We're goin' Continental

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Originally Posted by Tuff Paddy

Beenhakker's record is superb, look at what he did with T&T, getting them to the World Cup in Germany.

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Who did they beat to qualify? Not a pointed question, I honestly have no idea.

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Originally Posted by Stuttgart88

Was Ericsson that bad? He made qualification a formality for them and qualification to QF level a virtual formaility too. They had never had that status before. Qualification was very often achieved in the past but was rarely as straightforward as it was in Sven's time.

It interests me that some in the press are saying Beenhakker has "turned Poland around". They actually qualified at a canter for WC06.

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Eriksson was the prime example of the all to familar scapegoat for the English media and the fans that we've all become acccustomed to over the years.

As they believed they just had to show up to tournaments to be crowned champions because their players were so much better than anything else available to the other participating nations it must have been the managers fault when they failed at the quarter finals stage in three successive tournaments.

Judging from how they are doing now under McClaren and how they were doing before under Keegan with many of the same players Eriksson had worked with maybe, just maybe their players and team aren't the world beaters they hype them up to be (with no justification I may add).

Or maybe it's just more likely they can't get a good manager for their International team. After all Eriksson is doing a dismal job at City, isn't he?

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I cant view this in work, is there a podcast or media player version or something?

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It´s hard to view it with your ears.
You can listen to it with Real Player.

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Originally Posted by Stuttgart88

Who did they beat to qualify? Not a pointed question, I honestly have no idea.

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Even though its not pointed, its a good point!

The decent results of USA and Mexico at WC2002 meant that North and Central America had potentially 4 qualifying spots for WC2006. So once they and Costa Rica had wrapped up the first three spots, it came down to a fight between T&T and Guatemala for the fourth spot. T&T came through that and then had to play-off with the '5th best' Asian team, Bahrain, over two legs.

I guess Beenhakker's main achievement was more how well T&T held themselves at the actual finals in Germany. They certainly gave Sweden and England a fright.

[QUOTE=Tipp Townie;803130] So once they and Costa Rica had wrapped up the first three spots, it came down to a fight between T&T and Guatemala for the fourth spot. QUOTE]

Actually, to be fair, T&T needed a result in their last match at home to Mexico to qualify for the play-offs, and they did it, 2-1. Which is pretty good going really, although i don't know how strong a team Mexico put out.

Disagree wrt Troussier. I came back from a week off expecting to see Geysir apoplectic at his mere mention, though I see he's calmed a bit. I suppose it's all relative: Stan vs [insert random manager] and the latter will always look good.

houllier all the way

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Originally Posted by citizenerased

houllier all the way

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Just imagine how many times the Star and the Sun would run headlines with puns along the lines of "Hooley- ole" etc for the away games.

Sounds better that one with 'Troussier on his last legs'.