Scotland also beat Macedonia 2-1 in Skopje in September. Scotland racked up the highest number of ranking points out of all teams in the rankings during the previous scoring period with 164 points and were the second-best movers as a result, rising 28 places from September's rankings. Their results prior to then have been fairly poor, but it goes to show the rather short-term or capricious nature of the ranking system.
To be fair, I'd take this temporary, mild embarrassment of being outshone in rankings by Scots and Welsh.... it's all quite cosmetic... at the end of the day we will probably be second seeds for France 2016 with an excellent chance of progressing to finals...
I seem to recall we were 57th in the world around the time we played Belgium in playoffs in 1997, and were 19th in early 2012 so no point getting too up or down about rankings... they never fail to irritate though!
Question for Cymro. What did Gary Speed bring that Toshack and Coleman lacked? He really seemed to bring something positive to the set up. This was lost when Coleman took over. Was Speed just lucky? Was his footballing philosophy different? Was his main asset just psychological?
I'm asking in context of thinking Roy Keane's candidacy for our vacant job. Someone like Speed, God rest his soul, would never even pop up on our selectors' radar. I look at other countries like Switzerland and Croatia who appoint recent ex players with some success too.
Wales had also picked out Mark Hughes prior to this in his first managerial role, and he did well, came within a playoff of qualifying beating Italy in the group. How to pick a Sanchez from a Staunton Cymro ? Share the wisdom.Originally Posted by Stuttgart88
And 6th best team in the world was probably about right.. certainly top ten. Euro 88 and Italia 90 under our belts.. and with the exception of Brazil and the perennial top sides there were no games you'd be going into thinking "Jayzus, we're going to get lashed out of it here today. How can we keep the score down?"
At the very least, we knew we could neutralize the top teams... and if we kept pressuring them in and around their penalty area, maybe even sneak a win here and there along the way.
It's not just the Irish team that has changed since back then though.. it's international football. Champions League has taken the edge of it all and players don't need it as much as they did in the past in terms of profile, etc.
I think the rule changes and interpretations have been essential. Technical football has been encouraged and has flourished in the last ten years, and even more so in the last 5. My mate - ex Leeds triallist and in his 50s, so he knows his stuff and has seen a lot of footy - and I agreed last week that in all our lives watching football we have never seen the game change so much as in the last 5 years.
Although we had good players back in the heyday you'd never have said we had more than one or two who'd be the envy of other countries. Arguably this came later (both Keanes, Irwin, Finnan, Given, Duff...). I think our biggest asset back then was how good we were without the ball. I watched Euro 88 games again a while back and we regularly killed the opposition tempo with pass backs to Bonner.
I only partially subscribe to your Champios League argument. For most countries their players arent CL players anyway, and those who are still take international football very seriously. Where I would agree is that the standard of international football is generally lower. The standard demanded by the CL has left the smaller countries behind to a certain extent. But even still we can't hide behind that. Other small countries produce CL players, why don't we?
Last edited by Stuttgart88; 20/10/2013 at 7:11 PM.
To be quite honest, I think it's rather difficult to judge Speed (RIP) on that amazing run as it was only a relatively short period of time and we consistently had our best players available to us. There were some fantastic wins like the wins against Switzerland and Norway but I recall players like Bale and Bellamy being on fire in those games. In that Norway game Bellamy scored a peach of a goal, I honestly think we'd have beaten anyone on that day, except maybe the top 2-3 teams in the world.
Prior to the run of four wins in five games (Montenegro 2-1, England 0-1, should have drawn, Switzerland 2-0, Bulgaria 1-0, Norway 4-1), we had some abysmal results, including a dire 'Nations Cup' campaign (where Speed had to field a third-string line-up against you and a second-string against Scotland), but also an immensely poor friendly against Australia where we were all at sea.
Many were calling for Speed to go as they felt we were passing too much without the players to do it. Such criticism has also been levelled at Coleman since he came in. Personally, I don't think Coleman is the right man, but the same problems existed under Speed. However, he did adopt some changes around the time we started winning, namely using long passes as well as short and using Bale as a target man from time to time, which gave us a bit more unpredictability. Also he used a system of Bellamy on the left and Bale on the right and interchanged them, this allowed them to cut inside and shoot, which is how Bellamy scored that goal against Norway.
It's really hard to say whether Speed turned things around or whether the availability of players drove the run of results. However the players did seem to really like and respect Speed and his appointment did see player attendance improve, particularly from the Toshack days as Toshack, although I quite liked him and although he was a good coach, had a very old-fashioned attitude to man management and was regarded as the type who thought that players needed the law laid down to them.
I think the improvement was because Speed was immensely respected as a quiet but effective leader when he was a player. You have to ask if Roy Keane would be that type of manager. Personally, from what I've seen, I think Keane may be a little too outspoken which may not be what the players respond well to. At the moment there is a body of thought in Welsh football that Bellamy should get the manager's job next, if Coleman is given the boot. I don't think that would be a good idea. It would be a huge gamble, it could work out but it could backfire spectacularly. I'd prefer Pulis if he were interested. I think it's always better for a manager to keep his counsel.
Last edited by Cymro; 21/10/2013 at 12:12 PM. Reason: Breaking up the wall of text a bit
"Life is like a hair on a toilet seat. Sooner or later you are bound to get pi$$ed off."
"In this league, a draw is sometimes as good as a win" - Steve Morison
Interview them properly. When Staunton gave that post match interview against San Marino he said to the interviewer 'I don't know, you tell me'. If that's an example of what he was like in the interview when he was hired, then the FAI need to improve their recruitment process. However, the FAW are not better as they turned down Lars Lagerback, apparently because he spoke too much about Sweden during his interview. He had guided the Swedes to two tournaments on his own and has since guided Iceland to the play-offs!
In all probability a large slice of luck is important in making a good recruitment decision, for example at the time Toshack was an excellent appointment for us who didn't quite ultimately deliver whereas Speed had a poor record in management when we hired him, but did well by the end. However an association has to have a rigorous process, and should be required to explain decisions to fans.
"Life is like a hair on a toilet seat. Sooner or later you are bound to get pi$$ed off."
"In this league, a draw is sometimes as good as a win" - Steve Morison
Because Mexico are in such great form right now? The rankings might be flawed but Belgium qualified from a tougher group than England with comparative ease. To suggest they don't warrant top ranking and England do is ridiculous. Switzerland is a weaker case but it goes to show the virtues of being able to win football matches, something sides like England and Italy have failed to do as convincingly.
I think the whole Swiss thing came about from their easy group in these qualifiers. And that itself was a result of the World Cup Qualification draw being done before the last few games of Euro 2012 qualification were complete. Norway were, like us, a pot 3 team at the start of Euro 2012 qualification (they were actually the team just above us), but for WC2014 they had jumped to a pot 1 team and we were still stuck in pot 3. I think Norway had played easier qualification games at the start of the campaign playing the lesser teams and avoiding away matches against the pot 1 and pot 2 teams (Portugal and Denmark). I know they lost in Copenhagen and Lisbon in their last 4 games (whereas we had draws in Moscow and home to Slovakia and wins vs Armenia and Andorra as our last games) all those games were after the seeding for WC2014 Qualification was done (as was our playoff win vs Estonia).
The draw was also kind to that group as in addition to getting Norway as first pot, they also got Slovenia as a second pot team (instead of the likes of France, Russia, Sweden, Denmark), the Swiss were the strongest seeded 3 pot team but I would argue they were of similar standard to some other 3 pot teams (Belgium, Ukraine, Bosnia) and Albania as pot 4 was probably a bit easier than say Romania, Austria or Poland.
That draw still sticks in the craw. An absolute disgrace and made a mockery of some of the groups when you looked at Norway's group.
DID YOU NOTICE A SIGN OUTSIDE MY HOUSE...?
You can hardly legislate for lucky draws, but regardless Switzerland have won the majority of matches thrown their way both in qualifying and in friendlies against the likes of Brazil. The seeding system favours inertia but that's just as true for mediocre sides like England and, in recent years, France who have benefitted from cushy draws.
True enough though I never said my annoyance was rational.
If Norway were not in pot 1 it is unlikely that we would have made any comments on that group.
DID YOU NOTICE A SIGN OUTSIDE MY HOUSE...?
Swiss club sides are playing good stuff in Europe. I was really impressed by Basel last season and they just beat Chelsea in a London. They're obviously doing something right there even if their draw was pretty handy. Would we have done as well in that group?
Be carefiul complementing Swiss clubs in Europe.
DID YOU NOTICE A SIGN OUTSIDE MY HOUSE...?
It was the weakest European group I can remember, but as others have said kudos to the Swiss as you can only beat the teams in front of you and they came top, despite a mini Trap-esque stutter in the middle where they drew home to Norway and Iceland and had a 0-0 out in Cyprus. You often see a "lucky" draw for teams, but what was a bit galling about this one was the way it happend before the previous cycle (Euro 2012 qualification) was complete so a very weak team ended up as a first seed (Norway).
It's hard to say, I dont think we would have got as many points as the Swiss (24), but I think we would have been good enough to be at least around where Iceland were (17 points and second). I certainly think we would have done better than we did against our 1st, 2nd and 4th pot teams - swap Germany for Norway, Sweden for Slovenia and Austria for Albania - I would like to think we would have got more than two points from the 18 possibe in all those games.
Galling is the word.
Was there any particular reason for deciding to hold it then?
DID YOU NOTICE A SIGN OUTSIDE MY HOUSE...?
I think some of the confederations (certainly CONCACAF (North America), Asia and possibly Africa) needed to get preliminary matches done early and ahead of the two year cycle, and Fifa wanted a global draw in Rio so everything was brought forward for that. I'm not sure why it didn't happen for South Africa (in 2010) but I can remember all Euro 2008 qualification results counted for the seeding in that draw.
Last edited by Closed Account 2; 22/10/2013 at 5:06 PM.
I thought I would take a look at Ramsey (in the Championship game v Dortmond) given he tops the players stats ranking to see the exception skills which got him to the top of the ranking table so it was rather amusing watching him trying to dribble the ball out of defense, losing it and giving away a goal!!
I guess it's a case of letting the statistics go to your head, and believing you are better than you really are!!
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