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come on lads, quit the small talk.
Its been painful watching them lot beat the croats tonight :(
We need to stick together and encouage our boyz through the next dozen or so matches. We have to make Germany.
Lets all wait our turn for the passion and pain of it all. And when we get that chance lets take it.
Duffer please get fit, Robbie you can do it for us all over again :)
Belief is half the battle. And I believe we can :)
bring on the war :confused: :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Littlest Hobo
That's fightin' talk, i like it. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Littlest Hobo
All this talk is academic now. If any of us wouldn't want to see Ireland at this championship they wouldn't be on this forum. We have to focus on positives now, i.e the good the friendlies have done us, emergence of several young players and the ordinariness(if that's a word) of Switzerland and to a lesser extent France in Euro 2004. Bring on the qualifiers.
This might be a bit maverick but I think it would be even better if France were our first game - then we could really catch them on the hop
Most optimistic prediction - might have got to the semis (like the Greeks), least optimistic prediction - got one win (like Russia), IMO were are miles better than the Swiss who are a team that can only do stuff at home (or if they have the opposition doing bizzare substitutions). It would have depended on lots of things :-
- Injuries / suspensions (esp with key players, the Keanes and Duff)
- Group I'd have fancied being in most groups bar the Dutch, Czech and the Italian, Dane and Swedish gps.
- Time of games - 2 5:00pm kick offs, (esp in places like Faró) and the heat would have cost us.
There are probably others but I cant think. Certainly the big boys arent up to much so far, which makes me think we would have had a chance.
Anyway WC2006 is more important (as its a World Cup, and thanks to Blatter probably the last one in an easily accessable place for 12 years), I'd rather see us do well in that. Personally I'd love it if we won the World Cup (wow one sentence and ive managed to mix an understatement and day dream into one) in Germany. Imagine being able to silence all the Brits who havent done diddley squat for (now effectivly) 40 years, especially in Germany that would top the lot...
... of course we probably wont even get there, but ah well.
Diddley squat apart from the World Cup semi-final and European semi-final you mean? :)Quote:
Originally Posted by cfdh_edmundo
**** off Gardner :mad: Try the BBC, where you'll find all the ****ing T*ns, banging on about two world wars and '66.Quote:
Originally Posted by Duncan Gardner
Why don't you **** off to IRA.com so you misguided fool. If you were from the north you'd probably be either the leader of the Orange Order or of the real IRA the way you are going on, why don't you get a clue.Quote:
Originally Posted by Littlest Hobo
Quote:
Originally Posted by Duncan Gardner
Well who remembers 4th in 1990 and 3rd= in Euro 96 ? Lets face it winning the world cup is great, and even if you get beat in the final well at least your runners up. But no-one remembers teams that go out in the semis, the English record in those tournaments is much the same as in 2002, 98 or this year... not good enough to get to important stages. No-ones going to remember the teams that go out on this wednesday or thursday.
Thank you Hobo, but I hope to be around a while yet :)
Apart from the mindless abuse (Hobo) and obsession with others' nationality (Dav), what's your point? That England disappoint their more realistic fans, let alone the tabloid media? Fair enough. That they've done nothing since 1990? Only if you agree with Edmundo that reaching the final's the only measure of success.
well theyve qualified for 3 more tournaments than us since 90. They got to 92 we didnt, (-1), we got to USA 94 they didnt (0), Euro 96 doesnt count as they didnt have to qualify, they got to 98 (-1), 2000 (-2), both at 2002, and then they got this one in Portugal (-3). So in terms of getting to all competitions their record is better. But if you look at just World Cups, we've missed one and theyve missed one (98, and 94). In 98 they scraped thru the group stage and were knocked out next match, I guess similar to us in 94. In 2002 they got one round futher than us, but they had an easier group with Sweden (who we beat easily in 2002), Nigeria (who had a stinker of a world cup that year) and a below par Argentina. In that time they only scored 2 goals, which by anyones reckoning is pretty shoddy. Then they hammered a weak Danish side, who Robbie Keane and Duffer also demolished, and the Brazilians beat them without breaking sweat. We got one round less but we had a harder group. We drew with the African champions, drew with the eventual runner ups (and totally outplayed them), and beat the Saudis (who werent up to much). We scored 5 (3 more than the English) in those games and let in 2 (only one more). We then drew 1-1 with the Spaniards (who were top class oposition), and went out on pens. The teams' records in WC2002
Us W1 D3* L0 (*lost 1 on pens)
The English W2 D2 L1
Pretty similar. Anyway theyve got a much bigger potential number of players (49 million population against about 4 million), if you take into account our population size then weve got one of the best records in international football.
While we're talking about this, here's both Ireland's and England's record in Euro Championships qualifiers and finals from 1960-2000. (From http://www.rsssf.com/tablese/euro-ranktot.html)
country Pl W D L GF GA GD 2W Pt 3W Pa
England 81 43 23 15 156- 60 + 96 109 116 152 (10)
Ireland 80 31 22 27 116- 97 + 19 84 94 115 (11)
Pl matches played
W matches won
D matches drawn
L matches lost
GF goals scored
GA goals conceded
GD goal difference
2W points obtained, based on 2/win
Pt points obtained (2/win pre-1994, 3/win post-1994)
3W points obtained, based on 3/win
Pa number of participations
Not bad considering they would have been at least one seeding above us in most groups.
What are you on about :confused: Whats the IRA and the Orange Order got to do me having a dig at gardner, who was reminding us of past achievements by the T*ns :confused:Quote:
Originally Posted by carnstien
Cop on there boy :rolleyes:
This is the key point, given our resources our record has been FANTASTIC and the the way football is going we have every right to think that we could get to a semi-final or even a final with a bit of luck. If Latvia can qualify for the finals and Greece can get to the semis, anyone can. And as we don't expect to win the tournament we enjoy it all the more, if your expectations are too high then you are going to be disappointed as only 1 team can win, we have fond memories of EC88, WC90 and WC94 - do England, they bitch and moan about Cameroon. They bitch and moan they bitch and moan....Quote:
Originally Posted by cfdh_edmundo
Could 1 Irish person in a 1000 have named 1 Greek player prior to EC2004? Could they even now? If so could they correctly pronouce the name?
I'm sure most of the people who watch premiership football would have know Stelios Giannakopoulos of Bolton and Dabizas of Leicester. Other players I knew before Euro 04 were Karagounis and Dellas. I'd be really suprised if anyone with an interest in British or european football wouldn't know any of those 4 players before euro 2004.Quote:
Originally Posted by 1MickCollins
Hobo: I think you're the one off the point, since you react to a reference about England qualifying for the odd semi-final with a rant about the Anglo-Irish war. Why?
Mick: aye, if Greece and Croatia can make the semis of course Ireland can.
Karagounis is playing for Inter in Italy, though he only got nine games last term.
I know thsi sis a bit off subject BUT is there a third place play off in this tournement
yasou boyz im greek, ive been readin tha site for about a day and i came across this link..........cmon seriously bro u think that if greece can make the semis u guys can? how do u come to that conclusion? u think were ****?
Yes, without question. Don't forget we were a penalty shootout away from the World Cup quarter finals two years ago, while you didn't even qualify. We've changed managers and a number of key players since, hence we didn't qualify for Euro 2004, but I expect us to put up a much better showing in the World Cup 2006 qualifiers.Quote:
Originally Posted by hellas
No, far from it. We just think that we'd be a match for you (don't forget that we've beaten the Czechs and Holland in the last couple of months), and since you've reached the final, we think we could have done too.Quote:
Originally Posted by hellas
The best of luck, by the way. I'd love you to win it.
:) PP
Yes we seriously think that if Greece can do it, so can we. No-one said you were sh!t, just that we're probably as good as you on our day.Quote:
Originally Posted by hellas
You've had a very good tournament, with a solid if uninspiring team, and credit where it's due, you've left Spain, France and The Czechs in your wake.