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First up Wales away on the 6th of September.
Full list of Fixtures
6/9/18 Wales v Republic of Ireland 7.45pm
9/9/18 Denmark v Wales 5.00pm
13/10/18 Republic of Ireland v Denmark 7.45pm
16/10/18 Republic of Ireland v Wales 7.45pm
16/11/18 Wales v Denmark 7.45pm
19/11/18 Denmark v Republic of Ireland 7.45pm
Well we're both free in the 9-11 September window (along with 7 other European teams, 6 of whom we've played competitively since 2013 plus England).Quote:
Originally Posted by DannyInvincible
I can see another 'closed' friendly in Dublin as in 2016.
Most NI fans I've spoken to are quite pleased to avoid any spiciness (or as I prefer to call it, inevitable public disorder and associated whataboutery/ mopery from cousin Jude and co :eek:)
This draw is bad deja vu,
though the fixture schedule is kind with 2 home games in succession inside the short turnaround.
I feel like it's time to grasp the nettle and play each other in Belfast. Given how friendlies are poisonous for rankings I like the idea of a B internationalQuote:
Originally Posted by Gather round
Agree on both points. I thought on first viewing that starting and ending with away games could only be a bad thing, but on closer inspection having the two games in a few days at home should be a little bit of an advantage.Quote:
Originally Posted by geysir
except don't wales have the advantage of only playing us in that fixture window that we have 2 games?Quote:
Originally Posted by DeLorean
Good point, but Wales have to travel to Copenhagen after a potentially bruising battle with us too. I think I'd prefer our schedule overall.Quote:
Originally Posted by jbyrne
FIFA are looking to expand this concept to every other confederation, with the best teams going to a "Final 8" knock-out, possibly as a replacement for the Confederations Cup. Also looking to turn the Club World Cup into a bigger deal, with 24 (!) teams every four years.
Essentially it looks like they want a major tournament of some description every summer.
At what point does player welfare become a concern? Playing that much, non stop, is going to cause injuries.
I was reminded of this comment after a note on Alexis Sanchez during tonight's EPL opener: between World Cups, Copa Americas and Confederation Cups, this was his first summer in eight years without international football of some kind.Quote:
Originally Posted by tetsujin1979
Squad set to be announced on Monday, according to some reports.
And yet he's injured for the start of this epl season isn't he?Quote:
Originally Posted by NeverFeltBetter
Northern Ireland lost to a late, late Austrian goal, a goal that could yet be significant if we need to use the last-chance play-offs to qualify as it ensures that The North will be ranked below us in the League B standings (although a win in Denmark would definitely be welcome to ensure that we would be in a position to take advantage of this route, if necessary, with Turkey, Slovakia and the Czech Republic all sitting on three points): https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/46167891
Mentioned on SSN earlier that UEFA are (somewhat cynically) looking at rejigging the Nations League format so that the likes of Germany, who were relegated this time around, get to stay in the top division. They would do this by increasing the top division to four groups of four instead of four groups of three. The teams promoted from Division 2 would still be promoted to Division 1.
Presumably the knock on effect of this would be that the teams relegated from Division 2 (e.g. Ireland) would also have to be spared relegation so that there are enough Division 2 teams left and we would therefore return to Division 2 alongside the teams promoted from Division 3 for the next season of the competition.
Ah that's getting ridiculous.
It's looking more like UEFA haven't really thought this through to be honest. With groups of 3 in League A, of course someone big was going to get relegated.
But the point of the groups of 3 were to enable the big countries to have some NL games and space to organise their own friendlies.
Absolute madness that they would change, which by all accounts was a very successful first edition of what threatened to be a maligned tournament.
I'd say they've realised that there's more money to be made in having two extra NL games than having two friendlies. From a purely profit point of view (which is usually all that matters in these situations) having groups of four in division 1 makes more sense than having groups of four in division 4. Nobody is relegated, the promoted teams are still promoted, everybody wins.
Although it would result in an even weaker division 4 team qualifying for the Euros in future - actually I wouldn't be surprised if they dropped the place for the division 4 team to free up the spot for the host nation next time.
Sounds like the GAA has been put in charge of the Nations League.
If the GAA or IRFU was running the FAI, it wouldn’t have half the off-field issues of recent years.Quote:
Originally Posted by NeverFeltBetter