This looks great. 22 of the 27 permutations sees us make the playoffs at least!Quote:
Originally Posted by tetsujin1979
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This looks great. 22 of the 27 permutations sees us make the playoffs at least!Quote:
Originally Posted by tetsujin1979
i've albania finishing 2nd in their group - they are a point behind denmark but the danes have played a game more and their last fixture is away to portugal. that puts denmark third who are well ahead of us.Quote:
Originally Posted by davidatrb
i've slovenia to finish 3rd in their group but they are behind us in point anyway and would be unseeded.
so... as you say to be seeded in the playoffs we'd need to catch hungary and stay ahead of the turks - which means a win in warsaw i think.
Yeah, but 16 of our chances are dependent on getting a result against GermanyQuote:
Originally Posted by davidatrb
Realistically, we're looking at the bottom line in the table, which gives us six chances from nine
Think about this and put yourself in the shoes of a nerdy footy fan standing at Lansdowne Road in the early 80s:
Iceland, Albania, NI and Wales qualify or are on the verge. Turkey, former World Cup semi-finalists but who used to be so cr@p even David O'Leary once scored against them, disappoint by coming third, ahead of thoroughbred Holland in fourth. It's a shock that Greece, former European champions, are now sh1t (again).
Russia, the biggest country in Europe, are struggling and mighty Italy only beat Malta 1-0 a few days ago. Hungary, the country that once revolutionised football haven't qualified for a generation and might still not qualify this time.
Time stands still for no man, or football country.
And some people think international football is boring.
That was good Stutts. I guess things are all relative. Did Hungary really revolutionize the game? I have a Puskas jersey somewhere from an uncle going there on business. :plane:
Very impressive by Austria ........ but I still hate everything about them.Quote:
Originally Posted by DeLorean
Re wc 2018 qualifiers, we just have to keep our heads down while Austria, Wales and Serbia kick lumps out of each other.
Just having a look at the odds to qualify: we're at 5/4 whilst you'll get between 12/1 and 7/1 for Scotland.Quote:
Originally Posted by tetsujin1979
Or 6/4 to Qualify with Paddypower, or much much more likely 1/2 not to qualify.Quote:
Originally Posted by DannyInvincible
The results last night now have Ukraine as automatic 3rd place qualifiers now instead of Croatia. And Sweden in the playoffs instead of Russia. But it doesn't really change much from Ireland's stand point. Still precariously perched as seed but really we need to beat Poland (or Germany) to make sure that Israel, Norway, Turkey or Slovenia don't out rank us in the UEFA co-efficient system. We also have to rely on Turkey and Israel holding off Netherlands and Bosnia respectively to hold on to their 3rd spots. And hope that Albania don't overtake Denmark.
Some notes on the different scenarios here: http://fog2014.blogspot.ie/2015/09/i...ance-2016.html
At Sweden v.Austria last night.
The home team were so awful, even Ireland might win there...
Austria however, looked a formidable side, looked out of our league currently.
For all its detractors, I think the increased euros has being an overwhelming success so far as has the spreading out of games. I think the better chances of qualifying has provided massive incentive to many teams and it is amazing to see some of the teams that are in automatic qualifying spots. Perhaps the only top seed that has run away with things is England but their group is very easy.
It at least means that every four years, a large proportion have competitors have good qualifying chances. Unlike the WC qualifiers which is becoming all the more difficult particularly when hosted in Europe.
Not sure if posted elsewhere...
But Croatia have sacked their Manager Niko Kovac
all these outsiders qualifying for the euros worries me somewhat for England's chances.
I think there will be an awful lot of horrible games. At least with the world cup there is a bit of culture to go with the horrible games. .
i also think you will see a lot of half empty stadiums.
Which is why refs favour the clubs with a big fan base I expect.Quote:
Originally Posted by paul_oshea
Mind you with all this extra stuff to help the ref maybe that helps the small clubs who previously get the rough end of decisions?
i think a tournament with less jeopardy and maybe with more time to play themselves into the tournament could suit England so I agree there. But more horrible games, I'm not sure. There's good reason why these teams are qualifying. And even if these teams get spanked there's an interest in seeing how they fare anyway.Quote:
Originally Posted by paul_oshea
Our provisional squad for the Germany & Poland games is to be named on Thursday. Be interesting to see if a certain AV player that isn't Clark is in the squad although my guess is no.
The novelty of the likes of Iceland or the NI qualifying will ensure sell-outs imho. Living here in the north I can see people I know, even people who wouldn't really be football fans, starting to make plans already for next summer. I would expect them to take really significant numbers of fans with them.Quote:
Originally Posted by paul_oshea
I've a few NI supporting mates who want Ireland to qualify solely so that they can get a lift off me.
Yeah, promoting Kevin Toner would probably be a bit risky at this stage - maybe if we do get into the play-offs he can get a run-out thenQuote:
Originally Posted by TrapAPony
Looking At Bayern Vs Wolfsburg ..
With Bayern 1 down at H.T - they bring on Lewandoski at H.T who proceeds to score 5 goals in 9 mins
With some peaches in those 5
That third one was strange, was that match fixed or did the one team just not care anymore?
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qAHiktV_Fdo
They did care, they were just mauled by a much better team.
He's a strange one that Lewandoski, I think. When he's in the zone he looks completely unplayable, dynamic and technically outstanding. The night he scored four against Real Madrid an obvious example. More times then he looks very manageable, sluggish and fairly ordinary. Please God the latter will turn up on Sunday fortnight.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Crosby87
They blocked your link Crosby on Copyright grounds...
See goals below
http://thebiglead.com/2015/09/22/vid...bayern-munich/
Quote:
Originally Posted by Charlie Darwin
I do agree Charlie , that Bayern are superior.
However I saw the full game from start to finish last night..... what surprises me about their complete collapse...is that they were in control in the first half and well worth their 0-1 half time lead.
Wolfsburg were setup so well in the first half.....and IMO were controlling the tempo of the game. You could see that they were a side that had considerably improved over the last few years and that they were a team whereby every player knew their role and were performing it well to stem the bayern threat
In fact Wolfsburg were unlucky not to be 2 up at HT.
Dante was excellent in the first half....really marshalled the wolfsburg defence so well. They looked very composed defensively in the first half. Mueller barely got a sniff.
It was almost surreal watching their complete collapse within 9 second half minutes
Said I'd bump this for the other three playoffs. Ideal result for Ukraine earlier. I only saw bits but they looked well worth their 2-0 advantage. Their winger, Konoplyanka, looks a fine player every time I see him. Liverpool had a deal almost done for him at one point, before Dnipro stalled I think. They ended up paying £10m more for Adam Lallana, ouch! He was outstanding for Sevilla the other night against Real Madrid too. Sweden v Denmark starting now.
Zlatan should be exempted from following the rules of the game and should be allowed to clobber a Dane's face with his elbow, It just seems petty by the ref to blow the whistle on him as if he was just a regular player.
Swedes go one up at last
Watched a good bit of the Ukraine game and watching the Sweden one now.
Ukraine looked pretty decent but Slovenia were no great shakes especially defensively. Not much difference between us and the swedes/Danes either. However, the swedes do have Zlatan who leads the line superbly, the way he lays off long balls and links with midfield is something we can only dream of. The overlap with the RB that led to their goal is something we should be doing given we have one of the best players in the world in that position.
There must be a fair bit of money in the Ukranian league, Everton wanted to signQuote:
Originally Posted by DeLorean
Yarmolenko for GBP15m, he scored the first goal today and took it really well, however he wasn't interested enough in Everton to leave Kiev.
Zlatan the great scores from the penalty spot.
If it stays 2 nil (at least), I presume Zlatan won't bother playing the 2nd leg and will return to his club.
I'd say Sweden with Zlatan are a good deal better than us all round and the Danes are much worse, though it's possible that the Danes are so poor they make Sweden look even better than they are. Sweden should be 5 up by now, on the hours mark.Quote:
Originally Posted by elroy
Not that long ago and with similar teams we drew with them away and left a one nil lead slip at home. So they are hardly a good deal better than us.Quote:
Originally Posted by geysir
They did finish six points ahead of us though which is quite a bit. Definitely happy we avoided them despite a lot of people preferring them to Bosnia at the time.
Look a very different team now, on the ropes
Really sets up the second leg.
Yea, looks like we did well to avoid Ukraine, would not like to be starting 2-0 down in Dublin.
I wouldn't agree. Zlatan is the best player in these playoffs but I'd consider Sweden on a par with us.
Ukraine are comfortably the best team and Ireland,Bosnia,Sweden and Denmark are all similiar quality. Norway, Slovenia and Hungary don't look great.
2 nil is a difficult lead for a team with the game going into the last 30 minutes of the first leg, :)Quote:
Originally Posted by elroy
more difficult than playing against 10 men!
The last thing I wanted in our first leg game was Bosnia to get a second to go 2-1 up, then our goose would have likely been cooked. At the end of the game the Danes were probably puffed up and the Swedes left the pitch a bit rueful but when the dust settles, 2-1 is a very decent lead.
That Emil Forsberg looks an outstanding attacking player for Sweden and he just plays for a 2nd div German club.
There was one Swedish player celebrating like mad, he's obviously not a slave to the away goal rule! I suppose it depends on the context, Sweden conceding was a bit of a killer for them, totally dominated the game and were looking as good as through at 2-0, now they only have the bare minimum you would hope for going into the second leg. Had Denmark gone one up yesterday and Sweden scored two late goals to turn it around then the mindset would be completely different. They'll feel more than capable of scoring in Copenhagen anyway though and if they do, you'd expect that to be enough to see them through.
What a goal for Hungary! Priskin.
Don't think I know any of these Hungarians bar the captain Dzsudzsak. I don't know much about him either but I saw him playing for PSV a few years ago in a 4-3 win over Ajax. Himself and Suarez were both amazing that day, I thought I'd be hearing a lot more of Dzsudzsak. I think Arsenal were linked with him at one point alright and I remember him going to that Russian crowd that were loaded, then broke. Anyway, other than Bogdan on the bench I don't think I know any of the others. I love this spread out week of football craic!