Preliminary Draw of the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil

[Closed Account 2]

Sounds like a good summary.

Groups E and G really are weak groups. Such an outcome was probably made all the more inevitable with Norway and Greece in the first pot.

Do people reckon this group is easier or tougher than our qualification group for Euro 2008, which also featured Germany? Fair enough, we didn't qualify then, but I think that group was tougher, albeit with an extra team. Sweden might be around the same level as the Czechs were then (or are they?), but I don't think Austria are as good as Slovakia would have been. They'd be more on a par with Cyprus (embarrassing 5-2 drubbing aside) or maybe Wales then. Would that be a fair assessment? Six points has to be the aim with Austria if we're to entertain any hope of qualification.

Kazakhstan are ranked lower than the likes of Liechtenstein. They can't really pose a huge deal of threat, can they? Surely we should expect a guaranteed 12 points from them and the Faroes or we might as well just pack it in now? As should Sweden and Germany, however, I suspect. Interestingly, Germany, Austria and Kazakhstan are all competing in the same Euro 2012 qualifying group at the minute. Germany are romping home to a first-place finish in that with the other two doing relatively poorly. Austria's most impressive result to date would have to be a 4-4 away draw against Belgium. Otherwise, their only points came against Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, losing their other home game with Belgium along with their Germany and Turkey games.

I would say that this group is almost identical. I would put the current Austrians ahead of the 2006/8 Slovaks, there are some talented Austrian players, midfielders like Arunatovic and Alaba will be a handfull, and Janko and Hoffer could cause a bit of a problem. We should be able to beat them at home and we should be aiming for a win out in Vienna too. I'd have the 06/08 Czechs ahead of the current Sweden team by a wide margin. That Czech team had proven CL players (Rosicky, Nedved, Jankoulovski) they had Cech in goal and big Jan Koller (who we were never able to deal with) with Baros next to him, that team had it's best years behind it by 06/08 but it was still a very strong team. I would say that Wales team is similar to the current Kazakh team (I think their low seeding is a legacy of the switch from the Asian federation, they sarted off on the bottom of the pile and never really had an easy draw). We should beat the Kazakhs at home, but away the heat (if summer), dryness and distance mean it could be tricky.

[Closed Account 2]

Also it should be said that we are now much better than back in 06/08, player for player it might not look that different, but were far more organised and we will (still, hopefully) have a good manager, with an intimate knowledge of German and Austrian football.

[Maroon 7]

Tough draw really, there are 9 teams in each pot and we got the 3rd best (by official Fifa rankings).
IncidentallyI think were were the second best team in pot 3.

England got it easy, Montenegro, were they not one of the 5th teams in Euro 2012, yep indeed they
were they were in pot 5 and and they are now englands toughtest opposition!!

What a fix!!!

Actually I wondered about this in the pub earlier. How the feck were Montenegro in pot 2? Or did I dream that?

[DannyInvincible]

Austria took 6 points off us the last time we played them.

That was a year after World Cup 1994; a tournament in which Sweden finished third. Is it worth reading too much into two results from over a decade and a half ago? If that's the case, we might as well be saying Sweden are certs to top the group. Austria plummeted down the rankings since peaking at 17th in the world in 1999 and ended up as low as 105th position by 2008 (admittedly they hadn't played competitive games for a year or two due to hosting Euro 2008) and whilst their current position of 66th might be indicative of a slight resurgence (although they were ranked higher earlier this year), I don't think it should strike too much fear into us. The likes of Algeria, Georgia, Scotland and NI are ranked ahead of them; all teams we've beaten in fairly recent times.

I've encountered Marc Janko before. He played twice against Bohs for Salzburg in the Champions League qualifiers in 2009, but it was more his insufferable play-acting that left an indelible mark with me than anything else. His record does appear quite prolific, but the overall strength of the Austrian Bundesliga must also be taken into consideration. I understand he's playing the Twente now.

They're not rubbish like Cyprus, and will be a real banana skin.

If our recent games against them are anything to go by, Cyprus are as much of a banana skin than anyone.

[mypost]

I know when it was. People thought they would be a guaranteed 6 points when we last faced them, and we know what happened. They could still make the play-offs for the next Euros.

[DannyInvincible]

Just looking at some of their recent results, their away form is certainly a weakness. As is ours, I suppose, but they haven't won a competitive away game at all since March of 2005 when they beat Wales. That does include the spell prior to Euro 2008 when they wouldn't have had any competitive games, but it also includes this campaign and the whole of the last campaign where they lost to Lithuania and drew with the Faroes away. Of course, the major scalp of note in recent times was their shock victory over France at the beginning of qualification for the 2010 World Cup, but other than that, they haven't done a huge deal to get worked up about. I'm not dismissing them but would cautiously hope for six points from them if we approach the games with the right attitude and don't lose the plot like France when they caught the French off-guard. Otherwise, I think we might as well forget about even reaching the play-offs either as group runner-up or one of the top eight runners-up.

[Supreme feet]

That and the retirement of key players by the next Finals of Messrs. Robbie, Dunne & quite possibly Shay means no Brasil, sadly.

Robbie will be 32 by the time the campaign kicks off, which is the same age John Aldridge was at the start of the USA 94 qualifiers, in which he was our top scorer. Also, Dunne will be 33, same age as Paul McGrath at the start of the USA 94 campaign. Both McGrath and Moran (who was 36 when he started away to Denmark) played key roles in that campaign. Also, Kenny Cunningham was 33 at the start of the '06 qualifiers, when he was one of our outstanding players.

I don't think age is such a big deal to players who are totally committed to their country. When Denis Irwin retired from international football at 34, his subsequent form for United and Wolves led many to say his retirement was premature. And if anything, players are having longer careers these days, thanks to the general improvement in conditioning and diet within the English game. I think the only players we will lose by the next campaign are Duff (persistent injuries) and Kilbane. With the likes of McCarthy, Meyler, Wilson, Clark, Coleman and Cunningham to come through, I think the Irish team will be in better shape in September 2012 than at present.

[DannyInvincible]

Just for the record, here are Kazakhstan's most recent competitive results:

[U][B]European Championships 2012[/B][/U]
Date	Round	Opponent	Venue	Result	
[B]03.06.2011	qrga	Az'jan	home	W2-1[/B]	
26.03.2011	qrga	Germany	away	L0-4	
12.10.2010	qrga	Germany	home	L0-3	
08.10.2010	qrga	Belgium	home	L0-2	
07.09.2010	qrga	Austria	away	L0-2	
03.09.2010	qrga	Turkey	home	L0-3	

[B][U]World Cup Europe 2010[/U][/B]
Date	Round	Opponent	Venue	Result	
14.10.2009	qrg6	Croatia	home	L1-2	
10.10.2009	qrg6	Belarus	away	L0-4	
[B]09.09.2009	qrg6	Andorra	away	W3-1[/B]	
10.06.2009	qrg6	Ukraine	away	L1-2	
06.06.2009	qrg6	England	home	L0-4	
01.04.2009	qrg6	Belarus	home	L1-5	
11.10.2008	qrg6	England	away	L1-5	
10.09.2008	qrg6	Ukraine	home	L1-3	
06.09.2008	qrg6	Croatia	away	L0-3	
[B]20.08.2008	qrg6	Andorra	home	W3-0	[/B]

[U][B]European Championships 2008[/B][/U]
Date	Round	Opponent	Venue	Result	
24.11.2007	qrga	Serbia	away	L0-1	
[B]21.11.2007	qrga	Armenia	away	W1-0[/B]	
17.10.2007	qrga	P'tugal	home	L1-2	
13.10.2007	qrga	Poland	away	L1-3	
12.09.2007	qrga	Belgium	home	D2-2	
22.08.2007	qrga	Finland	away	L1-2	
06.06.2007	qrga	Az'jan	home	D1-1
02.06.2007	qrga	Armenia	home	L1-2	
[B]24.03.2007	qrga	Serbia	home	W2-1[/B]	
15.11.2006	qrga	P'tugal	away	L0-3	
11.10.2006	qrga	Finland	home	L0-2	
07.10.2006	qrga	Poland	home	L0-1	
06.09.2006	qrga	Az'jan	away	D1-1
16.08.2006	qrga	Belgium	away	D0-0

I note they beat Serbia at home and Armenia away in 2007. They also managed two draws with Belgium in qualification for Euro 2008. They've managed to beat Andorra (twice) and Azerbaijan since, but, other than those results, their form has been pretty abysmal.

[DannyInvincible]

In Fairness Danny the he also picked Kazakhstan b/c of the rampant anti-semitism there. Which you I am sure would not excuse.

Just on this, without question. However, and I'm probably going a bit off-topic here, is it actually rampant there or was that not simply part of the act, and thus a crude resulting assumption on your part? Such an opinion might be in need of a slight reformulation with a bit of research. Any literature I've encountered - admittedly, I'm no expert - portrays Kazakhstan to be a religiously open and generally tolerant society. I wasn't saying the movie was offensive; rather, it will be the boring inevitability of people having a cheap laugh at the expense of "Borat's backward Kazakhstan", based on their own misguided perceptions of the country due to the fact they didn't actually pick up on the point or irony behind the film (the only cultural reference to Kazakhstan to which most of us can actually relate), that will be offensive. I'm not saying I have any great knowledge of that part of the world myself, but I'll at least try to avoid defining the Kazakh people in terms of Borat's persona or presume that a comedy mockumentary from five years ago is in any way relevant to us drawing Kazakhstan in a World Cup qualification group. Just so we can relate, that would be doing the equivalent of the idiots in the 'Californians on Ireland' video who make fools of themselves assuming the same old usual Irish stereotypes to be true.

Beyond exploiting ignorantly-assumed Western preconceptions of the country's inhabitants as a staged persona in order to help draw out and expose Westerners' own prejudices, I didn't think Sacha Baron Cohen was making a major comment, if any at all, on Kazakhstan actually, which is why I cringe when people assume that Borat was some sort of attempt to realistically portray or poke fun at the Kazakh people and subsequently seek to join in or think of Kazakhstan as a bit of a joke. For a start, the character's appearance didn't even look remotely Kazakh. The Kazakhs are a predominantly Mongoloid people. The Kazakhi government themselves took offence and condemned the film, but clearly completely missed the subtlety therein and misunderstood what it was setting out to achieve. Other commentators from within Kazakhstan were more astute in their analysis and saw to look beneath the layers, lauding it as very funny and even "cruelly anti-American". Apparently, even the football team themselves are fans: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage...cle1775147.ece

Little is known about the former Soviet republic and even less about their national team.

But former boss Arno Pijpers, who was axed last month, said: "They are normal footballers who train and prepare like any others.

"When they are on away trips and they are not playing or training they will play cards or watch DVDs.

"Yes, they do watch the Borat movie. I know the country's politicians didn't like it, but the players find it funny.

They get the jokes and don't think the movie makes fun of Kazakhstan. It makes fun of the US more than it does Kazakhstan."

Of course, it's a bit ridiculous that their coach feels the need in the post-Borat era to confirm to the outside world that they are "normal footballers". What else would they be, for God's sake? But that's not the film's fault. Rather, it serves to prove and enforce the film's point.

Borat's rampant anti-Semitism was all part of the act and was a play on the idea that Westerners, in their cultural snobbery and ignorance, wouldn't know any better, or even be too concerned by it; that they'd inevitably find themselves off-guard in the company of such a naïve buffoon from this apparently unsophisticated backwater who might, in their minds, make their own unsavoury views appear even benign or reasonable in contrast to his. It worked because their ignorance allowed Borat to appear to them like a completely plausible and genuine persona. He utilised the act in a bible-belt gun-shop to expose the attitudes of the gun-shop owner, for example - not the attitudes of Kazakhs - when he asked, "What's the best gun to defend myself from the Jews?", to which the shop-owner responded without hesitation, "That'd be a 9mm or a .45." He's not Chris Morris, but, yeah, I think that's pretty decent satire.

I suppose the point is, let's not be ignorant. Or at least, if we aren't bothered to do a bit of rudimentary research on a certain group of people, let's not embarrass ourselves by replacing a lack of knowledge with insulting presumptions we might have learned (and done to death) from an irrelevant artefact of popular culture released half a decade ago. Regrettably, it's already happened two or three times in this thread.

[Spudulika]

Kazakhstan, for the benefit of those who've not been there from someone who's been 3 times in the last 3 years and whose boss (read her indoors) mother's family hail from there - my other half spent 4 glorious holidays there and still has a grandaunt and host of cousins there - Russians who stayed behind, it's a great country. It's run, as our own, by a consistent upper class of families who rule along tribal lines. Titles are passed from father to son/daughter and there is a system of privilege we all are familiar with - completely incompetent cretins keep being employed because of who their Daddy is. While in Ireland political parties have been infused into the village mentality of the ruling elite, in Kazakhstan it's more about a single warlord doling out jobs and money to smaller ones.

Not unlike Ireland, many of this gobdaw privileged class have been able to migrate to more glam urban centres - like London, where Kazakhstan's golden youth get jobs through connections and nicely get along. While the both countries commoners toil and have the odd bit of bread and games thrown to them, they too have to emigrate to survive, though to less salubrious surrounds - Manchester and Moscow - Irish Kazakh respectively. While the Irish golden youth with their party political-tribal connections pick up a handy cheque bankrupting some bank or company or filling out papers in Nama, the ones whose parents have not been blessed with links to the local cumann head off to building sites in Australia, teach english in Italy or tend bars in Boston. Kazakh less fortunates can be seen manning McDonalds mops in Moscow, serving sushi in franchise "japanese" cafes, or servicing mid-ranking western businessmen in "night clubs".

Kazakhs are uniformly respectful to foreigners, there is still the touch of the steppe about them (I clearly remember going out for a jog one morning in a typical Soviet style 8 story building project and seeing an old lady dressed in traditional garb milking a cow next to the playground). The former capital of the country was one of the most stunning in Central Asia, though it was outside the leaders tribal area, Astana is glittering and glam but can be sterile. Foreign footballers there get paid very well, and there are a number of very promising young locals (one of whom was coming on trial before SFFC were put out of business). The standard of local football is middling, there is still too much corruption in the game, and ultimately football is lower down the pecking order for local sports. Martial sports still hold pride of place.

[Gather round]

Also Cymro... Irishmen will do. There's no such thing as Republic of or Northern Irishmen.

(queue GR)

Sorry to be pedantic, but shouldn't that be 'cue'?

[ArdeeBhoy]

No, he's right.

They were referring to a, er, crowd....

[SwanVsDalton]

Stuck out in Portugal, was flicking through the hotel TV stations last night in search of the draw - not one Iberian station showing it. Not ever Eurosport had it (some tennis match instead). So only just saw it.

My first reaction is it ain't that bad. Tough sure, could've been better but could've been a lot worse. We're looking at second place but it certainly isn't beyond us and there's points up for grabs against all those teams, even if Germany will almost cetainly top the group. The Kazakh trip is tricky but we really should be looking for six points, they're record and ability holds no fear. Austria are a decent side but their away form is poor and, realistically, they're they type of side any rightful qualifier should be beating.

Sweden are the main worry though, but I'm more confident of getting a decent result. The Euro group they're currently in, Holland withstanding, isn't very tough and I think we have a decent shout of taking points off them. They don't appear to be a dissimilar side to ourselves.

I think part of the prediction problem is we as yet are unsure of what we're capable of - September should go some way to figuring that out.

[mypost]

The September outcomes are already pre-determined by most people. Succeed, and holes will be picked in the team and the coach. Fail, and the apocalyse is nigh.

Sweden are a moderate enough side, pretty similiar to us. Austria on their day, can be very dangerous. We'll be fighting with them for progression.

[shakermaker1982]

Germany were the 3rd best side in the draw but I still think we could pick up points against em. Germany are a great counter attacking side but we defend as a unit and if we could have the away game towards the end of the campaign when the Germans have already qualified then maybe they'll go easy on us!

Sweden will be tough but 4 points isn't out the question. The same goes for Austria - the aim must be 4 points (unless we can turn draws into wins against the better sides). Let us be realistic, we are playing for 2nd but it can be done.