France and Switzelrand are not the only teams in the group!

I have been on a couple of outher forums saying how Israel are not to be underestimated and I looked at their previous results on FIFA. This is more or less pasted from my post on another forum:

Nobody should underestimate Israel. France only beat them 2-1 last year with a full strenght team on neutral ground (in Italy to be precise). We will be playing them in Israel this time so they will be really up for it playing in front of their fans in competition for the first time in a while. The Irish players will probably bottle it in front of such a hostile crowd.

Israel are 57th in the rankings ahead of Wales and up there with Scotland, Australia and european championship supremo's Latvia. The beat Georgia away from home in their last match. They are unbeaten at home since 1999 (13 matches) which included a 1-1 draw with Spain in a qualifier. Russia haven't been beaten at home in competition in decades AFAIK and Israel beat them in a friendly 2-1 in Moscow last August.

Anyone worried? :(

We should beat them at home but I wouldn't be too confident about playing them in Tel Aviv. Switzerland are the first team to travel to Israel to play them so at least we'll see what they're like then.

BTW - are the matces definitely going ahead in Tel Aviv?

I would love the swiss to lose that one because that would really start them off on a bad note and hopefully they will buckle....I do not think Israel wont be easy but ultimeately we will be too strong for them

God I really want to thrash the swiss...I dont know why they have got on my nerves so much ...I used to like them but now I want them to lose every game

Thats a good point, Israel certainly won't be easy to beat.
Blatter has said the games will go ahead in Tel Aviv but the situation could easily change. With Sharon's war-mongering the whole area could be a battlefield by next year.

Didnt Maccabi Haifa beat Man Utd in a CL group game not so long ago?

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Originally Posted by davros

Aye.....have a feeling a certain individual missed that one....beneath him! :rolleyes:

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Maccabi Haifa 3 Manchester United 0
Katan 40 Zutautas 56 Ayegbini 77
Tuesday October 29, 2002


The teams:
Maccabi Haifa: Awat, Zautatas, Harazi, Benado, Badir, Keisi, Ayegbini, Rosso, Zano, Katan, Pralija.

Man Utd: Ricardo, Gary Neville, Silvestre, Ferdinand, O'Shea, Phil Neville, Scholes, Fortune, Richardson, Solskjaer, Forlan.

Faeroe Islands 0-0 Germany after 89 minutes in the Euro qualifiers, don't forget! (Though they did lose 2-0 in the end). What odds they take a point or two somewhere? Could really throw the group open!

When it comes down to it 11 on 11 any team could be equal but i think we should remain confident. At Lansdowne road i think well win every game (yes, even against France.....hopefully !),but away :confused: dodgey ! Israel could be a similiar atmosphere to Iran, but we managed that.
Stay confident, and hopefully get a good few fans out there and I dont see any reason we should fear, after all,we are favourites

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Originally Posted by KISS N.O.C

Israel could be a similiar atmosphere to Iran, but we managed that.

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We lost against Iran, we really need to beat Israel.

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Originally Posted by eirebhoy

We lost against Iran, we really need to beat Israel.

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C'mon we had it wrapped up at that stage.Fair point about Israel though,should be a tough test.Fcuking buzzing for this campaign to start with all the football on at the mo

Don't forget Israel are only one place behind Ireland in the FIFA rankings,
and have been for some time

I don't foresee that situation changing in the future though. ;)

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Originally Posted by tricky_colour

Don't forget Israel are only one place behind Ireland in the FIFA rankings,
and have been for some time

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Israel are 57th in FIFA rankings and we're 14th.

Israel will take points from either ourselves France or Switzerland. They should not be underestimated but are unlikely to qualify or threaten to qualify.

The Faroes and Cyprus could also spring a surpirse or two. It should come down to a battle between ourselves and the Swiss for the runners up spot and if we have a great campaign we could pip Franc eor get an automatic spot as best runner up.

However remember Switzerland beat us home and away last time out and they will fancy their chances again.

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Originally Posted by finlma

Israel are 57th in FIFA rankings and we're 14th.

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Alphabetically they are right behind up :p

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Originally Posted by tricky_colour

Alphabetically they are right behind up :p

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Yah at the UN you have Iran Iraq Ireland and then Israel.

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Originally Posted by eirebhoy

We lost against Iran, we really need to beat Israel.

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Like Beavis said, we had it rapped up at that stage and we werent really playing for a win.

Faroes and Cyprus we should get 12 points out of, France 1(maybe a home win) point, Switzerland 4 points,

I don't think the French will be that strong once the qualifiers come around, they have a lot of ageing players, not all of whom will neccessarily retire.

To most of us the Israeli's are a bit of an unknown, but from what little I've seen or heard suggests I'd expect a tough game, but definitely one we can win. If we have trouble away to them, so will everybody else.

6 points from cyprus is a must
6 points from Faroes is almost guaranteed
6 points from the Swiss is looking more and more likely
4 points from the Israelis (allowing for an away draw) should be comfortable acheived.
If we can take the French at home, or take a draw early in the series away, then come the last game we could be playing to top the group.

I might be overestimating our ability, but I think at worst, it's an easy group to make the play-offs from, especially with the memory of missing out in Basle still so fresh in players and fans minds.

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Originally Posted by tiktok

6 points from cyprus is a must
6 points from Faroes is almost guaranteed
6 points from the Swiss is looking more and more likely
4 points from the Israelis (allowing for an away draw) should be comfortable acheived.

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Definitely agree. I actually think we have a good chance of beating the French at home. Our home record for qualifiers is fantastic, 1 defeat since McCarthy took over in '96 and that was his last game against Switzerland. This time the Swizz are without 3 of their previous first team, who retired, and probably also Frei. We shouldn't lose at home in any game.

Lets say we get 22 points from the the Swizz, Israel, Faroe's and Cyprus and 1 point from the French. That means, if we come second we will most likely qualify automatically with 23 points (the 2 best 2nd place teams automatically qualify). The second place teams in the last WC qualifiers got the following points:

Slovenia - 20
Ireland - 24
Czech Rep - 20
Turkey - 21
Ukraine - 17
Belgium - 17 (5 team group)
Austria - 15 (5 team group)
Romania - 16 (5 team group)
Germany - 17 (5 team group)

No 2nd place team has ever got more than 23 points in a 6 team WC qualifying group (other than Ireland in the last Q's).

Have a look at the qualifying groups this time:
http://www.soccerphile.com/soccerphile/wc2006/q-groups/

The bottom seeded in the 7 team groups aren't taken into account when calculating the best 2nd place teams. Group 1, 2, 5, 6 and 8 have no chance of the 2nd place team getting 23 points. That leaves it between groups 3, 7 and our group.

Your talents are wasted Eirebhoy, you should be a statistitian.

Good point though, if we get good results and come 2nd we might get through without a playoff.

Switzerland beat us home and away in the qualifiers and will expect at least 4 points off us. France are one of the best teams in the world and are more than capable of beating us home and away. We should beat the three weaker teams at home, but nothing’s easy remember Albania in the last qualifiers. As for the three away games the Faroes should be fairly straight forward (but remember Liechtenstein), should also win in Cyprus, as for Israel, in Israel a hard game, on a neutral venue shouldn’t be a problem.

At this stage I‘d definitely settle for second place, we haven't turned into a great team just because of a few good friendly results