2014 World Cup qualifying

[geysir]

I just saw highlights, I'm afraid. The sending-off incident occurs after 1:22 in this reel:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTQiggEu21o

Just watching it again closely - the quality's not amazing, mind - and I'm not even sure the jersey was being held. There doesn't look to have been much in it from the view behind the goal, but it's difficult to see for sure as the two players involved only come into view as the Croatian takes his tumble. It was actually Ivan Perišić who went down after Rakitić played the ball through. Perišić might well have felt the hand of Skúlason on his arm and decided to hit the deck.
It does look as if the Croat was hit on the face or shoulder area by nothing stronger that a falling snowflake. The camera angles don't help. What we can see is that the ref had an excellent view of the incident, the Croat had got in front of the defender, the ball was at his feet for that nanosecond with only the goalkeeper to beat and he swings or is swung backwards for some reason. The ref pulls out the red and the defender holds his head. Nobody protests.
It all tells me that the Iceland defender did enough to make the Croat lose his balance, that's what the ref saw and he was very restrained with dishing out cards during the game. The ref had certainty.
I have to say, Modric is an outstanding professional, he hadn't his best game but not for lack of effort and is willing to take on more than his job calls for, in fact he tried too hard. He was the player who was covering the Iceland attacker when he went down on his ankle, Modric then had possession of the ball and had a clear path for a breakaway move but instantly, with no hesitation, hit the ball over the sideline.

BTW, the peculiar quirk with that news item report on the game, the news was that Icelanders actually sung the anthem out loud at a football match.

[ArdeeBhoy]

http://www.theguardian.com/football/video/2013/nov/16/iceland-world-cup-croatia-video

[NeverFeltBetter]

I'd love to see a nation like Iceland get there, but think a team as competent and proven as Croatia will score several times at home in this kind of scenario. Only an early Iceland goal and a bus park would seen them through.

[geysir]

In away games, Iceland try to attack at every opportunity and are best on the counter. Though missing one of their best players, the Ajax striker, they're at the top of their game and confidence, whereas Croatia are not. Up to yesterday only 10,000 tickets were sold for the game in Zagreb.
Maybe Croatia have more than enough in their current state of mild dysfunction, but it's blood and fire now for Iceland, not just a qualifier and Croatia will have to improve to match that intensity.

[DannyInvincible]

I had originally empathised with their cries of grievance, but it appears the FFF's claim that France were disadvantaged in terms of seeding for the play-off draw by progressing through a qualification group with one less team than the other groups doesn't actually add up at all. thischarmingman posted the following article in the FIFA rankings thread which outlines why: http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2013/oct/17/england-seeded-switzerland-world-cup-draw-friendlies


As an aside, France recently complained that they were disadvantaged by being in a five-team group, which gave them two fewer qualifiers and therefore fewer chances to accumulate ranking points. This is total nonsense – the addition of a feeble sixth team to their group would have enormously reduced their point-scoring potential. Had they finished qualifying with a 100% record, and taking their opponents' rankings at the point the draw was made, their matches would, on average, each have brought 1,173.62 points. The addition of San Marino, Andorra or Malta would have reduced this average by 159.72. The truth is that theirs would have been the best group of all, had they only played better.

[pineapple stu]

Final day today (well, tomorrow morning) so. Ethiopia played their play off earlier in the week, losing 2-0 in Nigeria to go out 4-1 overall. Burkino Faso are 2-1 up on Algeria from the home leg, and are 0-0 with 37 minutes to go. Egypt beat Ghana 2-1, but lose 7-3 on aggregate. Cameroon and Ivory Coast beat Tunisia and Senegal; neither a particular surprise.

The inter-confed games ended 10-1 on aggregate for Mexico and Uruguay against New Zealand and Jordan respectively. Nothing to play for but pride overnight.

And currently scoreless in Zagreb and Bucharest after 10 and 25 minutes.

[pineapple stu]

1-0 Greece. That game's more or less over, and we're almost comfortably second seeds for Euro 2016.

[pineapple stu]

1-0 Algeria. :( Half an hour for Burkina Faso to qualify for the World Cup.

[pineapple stu]

1-0 Croatia. Looks like Bosnia will be the only debutantes at the World Cup.

[Charlie Darwin]

Sounds like an absolute humdiddler in Sweden. Ukraine seem to have capitulated, but there's still time for a late handball or something to decide the tie.

[NeverFeltBetter]

Iceland went a goal down, but then played against 10 men for most of the game. Shame they couldn't capitalise, and Croatia killed it early in the second.

[pineapple stu]

New Zealand 1-3 Mexico with ten minutes to go. Uruguay v Jordan is actually on tonight.

[geysir]

Not a good night not to turn up for a play off game. Iceland were off their pace of their game and very little of the plan worked, coupled with Croatia giving an adrenal enhanced performance. That's the way it goes with the small teams, it's hard to keep that level of consistency going that's needed to compete against the top ranked teams.
There was a remarkable post match interview with Eidur Gudjohnsen. He calmly talked about the issues of the game for a few minutes. It was when he was asked about his future plans with the team, that he just choked up with emotion, he took a while to compose himself, cleared the tears before saying that was his last game for Iceland. As he turned to leave, the young reporter poignant embraced him. And that has stood out as the image to reflect the regrets about the game and the tribute to Eidur the country's football maestro.

[DannyInvincible]

It was probably the last attempt to reach the World Cup with the national team for me. One thing is for sure, a World Cup without me is nothing to watch so it is not worth while to wait for the World Cup. (http://www.theguardian.com/football/2013/nov/20/zlatan-ibrahimovic-world-cup-not-worth-watching-without-me)

So, does anyone think they'll even bother watching the World Cup now?

[DannyInvincible]

There was a remarkable post match interview with Eidur Gudjohnsen. He calmly talked about the issues of the game for a few minutes. It was when he was asked about his future plans with the team, that he just choked up with emotion, he took a while to compose himself, cleared the tears before saying that was his last game for Iceland. As he turned to leave, the young reporter poignant embraced him. And that has stood out as the image to reflect the regrets about the game and the tribute to Eidur the country's football maestro.

I'm not certain how exactly his words translate into English, but it is a very touching interview nevertheless.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ohi0_E9dBI

[geysir]

I'm not certain how exactly his words translate into English, but it is a very touching interview nevertheless.
That's the last segment of the interview, there was about 3 minutes before that. It was just put to him 'you've been around many years since your first cap in 1996, the country's top goalscorer etc whats your future with the team?'

His father Gudjon was a lovely footballer, close in style to the Uruguayan Forlan. Eidur always credits his father as being a better football artist than him. A carpenter friend of mine is of the same age as Gudjon and he reckons he was a better footballer than Gudjon.
So I asked him "where did it all go wrong?" He said he won a scholarship for 2 years at Man U academy, it was a prize for coming first in a keepy-up competition that he just happened to join. On number 632 he was getting a bit bored, looked around and said wtf there's Bobby Charlton! wtf is he doing here? next thing he was off to Manchester for 2 years. Part of the academy training was that the apprentices do ballroom dancing. He found out he was pretty good at the ballroom dancing and spent a lot of time doing that. He decided to pursue it once his football scholarship was over, instead of a football career and ended up representing Iceland at world championships. So who knows who was the best, my carpenter mate or Gudjon?

[pineapple stu]

Uruguay 0-0 Jordan completes the qualifying so. Wish I hadn't stayed up to watch it though...

[ArdeeBhoy]

Yeah, but always going to be a pointless game sadly.

[pineapple stu]

So was New Zealand v Mexico, but it ended 2-4, which sounded fun.

Jordan competed well in the second leg, though Uruguay were clearly the better team and were quite wasteful in front of goal at times.

[SkStu]

Uruguay 0-0 Jordan completes the qualifying so. Wish I hadn't stayed up to watch it though...

Smells like a bit of match fixing to anyone?

[bennocelt]

Just know engerland are going to get Switzerland:D

[ArdeeBhoy]

Hope you're wrong. And they get one of the 'better' top seeds.

[Charlie Darwin]

England are out already.

[Stuttgart88]

Bad location and bad draw for England.

Reckon Australia could be in for a hiding.

[bennocelt]

Just know engerland are going to get Switzerland:D

Well not quite, but god what a great group for Switzerland, should be no problem to come out of that group, should be!
One question is, I was sure that France as the worst European team with the lowest fifa ranking were to be the team that was placed with the SA/African group, but it looks like the French got the goalposts changed again!
And as for England, now that's a hard group!

[geysir]

Was it just a speculation that France would end up in pot 2 rather than a team picked at random?

[Charlie Darwin]

Was it just a speculation that France would end up in pot 2 rather than a team picked at random?
It was based on the assumption they would continue to use the procedure they used in 2006, where the lowest-ranked European side, Serbia & Montenegro, were put in a special pot (http://web.archive.org/web/20080423021144/http://www.fifa.com/aboutfifa/media/newsid=101782.html) to ensure they weren't drawn with two other European sides. Instead, they returned to the process of 2002 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_FIFA_World_Cup#Seeds) where there were 11 European teams in the European pool and three were drawn first to ensure they remained separate from the European teams. This wasn't an issue in 2010 as there were enough European sides in Pot 1 to make up for it - I don't know what their contingency was in that case.

[geysir]

So Platini pulled off a Charlie Byrne type stroke.
You get the impression that there are a wide variety of precedents existing, that FIFA can just pull one out that suits the present predicament.
I guess that means 4 more years for Blatter?

[bennocelt]

http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/blogs/early-doors/did-fifa-really-fix-world-cup-draw-fantastic-160323229.html

One for the conspiracy theorists! :)

[geysir]

I see from the photos on that link that I might have been more interested in the actual draw, had I known the view would be so spectacular.

[bennocelt]

I see from the photos on that link that I might have been more interested in the actual draw, had I known the view would be so spectacular.

Ha, yes that was def one of the highlights, strange it wasnt commented on by the Beeb, but then they are awful, generally.

[geysir]

There were other highlights?