Ireland V Germany 12th October & Faroe Islands 16th October 2012 - World Cup 2014 Q

I dont think that's likely, Germany are at home they are much much better than Sweden man for man and as a collective. Also the Germans wont want to come anywhere near losing that game, if they lose then the Swedes will go level with them and the Germans will, as usual, endavour to have the group done and dusted by the summer - I dont think they'll risk a scenario where they are 0-0 at 85 mins and might lose the game down to a lapse. In all probability the game will be sewn up by 70 mins.... Even if what so say does happen I can't see Sweden doing a clean sweep on all the other teams in the group. These are there results since Euro 2012 (where they lost to Ukraine and England but beat an already qualified France):

H - Brazil L 0-3
H - China W 1-0
H - Kazakhstan W 2-0
A - Faeroe Is W 2-1

On paper it's three wins and a defeat, but the wins are very narrow ones against reasonably weak teams. Being beaten by Brazil at home is to be expected, but this was more or less the Brazil Olympic team. They only beat China 1-0, China's football team is pretty hopeless they hardly ever win away from home and a 1-0 home win for Sweden is a fairly limited result. Similarly beating the Kazakhs 2-0 at home (with a last minute goal) isn't much to write home about. No doubt people will say we only beat them 2-1 away with some last minute goals, but bear in mind plastic pitches and 10 hour flights only really apply to matches in Astana and not Stockholm. Kudos to them for putting away the Faeroese 2-1 away from home in what is a potential banana skin, but I dont think the Swedes will get 9 points from the games in Astana, Vienna and Dublin - they are the very definition of an average side and in some ways the Austrians are just as dangerous from our point of view. They are catchable and hopefully we'll be level with them after tomorrows matches.

I was thinking they were away edmundo, someone told me they were definitely away, as I thought they were at home alright.

Team just read out by Trap:

westwood, coleman, o'shea, o'dea, wilson, brady, andrews, mccarthy, mcgeady, keane, walters

Wilson and Brady get their first competitive starts....

Ireland XI vs Faroe Islands - Westwood, Coleman, O'Shea, O'Dea, Wilson; Brady, Andrews, McCarthy, McGeady; Keane, Walters

Wow the 6-1 Drubbing has finally made Trap realise what I said all the way back against slovakia at home, that ward is just not up to the standard. Great to see well done Trap. Hats off.

Poor kelly, he should be definitely starting against them.

Now lets take it to the faroes, definitely the gap is closing but we can beat them and thats a decent team. We should not be over-run in midfield.

I'm positively looking forward to this game. Trap finally making the right calls, but perhaps too little too late.

Clark for O'Dea would have been nice but happy with the rest of the team tbh

McGeady is lucky to have kept his place. Clark should be ahead of O'Dea anyway, if only for the fact he makes less mistakes.

really attacking side there, even in defence

Thank god re Brady and Wilson. Still taking the **** re Clark and Long.

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Originally Posted by paul_oshea

I was thinking they were away edmundo, someone told me they were definitely away, as I thought they were at home alright.

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Yeah the Sweden v Germany match in Sweden is the last match of the group. One would assume the Germans will have qualified long before that so there is a chance they will send a reserve team to Sweden (Holland actually did this for Euro 2012 qualification - and the Swedes beat the Dutch reserve team), but I think Germany's reserves would beat Sweden anyway.... I would imagine they'll send their first team anyway, the Germans are ruthlessly professional at this sort of thing and it would be utterly out of character for them to send a sub-par team.

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Originally Posted by fionnsci

Thank god re Brady and Wilson. Still taking the **** re Clark and Long.

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Who would you drop for Long...thought Walters was one of our best the other night and Keane has a proven knack for banging them in against this sort of opposition.

Don't think Kelly should be starting ahead of Coleman, not until he's starting regularly again at Fulham
O'Dea for Clark is the only change I'd make there.

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Originally Posted by Manblue

Who would you drop for Long...thought Walters was one of our best the other night and Keane has a proven knack for banging them in against this sort of opposition.

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I actually do agree, I kind of changed my mind after posting. Happy enough with the strikers. Would have Long marginally ahead of Walters still.

I think Kelly might have been a better option than Clark or Coleman at right back. Coleman just isn't sound enough defensively yet. But in 5 months time when we are playing sweden and austria, he might hopefully have 6 months under his belt of playing consistently as a right back.

Delighted to see Brady and Wilson get the nod. Walters retaining his place too is deserved after his toil Friday night, even if Long is still unlucky not get a start.

Can't believe O'Dea is being retained though. Kelly or Clark at centre-half, or anyone else for that matter. Coleman was given a torrid time by Reus, I agree but, overall, I don't think it was a terrible international debut. I think O'Dea at centre-half made too many mistakes. Coleman, at least, was composed on the ball. The same cannot be said for O'Dea.

One way of looking at Coleman starting is that if he is troubled by whoever the Faroes have on his flank then it's a very sad indictment of him, given that even if his defensive abilities were only of League One level than he should capably deal with the opposition. He'll provide a massive threat from right-back.

On the other hand, O'Dea, one would hope, would be able to deal with the threat from whichever Faroese attack is facing him. However, he cannot be trusted to play composed and effective ball out of defence, as was clearly demonstrated against Germany, but also against Kazakhstan. He's also liable to make a mistake.

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Originally Posted by paul_oshea

I think Kelly might have been a better option than Clark or Coleman at right back. Coleman just isn't sound enough defensively yet. But in 5 months time when we are playing sweden and austria, he might hopefully have 6 months under his belt of playing consistently as a right back.

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While i didn't agree with Coleman starting against the Germans - it was purely down to his lack of experience. Saying that, he is the right full back we want to see in our future teams and these are exactly the matches he should be playing to gain experience. I would say that Long's omission is down to Keane and not Walters. To be honest, Keane has a proven track record of scoring against minnows and we need the lift for this match. We also badly need to fix some of our goal difference so i agree with the striker choice.

For me, the only one who shouldnt be in there is O'Dea. The Germany match proved to me how brilliant Dunne really is. O'Shea always looked strong next to him, so did O'Dea. Without Dunne they both looked cr.ap, O'Shea being slightly better than O'Dea. Absolutely should be Clarke starting and again there's no excuse. A manager should drop players when they're underperfoming and O'Dea was one of our worst players against Germany.

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Originally Posted by BonnieShels

Nope. I'm not. It's a really bad Icelandic translation of where I live given the Norse provenance of the area.

When I lived in Stoneybatter/Oxmantown I had "Austmennstad" there.

In Lucan, it was Elm Place.

And now I live in Smithfield Which gives "Sviði á Smiðar" or "Field of Smiths" or from it's Irish translation of "Margadh na Feirme" or "Farm Market" you get "Bæmarkaði"

But if Geysir wants to correct it or improve it I am more than happy!

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I can try to move it up another sviði :)

"Bæmarkaði-Sviði á Smiðar", it's not Icelandic but similar, meaning somewhat distorted from the pure (scandinavian) stuff.
Bæ = town /city
markaði (genitive/dative case?) market

sviði = classification/level/catagory/type
smiðjar = woodwork

I'd expect a 6/10 for this guess - at the town market - various woodwork types. carvings possibly?

a Don't you mean plural mistakes? :)

I still can't believe, the manager included that people were blind to the fact that O'Dea played for Toronto, and that indictment alone was proof of his ability. Was it arrogance or ignorance to be so dismissive of other managers? You can't think 1 or 2 ok performances against poor opposition is a marker for a player, yet this was always the reasoning behind the O'Dea has been nothing but solid blah blah blah for us.

Poor Trap is dying by his own sword.

Why has Trap changed his phillosophy/policy/system? He is playing all these attacking players? Playing players we always wanted and discarded his own defensive approach? Do you think perhaps he wants the sack?