone on the Discord server patreon.com forward slash stadio any other admin? Are we good? I think we're good I think we're good Alright then man Latvia 0 England 5 which has sent Tom Stuckel's boys to the World Cup a 5-0 win away at Latvia has given England they made really hard work at that qualification, didn't they?

2:26Stop it. You know I love symmetry in groups. Yep, yep. Played 6-1-6. Scored 18. Conceded 0, 18 points. That's a nice 6-6, 18-0. 18-18. Can't knock it. Can't knock it. Well, people will knock it. They haven't conceded a goal. They haven't conceded a goal. I know that the opposition hasn't exactly been the strongest, but still. I thought this was actually quite a good game to demonstrate exactly the thing that we were talking about yesterday on the show if you haven't listened to yesterday's show maybe go back and listen to that and then come back and listen to this because we did talk a little bit about Germany England England a little bit more generally and Spain as well and the kind of differing expectations on the favorites in quote throughout their qualification process like what do we expect from the qualification as opposed to what actually happens in a tournament and there There has been some stuff around England, this campaign.

3:21One thing that we did say, which I was thinking during the game, was we were saying how the not-so-favourites, let's say, to go through, they all have quality no matter what their ranking is, right? And no matter what the actual eventual scoreline is, there are moments in games where it's difficult for the favourites. And you saw that in the first 25 minutes before England scored. Latvia defended really well. And it reminded me of a thing that Arna Schlott said after the Burnley game, where he was saying, look, it's really difficult to break a team down because they're really good and they defended really well.

3:53And England had to really work to get that first goal. And the fact that they then ran away and won it kind of is typical of the qualifiers, right? But the fact that they were patient, they kept playing their football, I think they created a couple of really good opportunities. They could have had an early goal, actually, that Harry Kane left foot volley that went wide. But yeah, Anthony Gordon kept creating a lot down that left-hand side. He needs more of a spotlight, actually gordon yeah i thought it was interesting how so much came down that left hand side as opposed to the right hand side but that's um that's not atypical of how arsenal have been though with saka too saka is basically he is so good that he's now entered deterrent status and he's like a gravity well so then people are so occupied with what saka is going to do to you that leaves room for others and gordon is too good to leave unsupervised like he's incredible like if I look at his growth do you remember when Gordon was back at Everton there was talk of like 60 million from Newcastle and everyone was like 60 million was a lot of money for someone who had not scored a lot of goals but they saw the ceiling and I actually think now you're looking at it going if you look at the options wide options now compared to two years ago England three years ago where you're thinking okay we'll rely on Rashford but Rashford and Rashford had looked really good at parts of that World Cup but still you're thinking where's the depth you've got Maduweke to come back and you've got Saka and Gordon right there.

5:14And Saka, Gordon looks like he could go on and be what Evan was consistently, and this is not a knock on Jack Gredish, what Evan was hoping that Gredish could consistently be. And that's not a knock in terms of this system. Or maybe let me put it more charitably. I think that within this system, Gordon is such a perfect fit. He's such a perfect fit. Yeah, I agree. I completely agree. I think it gives England a complete, yeah, balance and a completely other dimension that they've lacked in the past. It's wonderful, really. And I just want to keep highlighting him because he's had to do different things in his career.

5:49He's had to play as a nine as well. Like he's done really unselfish things. He's been self-sacrificial, rather like Medueche as well, playing on multiple flanks. And he's getting the benefits of them and so are England. So yeah, just to sort of flag up his role because I feel like he deserves, he does a lot of credit for what England have achieved. But just in terms of Tuchel generally in this England team, like having Anderson there as a six you know whenever like a a coach comes in like Tuchel who has a history of being innovative and you want to see them put not put their stamp on a team but just show some some extra now get something extra out of the players you haven't seen before for me he's done it he's doing it he's made changes he's made moves that I think 90 % of coaches who were given that job would not have made and he's been quite bold I don't think he's been needlessly bold either.

6:41I think he's shuffled the pack. Well, but one thing to talk about as well, we were going to get to this before we were talking about it. Actually, Harry Kane, it is frightening. Like Harry Kane turned 32 in July, in July. And he already has, he has 76 goals for England in 110 matches. There was a time when scoring 50 goals for England was seen as this insurmountable. Oh my God, 50 and done. And if anything, he's getting like better. That was a preview of today's episode of Stadio. If you want to join up for ad-free podcasts, extra podcasts, access to the Stadio Social Club and more, you can join us at patreon.com forward slash stadio.