Four Associations Tournament/Celtic Cup 2011

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/foot...ls/7114148.stm

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Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland have agreed "in principle" to play a series of three biennial "Celtic Cup" tournaments. An agreement signed on Monday commits the countries to arranging the tournaments on a league basis.
Home and away games will be rotated from one tournament to the next with each team playing three matches in each of the competitions.
Commercial arrangements and fixture dates are now being finalised.

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Very surprising. Not sure if it is worth it. We should be playing continental competition.

I think there is more use in this format than a couple of low key end of season friendly a la the tour to America.

End of season games are riddled with withdrawals and while the idea of a get together in the summer is right, in practice it doesn't seem to work.

At least there might be some sort of competitive edge, and it being in this part of the world a few more of the lads might be arsed to turn up.

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Originally Posted by Bottle of Tonic

At least there might be some sort of competitive edge

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Northern Ireland v Ireland in Belfast in July!!!

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Originally Posted by Fergie's Son

Very surprising. Not sure if it is worth it. We should be playing continental competition.

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Agree with that. We should be using friendly games to get more match practice playing against teams of that style of play, especially as we seem to always have difficulties against it.

It seems nice in principal but I think they should play the thing every 2nd year when there's no tournament on, e.g 2009, 2011 and also play the games in the space of 10 days or so. This lark of playing some of it in February and November is a load of sh*te.

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Originally Posted by gwhite

It seems nice in principal but I think they should play the thing every 2nd year when there's no tournament on, e.g 2009, 2011

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"have agreed "in principle" to play a series of three biennial "Celtic Cup" tournaments"

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Originally Posted by Bottle of Tonic

I think there is more use in this format than a couple of low key end of season friendly a la the tour to America.

End of season games are riddled with withdrawals and while the idea of a get together in the summer is right, in practice it doesn't seem to work.

At least there might be some sort of competitive edge, and it being in this part of the world a few more of the lads might be arsed to turn up.

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Agree with that. Sooner play Scotland in Britain than Ecuador in New York.

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Originally Posted by pineapple stu

Agree with that. Sooner play Scotland in Britain than Ecuador in New York.

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it'll help our fifa rankings too, all 3 sides have higher fifa rankings than than recent summer friendly opponents

Won't help us if we lose though!

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Originally Posted by pineapple stu

Won't help us if we lose though!

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i know but if we played ecuador or bolivia at the moment and won our fifa rankings would actually go down because their rankings are that low.

we have an average of 444 this year
a win against ecudor would be 428
a win against bolivia would be 279

at least playing scotland and northern ireland we give ourselves a fighting chance of getting some good ranking points out of friendlies

pointless tournament and crap trips.

I actually like the idea, its better than nothing, but will we not have enough on our plate in 2009 with Italy, Bulgaria and Cyprus et al on the horizon?

At least we have a chance of some silverware. :D

I would have thought that Springtime in the years 2008, 2010, 2012 etc would have been the intelligent timing of this tournament as we will all be playing meaningless friendlies having failed to qualify for that Summer's event.

But hey its the FAI and their like,so what do you expect.

I can't see the players really getting excited about this, I think people's horizons have expanded and it will just seem too parochial and meaninglesss. We want to play Brazil, Cameroon etc not Wales FFS. It works great for rugby but not soccer. And the less times we play NI the better, I don't mind the players but the IFA and the supporters are just not very nice.

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Originally Posted by eekers

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/foot...ls/7114148.stm

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We really need England involved to make the tournament sustainable. The Home Nations tournaments are nothing without a strong side. If the Republic ever reach previous form it should be a whitewash, but if England were involved it would make things interesting.

Does anyone know were England invited to play in it and turned it down or what? Having all the Home Nations would induce Rugby like rivalry which would be great.

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Originally Posted by Qwerty

I can't see the players really getting excited about this, I think people's horizons have expanded and it will just seem too parochial and meaninglesss. We want to play Brazil, Cameroon etc not Wales FFS. It works great for rugby but not soccer. And the less times we play NI the better, I don't mind the players but the IFA and the supporters are just not very nice.

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I can't see the players really getting excited about this, I think people's horizons have expanded and it will just seem too parochial and meaninglesss. We want to play Brazil, Cameroon etc not Wales FFS. It works great for rugby but not soccer. And the less times we play ROI the better, I don't mind the players but the FAI and the supporters are just not very nice..:rolleyes:

Interesting to note that only the FAI of the four football associations have published a press release about this "tournament" on their official website.

I personally think this tournament is a pointless exercise. What's to be gained from playing minnows such as Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales? They might as well throw Iceland and the Faroe Islands into the "tournament" and call it the "North Atlantic Minnows United by John Delaney Cup".

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Originally Posted by ifk101

What's to be gained from playing minnows such as Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales?

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They might well say the same about us.

You can talk about potential all you like, players in the premiership and all that, but the fact is that right now, most teams would prefer to play the Republic rather than NI or Scotland.