What is it about Ireland needing a draw, Italy needing a draw, and the Ireland manager being a legend in Italy that makes you think its going to be a draw?
What is it about Ireland needing a draw, Italy needing a draw, and the Ireland manager being a legend in Italy that makes you think its going to be a draw?
Congratulations Ireland,you deserved it!I think that it is better for you that Bulgaria lost against Italy.Now,you have nothing to worry about.You are 2nd certanly and there is no chance for you to finish worst 2nd.
Congratulations once again!
Will 1 point from our 2 games be enough to get us 2nd place?
Yes I think we need 2 points if we lose one and draw one our goal differnce will be at best +3, however if Bulgaria win their last two games their goal difference will be at least +5.
1 Italy .............8 5 2 0 11 3 +10 20
2 Rep of Ireland. 8 4 4 0 10 6.. +4 16
3 Bulgaria .........8 2 5 0 10 5.. +3 11
4 Cyprus .......... 8 1 2 4 7 11 ...4 _6
5 Montenegro.... 8 0 4 3 6 12 ..-6 _5
6 Georgia ......... 8 0 3 5 4 11 ..-7 _3
10/10/09 Montenegro - Georgia Georgia
10/10/09 Cyprus - Bulgaria
10/10/09 Republic of Ireland - Italy
14/10/09 Republic of Ireland - Montenegro
14/10/09 Italy - Cyprus
14/10/09 Bulgaria - Georgia
I think that's right, we need 2 points to guarantee qualification, one is not enough because of goal difference.
Correct. Assuming Bulgaria win both of theirs but Cyprus away won't be a sure thing.
I think we're in a good enough place to be honest. We can complain about dropped points against Bulgaria (twice) but we'd all have accepted this situation a year ago. There look to be some beatable teams in the play offs too.
Just out of interest: were Italy any good tonight?
Will FIFA seed the qualifiers ie top four teams seeded and bottom four not. In that case we will need 4 points to get in to the top four.
You'd have to fear some kind of seeded play-off at this stage.
Portugal, France, Germany/Russia and Czech Republic in one pot
Greece, Bosnia, Croatia/Ukraine and Ireland in the other.
If Michel Platini gets anywhere near the draw it'll happen.
Well,we worked hard to gain the lead.We finally succeded in 57th minute,only to concede few minutes later from first Cyprus corner,first chance and,alas,first shot on our goal during the whole game.We were lucky not to lose later,though...
It seems that we dont have much problems to get the lead,but than there is not chance for us to hold on to it(in friendlies we dont have such a problems).We are simply to naive.
Our goal now is to finish fourth(if we succede,we will be in fourth poth for next cyclus).
For that,we need to beat Georgia,but if we lose,we will finish last.That would not be pretty.
They didn't need to be, but looked better than they have done recently. Good goals, very good move for 2nd - lovely interplay and build-up. Bulgaria had some half decent chances, but either good saves from Buffon, tame finishing or very lacklustre movement let them down.
I'm satisfied with 2nd - like you say, S88 we would have settled for this last year
It should be, but this way they can set it up to suit themselves. They can use points in the group, world ranking or anything else they fancy to set up a seeding that puts the teams in the pots they want them. Or alternatively, as happened in Euro 2000, they can say its an open draw, yet pick the balls out in a ridiculously suspicious order that suits the bigger countries.
In other news, the footballing heavyweights that are Bahrain will be playing off against the other footballing heavyweights of New Zealand for a place at the World Cup. Man are we on the wrong continent.
I 'watched' the match on a stream but it was not very good and I was also watching England on TV so I didn't really get much of an idea, I missed the goals too so I don't know, but I think they may have been poor/lucky goals
so I would not say they were impressive and hence Bulgaria were not also.
I agree Cyprus is not a sure thing for them, I can see them drawing there which gives us second place.
Also hoping Cyprus could hold Italy to a draw but I can't see that happening somehow! However if they did it is possible for us to top the group!!
[Edit] seems I was wrong about Italy.
An Azzurri side containing seven Juventus players delivered their best performance of Marcello Lippi's second reign.
On 10 minutes Italy took the lead with a fantastic goal from Grosso.
On 39 minutes, Italy doubled their lead with another brilliant goal.
I was just going by some of the comment by someone in the room, which seem to be somewhat wide of the mark, probably why I missed most of the game reading some of the garbage they were typing , + the stream was froze half the time and hence pretty unwatchable especially as it was a very poor picture anyway.
http://goal.com/en-us/news/86/italy/...t-as-italjuve-
Last edited by tricky_colour; 09/09/2009 at 9:56 PM.
It is utter stupidity,the way how they choose play off matches.It is not fair,becouse team rankings are taken into consideration twice,when they draw the groups and again now.Imagine champions league semi finals where they are puting teams into pots.
I think that every team that made it to the play-offs should have an equal chance.
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