West Ham set for 10 World Cup stars but Czech trio and Andriy Yarmolenko need final day favours to stand a chance of making it to Qatar 2022.
Declan Rice is all but there with England and Said Benrahma’s chances are looking good with Algeria.
But today three West Ham stars confirmed their places at the World Cup – if selected when the time comes of course – after Kurt Zouma and Alphonse Areola secured qualification with France and Nikola Vlasic with Croatia.
France hammered Kazakhstan 8-0 to win the group with a game to spare.
Zouma and Areola’s West Ham teammates Andriy Yarmolenko will be hoping for a favour from them when France play Finland on Tuesday.
Ukraine are third in the group and need to beat Bosnia and Herzegovina on Tuesday while hoping France beat second-placed Finland.
Things have not really got going for Vlasic since his £33m move to West Ham in the summer.
But he started for Croatia against Russia in what was effectively a play-off to qualify for Qatar. And a late own goal secured Vlasic’s place at the unique tournament which will be the first winter World Cup ever held.
Pablo Fornals should follow as a draw against Sweden tonight will secure Spain’s place.
West Ham’s Czech trio Tomas Soucek, Vladimir Coufal and Alex Kral could make it 10 Hammers at the World Cup as things stand.
West Ham set for 10 World Cup stars but Czech trio and Andriy Yarmolenko need final day favours to stand a chance
The Czechs are third in Group E behind already qualified Belgium and second-placed Wales.
Soucek and co need to take care of business against Estonia on Tuesday and hope for a final day favour from the Belgians against Wales to stand a chance of a play-off place.
It promises to be an interesting few days.
David Moyes has made it clear he gets a real kick out of seeing his players get international recognition.
Jarrod Bowen and Ben Johnson will be hoping they can continue to make a case for England call-ups between now and next November.
And of course comings and goings at the club in January and next summer could have a big say on how many international stars West Ham will have at football’s showpiece event.
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