Is it getting tougher to qualify?

I find that I am making a fairly obvious statement here, but looking over the last two qualifying campaigns, winning away from home is getting more and more difficult, not just for us for everyone, and there are a lot more suprise results. It seems nowadays that you no longer need to beat all the 3-6 entries in a table, but also at least 1 of the top 2 at least twice. The points for second were extremely high in all groups this time round.

Finally, people on here predicted 22 points or even 24 would have been enough to qualify. We were 10 points off Germany, so looking back it WAS NOT lost in cyprus or away in slovakia or even the home draw with cyprus, even if we had won all of those we would still be only 24 points and 3 behind Germany. So that goes back to my point above, but I believe for the next campaign we will HAVE to beat each top team once or one top team twice in order to qualify for the next campaign. Discuss.....

*Top meaning 1st or Second seeded team.

We need to be able to win away from home against mid ranking teams. Until that happens, we'll have no hope. At least our home form was ok but no wins there either against the top two.

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Originally Posted by OwlsFan

We need to be able to win away from home against mid ranking teams. Until that happens, we'll have no hope. At least our home form was ok but no wins there either against the top two.

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Also, drawing too many games puts on added pressure

i think it is.

I looked at all the 16 teams who got to Euro 2008 and I feel we are not better then any of them imo.

I think we be easily in pot 4 for Euro 2008 if we were in it right now for sure and be honest think all teams would want us in there group.

As for World Cup it may get tougher but depends on the draw we get

we need to win ALL home games , and we should be winning them , we have the personnel.

We look at our players and think a few of them are as good as we've ever had. England think they have a golden generation.

Well, here's news. Every other country has better players than they used to have too. Everyone is fitter and better coached these days.

It made me laugh at the number of people here who thought we should "win easily" in Israel in 2005.

imho we have to be more ruthless and start killing off games against the weaker teams...Wales Slovakia and Cyprus were all prime examples of not believing that we could go and kill the game off with the third goal (or the second goal in Cyprus' case)...hopefully a new manager can instill that belief just like Sanchez and McLeish did for the north and Scotland respectively...

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Originally Posted by Stuttgart88

It made me laugh at the number of people here who thought we should "win easily" in Israel in 2005.

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Yeah but we should have definitly won that game all the same - not easily mind you.

It has always been difficult to qualify - it will be very difficult next time but when you see average teams like Poland, Greece, Czech republic and Romania all winning thier groups, then with a good manager and a set of properly motivated players there is no reason why we cant get in the top two of any group.

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Originally Posted by Real ale Madrid

Yeah but we should have definitly won that game all the same - not easily mind you.

It has always been difficult to qualify - it will be very difficult next time but when you see average teams like Poland, Greece, Czech republic and Romania all winning thier groups, then with a good manager and a set of properly motivated players there is no reason why we cant get in the top two of any group.

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Each with populations far greater than ours and much bigger pool of players to choose from. How many countries with a population of 4 million qualified as a matter of interest and where soccer is only the 2nd sport behind the national game? We need to get realistic about where we are in the world pecking order.

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Originally Posted by OwlsFan

We need to get realistic about where we are in the world pecking order.

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no we don't , we need to punch our weight and then above our weight and move ourselves up in that pecking order.

As I said in another thread, the larger the group, the harder it is for medium to small-sized nations to qualify for these things. A 7 team group like this time (8 in one group) creates problems for a small nation with little depth when injuries, suspensions or just plain lack of consistency start to kick in. With the format back to 6 teams for the World Cup we should both benefit and come closer to qualification.

We also need to be not Sh*te!

Well that helps too I suppose.

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Originally Posted by OwlsFan

Each with populations far greater than ours and much bigger pool of players to choose from. How many countries with a population of 4 million qualified as a matter of interest and where soccer is only the 2nd sport behind the national game? We need to get realistic about where we are in the world pecking order.

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Forget about populations - we are well able to mix it with the four teams above - we played atrocious away against the Czechs and nearly got a result - imagine a good solid well motivated outfit we would have a chance of getting 4 points against the Czech Republic.

I mean if we want to be defeatist - or in your words - realistic - just bring back Stan and let us plod along for another campaign. We are capable of much better than that. With the players at our disposal, we are capable of mixing it in any group.

This is all Sepp Blatters fault. It is almost a guarantee that 6 of the last 8 at the next world cup will be from Europe. Yet of the 32 teams that qualify we only get 13 spots, the damn holders even have to qualify. Yet we are going to have a nothing nation that has come third from CONCECAF, probably Jamaica or Trinidad and Tobago, we are going to have at least one nothing team from Asia, probably Saudi Arabia, and we are going to have a nothing team from Africa along the lines of Angola.

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Originally Posted by Cymro

As I said in another thread, the larger the group, the harder it is for medium to small-sized nations to qualify for these things. A 7 team group like this time (8 in one group) creates problems for a small nation with little depth when injuries, suspensions or just plain lack of consistency start to kick in. With the format back to 6 teams for the World Cup we should both benefit and come closer to qualification.

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True to a point but the problem will be that only the winners go through and only the best 8 second places reach the playoffs.

It's going to be hell to try and qualify, I'd sooner the larger group and top two automtically going in.

For me there shoud be pre qualifying for the weaker nations, let them get some proper competition in their games before they get put in a group where the finish up on zero points.

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Originally Posted by carloz

This is all Sepp Blatters fault. It is almost a guarantee that 6 of the last 8 at the next world cup will be from Europe. Yet of the 32 teams that qualify we only get 13 spots, the damn holders even have to qualify. Yet we are going to have a nothing nation that has come third from CONCECAF, probably Jamaica or Trinidad and Tobago, we are going to have at least one nothing team from Asia, probably Saudi Arabia, and we are going to have a nothing team from Africa along the lines of Angola.

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yes that really had an effect on our euro 2008 qualifying

for germany '88 there were 6 qualifiying spots available
for euro 2008 there were 14

for italia 90 there were 13 spots
for south africa 2012 there are 13 spots

it cant be harder to qualify

and personally i think that any well organised team from a medium sized country like ourselves well qualify.
croatia for example have a population of 4.5m

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Originally Posted by eekers

yes that really had an effect on our euro 2008 qualifying

for germany '88 there were 6 qualifiying spots available
for euro 2008 there were 14

for italia 90 there were 13 spots
for south africa 2012 there are 13 spots

it cant be harder to qualify

and personally i think that any well organised team from a medium sized country like ourselves well qualify.
croatia for example have a population of 4.5m

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There were a lot less coutries in Europe back then though. One Yugoslavia, one Czechoslovakia, one Russian team etc.

Not comparing like with like.

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Originally Posted by eekers

yes that really had an effect on our euro 2008 qualifying

for germany '88 there were 6 qualifiying spots available
for euro 2008 there were 14

for italia 90 there were 13 spots
for south africa 2012 there are 13 spots

it cant be harder to qualify

and personally i think that any well organised team from a medium sized country like ourselves well qualify.
croatia for example have a population of 4.5m

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groups had less teams then though , like our group for euro 92 only had 4 teams

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Originally Posted by eekers

yes that really had an effect on our euro 2008 qualifying

for germany '88 there were 6 qualifiying spots available
for euro 2008 there were 14

for italia 90 there were 13 spots
for south africa 2012 there are 13 spots

it cant be harder to qualify

and personally i think that any well organised team from a medium sized country like ourselves well qualify.
croatia for example have a population of 4.5m

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Im talking about the World Cup BTW, not the European Championsips. When we qualified for Germany and Italy there was only Yugoslavia instead of the 6 nations there now, Czechslovakia was still there and all the Russian satellite countries were not around. So that kind of runis you argument a tad. I just think Europe deserves more than 13 spots from 32 for the World Cup

Der as well as that the standard of ALL countries competing was not at the level it is at now....

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Originally Posted by Drumcondra 69er

There were a lot less coutries in Europe back then though. One Yugoslavia, one Czechoslovakia, one Russian team etc.

Not comparing like with like.

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not a single one of those extra countires have qualified for euro2008 in comparison to italia 90

russia have taken ussr's place
germany have taken west germany's place
croatia have taken yugoslavia's place
czech republic have taken czechoslovakia's place

none of them even managed thrid in their groups either

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Originally Posted by eekers

not a single one of those extra countires have qualified for euro2008 in comparison to italia 90

russia have taken ussr's place
germany have taken west germany's place
croatia have taken yugoslavia's place
czech republic have taken czechoslovakia's place

none of them even managed thrid in their groups either

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It's not the point, the likes of Serbia, Ukraine and even Macedonia as we're well aware of are capable of results and nicking points here and there. The fact that there's more middling nations in thr European qualifying pool means more difficult games means harder to qualify. Take Macedonia out of the equation for Euro 2000 for example and we would have topped the group.

yes but surely its easier to get 3 points off slovakia and then 3 points of the czechs than playing czechoslovakia?

by this logic we should send a leinster, munster and connaught-ulster teams in and hope one of them qualifies

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Originally Posted by paul_oshea

I find that I am making a fairly obvious statement here, but looking over the last two qualifying campaigns, winning away from home is getting more and more difficult, not just for us for everyone, and there are a lot more suprise results. It seems nowadays that you no longer need to beat all the 3-6 entries in a table, but also at least 1 of the top 2 at least twice. The points for second were extremely high in all groups this time round.

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It will be very hard to qualify for Euro 2008 at this stage.

If we want to qualify, we need to model our aspirations on the WC2002 qualifying campaign. Unbeaten, beat all the weaker nations (and handsomely), take at least one big scalp.

Its a huge ask without any leaders. Actually its an impossible task.

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Originally Posted by Drumcondra 69er

True to a point but the problem will be that only the winners go through and only the best 8 second places reach the playoffs.

It's going to be hell to try and qualify, I'd sooner the larger group and top two automtically going in.

For me there shoud be pre qualifying for the weaker nations, let them get some proper competition in their games before they get put in a group where the finish up on zero points.

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Disagree with the last part of your post. I think it's fine as it is now, all nations have an equal chance to qualify and I wouldn't like to see it become like the Champions' League which is so obviously biased to the bigger teams.

I understand that some games where a 'minnow' plays one of Europe's superpowers can be very one-sided, but even the 'minnows' should be able to aim for better things. Look at Liechtenstein who've moved up a pot, or Luxembourg who pushed the Netherlands close.

Also smaller nations depend on the cash they get from TV money, gate receipts and also the publicity from the bigger games. Taking that away from them would make international football economically unviable for those countries.

As for the first part of your post. I largely agree, but at least making the play-offs is something. Rather miss out in the play-offs than be nowhere near qualification. And since play-offs are just one off home and away ties you never know what could happen.

I personally prefer the six team system. Five teams (like we had in Euro 2004 where we made the play-offs) would be even better.

how about 12 groups of 4, 1 group of 5. top team goes through.

would we have more chance that way?

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Originally Posted by Cymro

Disagree with the last part of your post. I think it's fine as it is now, all nations have an equal chance to qualify and I wouldn't like to see it become like the Champions' League which is so obviously biased to the bigger teams.

I understand that some games where a 'minnow' plays one of Europe's superpowers can be very one-sided, but even the 'minnows' should be able to aim for better things. Look at Liechtenstein who've moved up a pot, or Luxembourg who pushed the Netherlands close.

Also smaller nations depend on the cash they get from TV money, gate receipts and also the publicity from the bigger games. Taking that away from them would make international football economically unviable for those countries.

As for the first part of your post. I largely agree, but at least making the play-offs is something. Rather miss out in the play-offs than be nowhere near qualification. And since play-offs are just one off home and away ties you never know what could happen.

I personally prefer the six team system. Five teams (like we had in Euro 2004 where we made the play-offs) would be even better.

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I disagree, I think a pre qualifying tournament for the smaller nations would be a money spinner in itself and may generate more interest given that they'd have a chance of winning some games. And they wouldn't all be excluded from the main qualifiers, say half of them would still get through. The rest would have something to aim for next time around and as their coefficient improved maybe they could get a permanent place.

As for the play offs, having suffered 3 defeats in them in the last 12 years they're utterly heartbreaking, I know what you mean but it's nearly been easier being ****e then feeling like that!

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Originally Posted by Cymro

Disagree with the last part of your post. I think it's fine as it is now, all nations have an equal chance to qualify and I wouldn't like to see it become like the Champions' League which is so obviously biased to the bigger teams.

I personally prefer the six team system. Five teams (like we had in Euro 2004 where we made the play-offs) would be even better.

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The more in a group, the better, afaic. The more in a group, the more mistakes you can make. Scotland lost 4 games in their EC group, and failed to qualify by only 2 points. In a 5-team group however, you cannot afford to lose 2 games in it, as we know from our last experience. A 5-team group also hits you in the pocket financially, with at least 2 less games to play, replaced by meaningless friendlies. And I hate play-offs.

I hope we never go down the route of making teams pre-qualify, as eventually, that will mean we'll have to as well. This is the WC, and everyone is invited to play. There are poor people/teams in every sport, but at least they have the right to have a go.

You definately want to be in the larger group because of this:

The five team groups are just like the six team groups minus the 'san marino' team at the bottom.
Forget that this is a free six points that all your rivals get.
this is 2 x 375 fifa rankings points that you are guaranteed.
To get the equilvant points in a friendly, you'd need to beat a european team ranked 75th or more . Consider Wales are 74th, and we cant beat them.

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Originally Posted by Drumcondra 69er

I think a pre qualifying tournament for the smaller nations would be a money spinner in itself

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How? Who's going to care about Luxembourg v San Marino? Crowds will be tiny & there'll be no TV money.

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Originally Posted by eekers

how about 12 groups of 4, 1 group of 5. top team goes through.

would we have more chance that way?

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Dont think so. Whatever chance we have off splitting two teams above our level we would find it very hard to get above just one of the top teams. Euro 92 qualifiers are a good example.

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Originally Posted by Real ale Madrid

Forget about populations - we are well able to mix it with the four teams above - we played atrocious away against the Czechs and nearly got a result - imagine a good solid well motivated outfit we would have a chance of getting 4 points against the Czech Republic.

I mean if we want to be defeatist - or in your words - realistic - just bring back Stan and let us plod along for another campaign. We are capable of much better than that. With the players at our disposal, we are capable of mixing it in any group.

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So tell me which country with a pin ***** of a population has qualified for the Euros, the majority of whom play a national sport and not soccer? Of course it's relevant.

The fact is we've kicked well above our weight and this has made people's expectations way above what they should be.

"The players at our disposal" - how many of our players would realistically have got a game for the Czech or German teams. 3 or 4 max I'd say?

As for it being harder to qualify, I remember 30 years where we qualified for zilch. We've also and that was by the grace of God just qualifed for one Euro Championship so I don't think it's any tougher than before.

OwlsFan the difference is that we play both to the same level at an early age, whereas in teh continent they focus solely on one. At home a choice is made around 14 or 15 or sometimes even later ala doyle and long etc, even hunt to a lesser extent. So its not completely accurate what you are saying above....you can develop at both as good not just cos you focus solely on one....

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Originally Posted by Torn-Ado

If we want to qualify, we need to model our aspirations on the WC2002 qualifying campaign. Unbeaten, beat all the weaker nations (and handsomely), take at least one big scalp.

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a lot harder said than done. in the WC02 qualifiers we went unbeaten for the duration. bet all the so called lesser teams home and away (god be with the days of dissapointing 3-0 away wins against the minnows!!!!). drew with both the dutch and portugal away, drew with portugal at home and bet the dutch. we still only finished 2nd and had to go to a play-off where we were lucky imo to draw iran as a lot of good teams out there at the time.

we did excellent in that campaign against two genuine world powerhouses, and eventually to knock-out one of them. both holland and portugal, at the time, would have had genuine (and realistic) aspirations of winning the tournament outright!!!

we have struggled against far inferior opposition since then, even when we were top seeds in a group, which won't happen again for quite some time.

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Originally Posted by Drumcondra 69er

I disagree, I think a pre qualifying tournament for the smaller nations would be a money spinner in itself and may generate more interest given that they'd have a chance of winning some games. And they wouldn't all be excluded from the main qualifiers, say half of them would still get through. The rest would have something to aim for next time around and as their coefficient improved maybe they could get a permanent place.

As for the play offs, having suffered 3 defeats in them in the last 12 years they're utterly heartbreaking, I know what you mean but it's nearly been easier being ****e then feeling like that!

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San Marino would earn about 1/100th, if not even less, of the income playing Andorra in a one off pre-qualifier as they would playing a full set of qualifiers.

If they got drawn against Kazakhstan, they may not actually have the money to complete the journey and would have to pull out.

They already have plenty to aim for (see Liechtenstein nearly making the fifth pot of seeds for the WC) and all have a much brighter future under the current system than they would if pre-qualifiers were introduced.

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Originally Posted by OwlsFan

Each with populations far greater than ours and much bigger pool of players to choose from. How many countries with a population of 4 million qualified as a matter of interest and where soccer is only the 2nd sport behind the national game? We need to get realistic about where we are in the world pecking order.

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You are being a reductionist, just look at what Northern Ireland did in this campaign. Look at their team sheet and 99% of people in NI couldn't name the clubs the NI players play for!

If you look at our best 11 and compare with the top 20 in European we don't look that bad, we have been underperforming IMO, basically down to poor management.

Again NI have had some great results, we have done sh1te since 2001/2002. We are completely pathetic.

It has been made more difficult in a way, because the breakup of Yugoslavia, Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia has produced a number of very good teams, and quite a few teams that are a nasty away trip where many teams lose a point, or three.

Mainly though, we don't have the same standard of players as we had then, and our managers are not good enough to make us punch above our weight.