Many people claim that UEFA's World Cup and European Championship qualifiers should have a pre-qualifying phase for the weakest nations.
I would be one of those. But sometimes it's nice to be wrong when you see a weekend which saw Faroe Islands beat Greece, Lichtenstein defeat Moldova and San Marino end a 61-game losing streak by holding Estonia to a goalless draw.
In addition, the likes of Germany, Netherlands, Spain and Italy are not leading their respective groups when qualifications was supposed to be a formality in an expanded 24-team championship.
"The mid-ranking teams really feel as if they have a chance," said Ben Lyttleton on Off The Ball tonight about the likes of Czech Republic, and the teams in Ireland's group like Poland and Scotland.
But arguably the biggest story was the sacking of former Roma and Chelsea manager Claudio Ranieri from the Greece job as they prop up their qualifying group, following the latest defeat to Faroe Islands.
"The Faroes are ranked 187 out of 209. So they are among the worst. Greece are ranked 18 and were a penalty shootout away from being in the World Cup quarter finals just a few months ago," emphasised Lyttleton, who also reminded us that the Faroes won away from home.
"Ranieri has gone and there is some talk that Trapattoni will come back to international football and take over. But Greece's record makes for dismal reading."
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