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:confused: It's better they should be winning 4-0. It's great news for us since we didn't know they were that bad. Sure, a new manager might sort some of the problems out but the good thing is that they can't be a good side.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wolfie
We're no world beaters ourselves.Quote:
Originally Posted by OwlsFan
Such heavy defeats can bring matters to a head and instill a resolve as a direct reaction to the previous result.
This yo-yo affect could be best seen under our tenure with Stan. A disasterous result against Cyprus was followed by a gutsy performance against the Czechs at home 4 days later which we could have won.......................
Cyprus beaten 2-0 at home by Serbia in a friendly.
After their recent impressive performances (especially at home) I threw a few bucks down on the Cypriots beating Serbia...ah well. :oQuote:
Originally Posted by Noelys Guitar
Upcoming fixtures in the group.
Entering a crucial phase................
Saturday, 28 March 2009
Cyprus v Georgia
Montenegro v Italy
Rep of Ireland v Bulgaria
Wednesday, 1 April 2009
Bulgaria v Cyprus
Georgia v Montenegro
Italy v Rep of Ireland
So best case scenario (being realistic)
Saturday
Ireland beat bulgaria
Montenegro hold Italy to a draw
Georgia beat Cypurs
Wednesday
Ireland draw against Italy
Bulgaria are held by Cyprus
Georgia beat Montenegro
Honestly I think it'll be more like:Quote:
Originally Posted by kingdomkerry
Saturday
Ireland draw with bulgaria
Montenegro lose to Italy
Georgia draw with Cyprus
Wednesday
Ireland lose against Italy
Bulgaria beat Cyprus
Georgia draw with Montenegro
But hey, that's just me..
i know, although 4 points is in some way the best 'realistic' scenario, i don't know where everyone is deriving the confidence from.
ignoring the results themselves, i can see absolutely nothing from recent performances that suggests we will beat bulgaria.
they are not great, and neither are we. i'm hoping that the fact that they haven't played competetively since october works to our advantage.
however, i fear that the inability of our central midfield to hold onto the ball will ultimately result in us drawing or losing the match.
Bulgaria are not a great team, this might sound a bit stupid, but Berbatov playing for them is an advantage for us, Bulgaria play him up front on his own and that is not his position, he likes to come deep and play through balls etc, which means that they will have no player going forward as a result of this, we will not conceded, that is for sure, but to score we have possibilities and I feel we will nick it 1-0.
I predict another brutal 1-0 win for Ireland in the vein of the last game against Cyprus. Ireland will somehow get a one goal lead and the rest of the game will be a non-event with both teams only having long-range efforts and the odd close call where a player gets set up by a lucky bounce or deflection but it will be such a surprise that he is not ready for it and kick it wide or against one of his own players. Job done, another 3 points and happy days :D
Sounds good to me. Big Jack didn't exactly play football Arsene Wenger would have approved of, but it was one hell of a ride.Quote:
Originally Posted by Irish_Praha
Ireland 3 -1 Bulgaria
Italy 0 - 1 Ireland
If that happens we win the group Yeah?
Well the most important thing is that we dont have a start like we did against Georgia. I wouldnt fancy us coming from behind against them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Irish_Praha
I'd prefer georgia to beat montenegro and finish above them in the end as if ireland finish 2nd, that's be 6 points gained against a team in the "new group" when the runners up of 9 groups are assessed.
Best thing is some Italians are carded and miss the Ireland game.
We should beat Bulgaria at home. Doyle is due for a goal. Keane, Duff, Doyle, and McGeady can move the ball against them at home.
Montenegro are too good a team to finish bottom. Never gonna happen.Quote:
Originally Posted by aidz1
Anyone seen Cyprus's result, they lost 0-1 to Canada at Home, a really bad defeat.
Their team was quite strong:
Antonis Giorgallidis, Marinos Satsias (Jason Demetriou, 46) Elias Charalambous, Skevos Christou, Costantinos Charalampides, Marios Ilia (Andreas Constantinou, 75), Alexis Garpozis (Stelios Okkarides, 87),Marios Nicolaou, Yiannis Okkas (Constantinos Makrides, 46), Michalis Constantinou (Yiasemakis Yiasoumi, 58) Stathis Aloneftis (Giorgos Panagi, 63).
Their manager:
''"We were missing that explosiveness that is necessary in such matches and we couldn't convert on some easy opportunities, but I'm very satisfied with my players," he said.''
Soon to be heading for the preverbial "business end" of the group as SKY Sports like to say.
Saturday, 5 September 2009
Bulgaria v Montenegro,
Cyprus v Rep of Ireland
Georgia v Italy
Wednesday, 9 September 2009
Italy v Bulgaria
Montenegro v Cyprus
Saturday, 10 October 2009
Cyprus v Bulgaria
Montenegro v Georgia
Rep of Ireland v Italy
Wednesday, 14 October 2009
Bulgaria v Georgia
Italy v Cyprus
Rep of Ireland v Montenegro
Those results are realistic I think, and would put us into the play-offs with one point to spare. The possible banana skins for both Bulgaria & Ireland are the Cyprus away results. I think if we win in Cyprus we are home and dry.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wolfie
So we've the exact same run in as Bulgaria, except we're home to Italy and they're away, and they've the game in hand at home against Georgia?
Worked out nicely.
Its a good thing that at least Cyprus will be missing Michalis Constantinou when we play them (suspended). Their recent slump to Montenegro after leading by two goals shows that their defense is still fairly error prone. They also seem to have had some poorish friendly results at home lately too. Maybe they were a bit of a better side a couple years ago. If we can keep it tight and get a goal I hope we can scrape the three points out of there.
Got to expect Bulgaria will beat Monty at home on that same day; then we can sit back and enjoy Italy vs Bulgaria a couple days later. I'm interested to hear what result people are hoping for in that game...? I'd love it if Bulgaria got their tails up just enough to get a draw for themselves in Italy. With Petrov and Bozhinov in better shape it is possible. It would leave them precariuosly still in the hunt, but we need Italy to drop 2 points and that looks the best chance. If we win our last three in that situation, we would top the group. It would be so nice to avoid the playoffs, wishfull thinking but Italy did look bad at that Confederations Cup.
I think its fair to say that the fixture in Cyprus is winnable, and the last game, at home to Monty, should be entirely winnable if we were to actually beat Italy. You think we would beat Montenegro at home if the group was up for grabs.
If Ireland and Steven Reid are back fit and playing, we look a pretty good side in my opinion.
Three wins: you'll probably win the group.
Two wins (Cyprus and Montenegro): likely comfortable second and a play-off
Only one win: should still make second place, but touch and go as 16-17 points might miss out on the last play off place.
Team MP W D L GF GA Pts
Italy 6 4 2 0 9 3 14
Republic of Ireland 7 3 4 0 8 5 13
Bulgaria 6 1 5 0 6 4 8
Cyprus 6 1 2 3 6 9 5
Montenegro 6 0 4 2 5 8 4
Georgia 7 0 3 4 4 9 3
Anyone aware of any channel screening the Italy v Bulgaria game on Wednesday 9th September?
so far only RAI Uno which is free to air on Astra so most pubs that regularly show football will have it. If you have a motorised dish you should be able to pick it up.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wolfie
If you can convince RTE that there will be Man Utd and Liverpool players playing they might show it.
A draw would be great but a Bulgarian win (unliekly I know) would be a total disaster.
RTE have been good for showing these type of games over the year when they were relevant in a big way to us. Denmark 1 Spain 0 / Denmark 1 N.Ireland 0 from 94 campaign and Cyprus 1 Portugal 3 from 02 campaign are 3 that spring to mind straight away. Oh and Bulgaria 0 Scotland 1, that was a big one to forget but it was before my time really!! Setanta showed the first game between Bulgaria and Italy but I don't think that means much now. It'll be on something anyway I'd say.Quote:
Originally Posted by gspain
A Bulgarian win could be a dream result for us if we do our own stuff!! won't happen anyway.Quote:
Originally Posted by gspain
?? A bulgarian win would be the best possible result for us...giving us a real chance to win the group and qualify.Quote:
Originally Posted by gspain
An Italian win would consolidate second spot for us though, reducing the chances of missing out on the play-offs. Glass half-full/half-empty.
To be fair it would also be the riskiest result for us as we could miss out completely. It would mean that we could very well have to win all 3 games which we're not very likely to do.Quote:
Originally Posted by Greenbod
Well if Bulgaria win my glass is definitely half-full.......Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
The play-off is full of risk. At least we know what's facing us for the remainder of the group....we can win and qualify, but only if Italy drop as many points as possible.
If Bulgaria beat Italy, Italy will definitely beat us as they will really have to up their game.
If Bulgaria win their last 4 games, and we get a draw against Italy and win our other 2 games, assuming Italy win their other 2 games aswell then we would finish 3rd on goal difference (most likely) despite a fantastic campaign. Again, too many draws would cost us dearly.
An Italy v Bulgaria draw is by far the best result for us. If I can't have a draw, I would definitely take an Italian win and settle for a play-off!!!
RAI Uno is indeed usually free to air, but isn't it encrypted for football and other sporting events?Quote:
Originally Posted by gspain
Ranking of second-placed teams
group Pld pts
4 Russia 5 12
7 France 5 10
5 Bosnia 5 9
6 Croatia 5 8
1 Hungary 4 7
2 Switz 4 7
8 R-Ireland 5 7
3 N-Ireland 5 7
9 Macedonia 6 7
heres the league currently , im not confident at all about eveing getting a playoff place looking at this table .
Macedonia, N.Ireland, Croatia and others probably won't even get 2nd. That table is pretty useless imo.
If Bulgaria beat Italy and assuming Italy and Bulgaria win their other games we will need to beat Italy to win the group. Failing that we'll be 3rd. I'd take my chances in a playoff rather than having to beat Italy at home. A draw in Turin is the perfect result as 3 wins then gives us the group but 2 wins gives us a playoff.
If we get at least 6 points (7 guarantees it) and finish 2nd we will get a playoff. To miss out with another 6 points would require Macedonia to win in Scotland and Norway and take us on goal difference or even more unlikely Scotland to beat Macedonia and then Holland and make up a massive goal differance. I can't see Macedonia having any chance of winning in Oslo and probably at best drawing in Scotland.
Even still I think 13 points will be enough for a playoff. In reality Norway will be a runner up on 12 points and may well sneak in ahead of Portugal/Sweden or the runner up in Northern Ireland's group
Quote:
Originally Posted by frog-gufc
Macedonia are unlikely to come 2nd and no matter which team comes 2nd in that group they will most likely have a max of 10 points, which if we draw with Cypprus and beat Montenegro we will have 11. Off course if Georgia pass Montenegro then we would have 13.
Lads ye think the play-off is the promise land, id rather get to one obviouslly but id much prefer the option of having to beat italy at home, than to play a 2 leg play-off against some of the possible opponents. We would be no good in that situation, and id even say we have a better chance of beating Italy at home. In fact i could see us beating italy, drawing with montenegro and ending up losing a play-off
Are you still in denial about the dire extent of your pessimism, Paul?
I can see it now.... we draw the ****ing swiss in the play offs...