“I get excited just at the thought of playing in a World Cup,” explains Craig Gordon, who is about to turn 43 and played his first match under the posts for the Scottish national team in May 2004. On Tuesday he received the passport to realize next summer a dream that he no longer imagined could become reality. “This is everything to me, absolutely everything,” he confessed, bathed in tears before leaving Hampden Park. Scotland beat Denmark (4-2) in a heartbreaking final with two goals in extra time and will play in the next World Cup, that great showcase in which they have not participated since in 1998 they made a fool of themselves with a farewell after drawing with Norway, losing against Brazil and Morocco and ending a golden era in which they never managed to get beyond the group stage, but managed to participate, since 1974, in six of the seven tournaments played. He narrowly missed the 1994 event in the United States. Now comes the revenge: it will be there from next June and it could be part of a historic achievement that will bring the four British teams (which were already there in 1958) and Ireland to the same World Cup for the first time in history.
Scotland and England have already secured passage. And in the play-off that will be drawn this Thursday, Wales (which starts from the second pot), Ireland (which is in the third) and Northern Ireland (which enters after having won the Nations League group) are ready. The new 48-team format helps to spread cheer across the planet, the play-offs which currently involve 22 teams (16 in Europe and 6 in an intercontinental competition) looking for the last six places in the tournament are fueling hopes across half the world. For example in Ireland, where the miracle goal that frustrated Hungary at the horn is still celebrated and gives them hope of returning to a World Cup in which they have not performed since 2002. There the hero is Troy Parrott, a 23-year-old striker who emigrated to the Dutch league after a lackluster spell in the second and third tiers of English football. In Budapest he scored three goals, the last in the 96th minute, and then collapsed in front of the television microphones. “It’s the first time I’ve cried in years,” he stammered. Ireland believes in the miracle of the hand of an Icelandic coach, Heimir Hallgrímsson, the same one who led his country’s team to win a European Championship and a World Cup.
Those glory days of Iceland coincided with those of Wales, semi-finalist at the 2016 European Championships, present at the 2020 Championship and qualified for the 2022 World Cup. Now they manage the period following Gareth Bale’s retirement with a certain hope fueled again this week by the 7-1 against North Macedonia which will allow them to play the play-off semi-finals at home in a single match. It will be more complicated for Northern Ireland, which enters the Nations League after winning a group in which it was paired with Bulgaria, Belarus and Luxembourg. The climb to World Cup qualification continued until he was granted an option which he will now look to exploit.
But among many dreams, one certainty remains, that of England, the first European team to qualify and who completed this phase with 22 goals in eight games and without conceding any to their rivals. Although even after such an impeccable season there are some shadows, such as the relationship between coach Thomas Tuchel and his star Jude Bellingham, who made a substitution with six minutes left in the last match against Serbia. “You have to respect and behave well,” says the coach. Integrating the Real Madrid player with other talented players such as Phil Foden or Cole Palmer without jeopardizing the team’s balance on and off the pitch is a challenge for one of the title favorites in what could be the most important World Cup. British.
