Quote:
Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis
At the same time it's hard to feel too much sympathy for Italy and Portugal. It's not like they were in brutal qualifying groups, both had fairly straightforward paths and just botched it. Italy could only win four games in a group with Lithuania, Northern Ireland, Bulgaria, and Switzerland. Yeah they didn't lose a game, but to only net four wins from that is a pretty poor showing. Portugal struggled both times against a down Ireland team and just needed to avoid losing to Serbia at home to qualify.
To draw themselves in the same pod is definitely brutal luck, but at the same time they shouldn't have put themselves into the playoff draw to begin with. They underperformed in qualifying and now one of them will be punished.
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Hopefully both will be punished.
Go North Macedonia! Go Turkey!