I’m a huge fan of the England Lionesses, and was at the recent games when we lost to Spain in Mallorca and beat Ukraine in Liverpool.
Those results meant the Lionesses failed to qualify automatically for the World Cup, and have to try and get through two rounds of play-offs this autumn.
All my friends/acquaintances who were at the games are absolutely convinced we’ll qualify. I try pointing out that one of our possible play-off second round opponents is Belgium, and that we always lose away to Belgium, but everyone just says “we’ll be all right/we’ll make it.”
The Lionesses sub on Reddit is even worse - on there they’re all convinced that every potential play-off opponent is a team England can beat easily. When I mentioned our bad record away to Belgium I got catcalled down and down-voted.
It’s very frustrating that fellow fans, who you’d expect to understand, simply won’t listen.