Euro 2012 draw

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Originally Posted by elroy

We werent a million miles off that ourselves towards the end of the Stan era. Makes you wonder how people can criticise trap so much when we've come so far so quickly.

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definitely agree with you elroy, i remember being in a bar after coming from the 0-0 draw against germany in 2007 in croke park. I remember being so gutted, that the senior team was in serious trouble under its current regime , i suppose the fact that , that result was the result that officially killed off any hope of qualifying for euro 2008 didnt help.

How times have changed...roll on euro 2012 and the best of luck to wales and montenegro for the forthcoming qualifiers...oh and kudos to Trap

Just saw that hiddink has announced he's quitting russia in the summer...so our 1st place chances just went up quite a bit xD

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Originally Posted by Cymro

A good Welsh forum is www.dragonsoccer.co.uk . That is the best one for discussing the national team. (You will notice at the moment there is a thread entitled 'Wales to finish bottom' - that shows how confident we are!)

In the first two matches I'd like to play the Montenegro away game and then Bulgaria away. At the beginning of the group teams will be more concerned with not losing than with winning, and I think if we could get draws in both games it would be a great result. I also want us to have England in the later games, but we will all have to make concessions in the negotiations.

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Thanks!

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Originally Posted by Cymro

In the first two matches I'd like to play the Montenegro away game and then Bulgaria away. At the beginning of the group teams will be more concerned with not losing than with winning, and I think if we could get draws in both games it would be a great result. I also want us to have England in the later games, but we will all have to make concessions in the negotiations.

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Be careful about that first one. We played Montenegro away in September last time and the heat visibly affected the entire Irish team, and we could easily have lost that game (as well as won it, I guess). Even Bulgaria is no picnic at the tail end of the summer.

Russia without a manager - http://www.eleven-a-side.com/euro2008/news.asp?n=38087

Set for Turkey job - http://www.soccerway.com/news/2010/F...y-job-reports/

I'd be surprised if Hiddink went for Turkey post.

He could have a big job in the PL if he waited a few months! Liverpool, Man City....

Hiddinks departure is great news for us but with Abramovich's financial backing, they are sure to get in another top class manager. It would be great to get them away early though before the new coach settles.

We have to seriously consider ourselves as favourites here. We should beat everyone at home (perhaps with the exception of Russia were we should secure at least a draw). We should definitely beat Andorra and Armenia away along with a tricky victory over Macedonia and I think Trap would settle for a point in each away game with Slovakia and Russia. That would put us on 24 points. If that wasn't enough to win the group I would be shocked but it should be more than enough to secure best second placed team.

According to the papers today, Dock Advocaat is the favourite for the job. Strange one, considering he is managing AZ and Belgium at the moment. Maybe his time with Zenit might make him want to return to Mother Russia.

Hiidink named Turkey manager

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/default.stm

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Originally Posted by Lenny82

We have to seriously consider ourselves as favourites here. We should beat everyone at home (perhaps with the exception of Russia were we should secure at least a draw). We should definitely beat Andorra and Armenia away along with a tricky victory over Macedonia and I think Trap would settle for a point in each away game with Slovakia and Russia. That would put us on 24 points. If that wasn't enough to win the group I would be shocked but it should be more than enough to secure best second placed team.

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Reality to Lenny?!

We did well in one campaign and now we have to consider ourselves favourites in a group containing the last European semi-finalists and one country who qualified for the World Cup (as group winners)? Let alone that we've not won in two visits to Macedonia.

Never ceases to amaze me how far detached from reality some people's views of an upcoming campaign can be.

It's a good draw for us. We've a definite chance of coming second, we've an outside chance of coming first. There is no way at all that we can consider ourselves favourites to win the group.

People often for some reason tend to assume that the best possible/plausible outcome will happen. Taking Lenny's example, I could plausibly see Ireland doing that and ending up with 24 points, but it's more likely that you will drop points in at least one home game (Russia/Slovakia) and may also slip up away to Macedonia or (less likely) Armenia, giving a more realistic target total of about 19 or 20 points. Which should still be enough for 2nd - Slovakia are unpredictable and shouldn't win all the games you might expect them to.

In the last campaign many in Wales were still entertaining hopes of qualifying long after it was clear we weren't going to be good enough (even after the 2-0 home defeat to Finland). This time around a lot of people think we will finish 2nd because it's an outside chance that we will. Realistically 4th is the most likely outcome.

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Originally Posted by pineapple stu

Reality to Lenny?!

We did well in one campaign and now we have to consider ourselves favourites in a group containing the last European semi-finalists and one country who qualified for the World Cup (as group winners)? Let alone that we've not won in two visits to Macedonia.

Never ceases to amaze me how far detached from reality some people's views of an upcoming campaign can be.

It's a good draw for us. We've a definite chance of coming second, we've an outside chance of coming first. There is no way at all that we can consider ourselves favourites to win the group.

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Excatly. Where did positive thinking ever get anybody? :p

Sure we should definitely consider ourselves favourites for the whole thing so. England are overrated and Torres is injured. Who's to stop us?

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Originally Posted by pineapple stu

Reality to Lenny?!

We did well in one campaign and now we have to consider ourselves favourites in a group containing the last European semi-finalists and one country who qualified for the World Cup (as group winners)? Let alone that we've not won in two visits to Macedonia.

Never ceases to amaze me how far detached from reality some people's views of an upcoming campaign can be.

It's a good draw for us. We've a definite chance of coming second, we've an outside chance of coming first. There is no way at all that we can consider ourselves favourites to win the group.

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I agree with that. plus there is the thing that for some reason we always seem to perform better against the bigger teams when there isnt as much pressure on us. There is nothing in the history of irish football to suggest we will sail through any group no matter how weak it may look on paper. I am confident we will do well but if we are gonna top the group as usual it will go right to the wire with plenty of up and downs along the way

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Originally Posted by Razors left peg

I agree with that. plus there is the thing that for some reason we always seem to perform better against the bigger teams when there isnt as much pressure on us. There is nothing in the history of irish football to suggest we will sail through any group no matter how weak it may look on paper. I am confident we will do well but if we are gonna top the group as usual it will go right to the wire with plenty of up and downs along the way

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Very true, although it has to be said we are now hard to beat, organised and capable of beating top teams (of course that doesnt mean we will). For some reason, I am less confident against the likes of Macedonia that say Russia.

russia look to be in a bit of turmoil....slovakia not onbe of the strongest teams to come out of pot 2,we really have a decent chance to top the group this time...although i have a slovakian buddy and he was pretty happy with the draw too,mainly because of russia getting picked from pot 1!!we should be looking to win all our home games,we wont get any easy away games apart from the andorra match!!

Let's not get ahead of ourselves here, we've just had our most successful qualifying campaign since 2001 and we didn't even qualify! Let's not get carried away.

The draw has been kind to us but the squad from last campaign is not good enough for this one.
Much of our qual hopes depend on getting capable new blood, either starting in the team or to use as ready replacements.
2 full backs, a CH and a CM - plus a decent striker out of the bunch of wannabees.
It's still uncertain how that will pan out.
We could very well put ourselves in a favourable position to qualify after a few games or we could be bogged down in a tedious trench warfare, scrapping for 2nd place.

Why not consider ourselves as favourites??? I know it's alot easier to consider yourself the underdog as it eases the disappointment at the end but we have a great chance here.

Losing Hiddink is a massive blow for Russia and after losing to Slovenia in the play-off's it show's they are not as great as everyone thought.

Fair play to Slovakia topping their group and qualifying for the World Cup but their group contained a very poor Czech and Polish team along with Northern Ireland who although capable of pulling off a good victory are not as good as they believe.

I think in this campaign we will win games we would previously have drawn and this group is considerably weaker than our last group so why not.

Why not consider ourselves favourites for the whole tournament?