Bensebaini and Algeria advance to the next round of World Cup qualifying

Four Foals featured for their national teams as the international break drew to a close. Ramy Bensebaini, Luca Netz and Conor Noß celebrated victories whilst Joe Scally’s wait for his USA national team debut goes on.

ALGERIA

Ramy Bensebaini (photo: imago images/ Sebiaa) and Algeria have reached the third round of African World Cup qualification after a 2-2 draw with Burkina Faso in Bilda saw them end the round on top of Group A. The Borussia left-back played the full 90 minutes. In the third qualifying round, five two-legged matches will be made up out of the ten second-round group winners, with the victors of each of the third-round matches sealing a spot at the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. This means that one of Cameroon, DR Congo, Egypt, Ghana, Mali, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal or Tunisia will stand between Algeria and the World Cup finals. This final round of qualifying will take place in March 2022.

USA

Joe Scally has been made to wait even longer for his USA national team debut after the 18-year-old was an unused substitute in USA’s 1-1 draw with Jamaica in Kingston, although he was at least named in a matchday squad for the first time. USA currently sit in second place in the qualifying table with 15 points after surrendering top spot to Canada who beat Mexico last night, opening up a one point gap between them and their North American neighbours. Mexico and Panama find themselves in third and fourth place respectively, and both teams are one point off the USA. The top three teams at the end of this final round of qualifying are guaranteed a place at the World Cup finals, whilst fourth place must battle it out for a ticket to Qatar via an intercontinental play-off.

GERMANY U21

Luca Netz and the Germany U21s cantered to a comfortable 4-0 victory against San Marino in Ingolstadt in their U21 European Championship qualifier. He was brought on in the 72nd minute for Noah Katterbach to make his third appearance for Germany U21s, at which point the game was already over following first-half goals from Malick Thiaw (14’), Erik Shuranov (15’) and Jonathan Burkhardt (34’) and a second-half strike from Jan Thielmann (62’) to make it 4-0. Germany U21s are top of qualifying group B with 15 points from their opening six games, level on points with second-placed Israel and two points ahead of Poland. Only the group winner will directly qualify for the EURO finals, which will take place in Romania and Georgia.

IRELAND U21

A last-minute winner against group leaders Sweden kept Conor Noß and Ireland U21s in touch with the teams on top of U21 European Championship 2023 qualifying group F. Noß was substituted on for his ninth Ireland U21s appearance in the 84th minute alongside eventual goalscorer Oliver O’Neill, who netted right at the death for Ireland, putting them on ten points after six qualifying matches and leaving them in third place behind Italy (13 points from five games) and Sweden.