Originally Posted by
Supreme feet
By this logic, there's no point supporting a team, nor giving them any objective credit, unless they are consistently over-achieving far beyond their means or resources.
Yes, we beat top teams like Portugal, Holland, Croatia and Yugoslavia between 1995 and 2001. We also drew with Liechtenstein, Northern Ireland, Lithuania and Iceland, and lost to Macedonia, in that time. The highs were higher than anything we've seen under Trap, but the lows were much more frustrating, particularly given the quality of players available.
Wins over the likes of Macedonia, Cyprus, Georgia, Armenia, Estonia, Kazakhstan and the Faroes aren't going to get anyone overly excited, but they are the kind of results which get you to major tournaments - not just one-off big performances against top sides. Look at Northern Ireland in 2006/7; beat Spain, Denmark and Sweden... but lost to Latvia and Iceland, and thus failed to qualify. You might think that these results should be taken for granted as a minimum requirement, but results in European football do not back up that assertion.
All the teams you named have slipped up against weaker opposition in recent history; Denmark just lost to Armenia; Greece drew in Moldova a while back; Russia drew in Armenia and Azerbaijan, and lost a playoff to Slovenia; Ukraine have drawn with Belarus and Georgia. Ireland would be hammered by the media if we slipped up against any of those teams, and we are given absolutely no credit for winning against similarly-ranked opposition, which we have done consistently under Trapattoni.
