2022 FIFA World Cup Qualifying Group A

[pineapple stu]

That was the game where we had 77 completed passes all game. Probably the worst game of "football" I've ever seen.

Their keeper was poor alright, thankfully. Coleman cleared a shot off the line which was a clear goal after Randolph made a hames of something, and they hit the bar too I think. We were steeped that night.

Edit - infogol says the expected score was 3-1 to Serbia that night. 2-2 instead is a big let-off.

I see Azerbaijan have three players in their last squad who'd scored at international level. That sounds familiar.

Luxembourg have one player who was in the Dudelange team that lost to UCD.

[Diggs246]

That was the game where we had 77 completed passes all game. Probably the worst game of "football" I've ever seen.

Their keeper was poor alright, thankfully. Coleman cleared a shot off the line which was a clear goal after Randolph made a hames of something, and they hit the bar too I think. We were steeped that night.

Edit - infogol says the expected score was 3-1 to Serbia that night. 2-2 instead is a big let-off.

They scored the peno. And skynet ot infogoll doesn't decide games

[pineapple stu]

Yeah, I changed the peno. It was soft, but a penalty I think. We can't complain about it. Our first goal was deflected - so stuff happens.

Infogol doesn't decide games, but expected goals is a very powerful analysis tool. And if the expected score is 3-1 and the actual score was 2-2, that's a huge swing and indicates you got a bit lucky (their keeper being ****e for example). But luck evens out over time.

[tetsujin1979]

Did they hit the crossbar as well?
Think Randolph made a great save with a Serbian player clean through to keep it 2-1 too

[Bielsa´s irish]

We are doomed, the chance was in Denmark group or Croatia, a 5 team group will kill us.
Plus Cristiano is gonna get that last world cup by all means, if you know what I mean.

Simply as it is, bring the youth and lets build for the future, an awful draw.

A 5 team group, plus an elite team with a celebrity fifa player, plus serbia who has been our nemesis the last wc quailifers,

[nigel-harps1954]

We are doomed, the chance was in Denmark group or Croatia, a 5 team group will kill us.
Plus Cristiano is gonna get that last world cup by all means, if you know what I mean.

Simply as it is, bring the youth and lets build for the future, an awful draw.

A 5 team group, plus an elite team with a celebrity fifa player, plus serbia who has been our nemesis the last wc quailifers,

But what's the negatives?

[backstothewall]

I don't get all the negativity myself. I think that's a decent draw, certainly compared to some we've had down through the years.

I like our chances.

[pineapple stu]

Just by way of some more in-depth thoughts -

Sixth seed
I'd have liked to see us start with a home game against a sixth seed, but that won't happen. We badly, badly need a goal for some confidence - I can see what Kenny's trying to do, but it's just not coming off for a variety of reasons (covid absences and inexperienced forwards the two main ones). A home tie against San Marino could have been is Icelandic Cup moment.

Azerbaijan
We could have had the Faroes or Andorra here. Azerbaijan are a bit Jekyll and Hyde. Almost all their players play domestically (very old school, that!), but their top clubs are EL group stage regulars, so they're solid enough. Four 0-0s in their last four games as noted, and only three players in those squads have international goals to their name. Took only one point in Euro 2020 qualifying, but it was at home to Croatia. In 2018 qualifying, they beat Norway at home, drew in Prague, and beat San Marino home and away. That's problematic form - I could see us dropping points here, but not sure if Serbia would. Not ideal tbh.

Luxembourg
I know they've improved lately, but everyone wanted Luxembourg as fourth seeds. Lost 3-2 in Serbia in the last group, with David Turpel scoring (he was one of Europe's top scorers in 2018, but didn't score against UCD in 2015. Malget and da Mota from that team are still involved internationally too). Took four points off Lithuania too. Probably on a par with Azerbaijan (Eloratings agrees). I can definitely see us dropping points to one of those two. Hopefully it'll just be a draw - 10 points from 12 here.

Serbia
The important team in the group of course. Knocked out by Scotland in the Euro 2020 play-off - and responded by beating Russia 5-0. Luka Jovic scored twice - 22-year-old Real Madrid forward. Since our 2-2 draw in Serbia in 2016, Mitrovic has scored 32 international goals and Ireland have scored 34. Kolarov and Tadic are ageing but still dangerous - they're with Inter and Ajax. Matic and Ivanovic have retired. That dodgy keeper from the 2-2 draw is their first choice now, so I guess he's improved.

Drew against Ukraine and Portugal in the last campaign, and of course topped our 2018 WC group. Took four points off us in that, which was about fair, although I think the results would have been fairer switched around (ie a draw in Lansdowne and a loss in Serbia). Can we beat them? Yes, but it'll require a bit of luck. Realistically a repeat of the draw/loss is more likely. It worries me that they drew against Portugal last time out.

Portugal
The reigning European champions. The reigning Nations League champions. Not a Denmark, yet not a Spain either, and didn't win their Euro 2020 group.

A very experienced - or is it ageing? - squad, in which Pepe and Ronaldo are still involved. Ronaldo is chasing a world record, so he'll probably go again for one last campaign. But also they have Diogo Jota (Liverpool) and Joao Felix (Atletico) up front, so they've new players coming through. It's not clear they'll take six points off Serbia - they didn't last time - and that puts under pressure straight off to get a result against them. I don't think we have that in us. Yes, we have players coming through, but they're a step or two behind where Jota and Felix (and Jovic of Serbia) are.

Overall - I know we can be stubborn *******s to beat at times, but I think if we get three points from Portugal/Serbia (one win), we'll have done very well. Two draws may be a more realistic limit. Add that to 10 points from the other two, and it puts us at a record of P8 W3 D3 L2. I can't see that being enough.

[Bungle]

To be honest, we would be up against it in any group. Let's not kid ourselves, even the likes of Denmark are streets ahead of us. Croatia have been mentioned but they have several world class players and will probably unearth a few more in the next two years.

Regarding our group, Portugal have it in their locker to tear us apart. So many outstanding players and a bona fida legend of the game in Ronaldo. It could be two very long nights against them, but the hope would be that we could even snare a point against them. I'm predicting a 4-0 loss in their place and a 2-0 loss in Dublin.

Serbia are a funny one. A very temperamental bunch. It's next to impossible to know what Serbia will show up. Morale in their camp is often flakey and they don't have the number of stars they normally have. Like Croatia, they probably have incredible talents bubbling under. They are better than us, but I'm predicting two draws. If they start the group poorly and start arguing, we could even get a win against them. Teams like Estonia have beaten them in their place when they throw in the towel it can get savage. Their fans could cause them to play behind closed doors.

Luxemburg should be 6 points. Easily the best pot 4 side we could have got imo. Play nice football in fairness.

Azerbaijan could be tricky. They don't score many but they don't concede many either. Capable of taking points off us and I'm predicting we take four off them rather than six. Much happier we got them than Kosovo though.

Think we have a decent shot at a playoff but can't see us having any hope against the likes of Poland or Switzerland.

[pineapple stu]

Did they hit the crossbar as well?
Think Randolph made a great save with a Serbian player clean through to keep it 2-1 too

They did, yeah - Randolph fumbled an easy catch (the lashing rain probably didn't help) and they belted it off the bar from 6 yards. 1:50 here.

[Bielsa´s irish]

There is no debate thread on this one. I started this new.

Slim chances for the Republic one of those worst case scenarios, unless we can bring the usual suspects on board ( crowley-bamford-redmond-johnstone-johansson - ohare- and a few more new faces)

Portugal have the marquee player for marketing issues it is gonna be very hard to knock them off pole positionn.
Serbia is always a two side team, can be awesome or crap with the same malevolence,,,,,,,,

The only bright side is we have to legitimate pot 5 teams Luxemburg and Azerbaiyán,

Now it depends on the schedule of matches I would love to start at home vs Azerbaiyan

[tetsujin1979]

Thread renamed to 2022 FIFA World Cup Group A

[geysir]

it's a dull group but with the optimistic tone of a Finance Minister's speech after a hardship budget, some tough times ahead but there could be light if we play it tight.

Considering the fate of other pot 3 teams I think we came out well, possibly Russia got the best group, in with 3 former Yugoslav teams who may well have bones to pick.

[seanfhear]

Rafa van der Vaart is a professional darts player now.

Did not know that.

Is he picking the teams with the arrows ?

[Razors left peg]

I love this draw. I think its as good as we could possibly have hoped for. Portugal will win the group ( and I'll probably divorce my Portuguese Mrs), but outside of that there is nothing to fear. I watch most Portugal games and they have a habit of having some weird results in qualifying, they never are comfortably qualified in their last games. Although I have a feeling it might be different this time.

Serbia are very average and we are very capable of getting 4 points against them. Luxemburg and Azerbaijan are obvious a must 12 points.

The fixture arrangements are vital. We need to start with easy game to get the monkey off the back of no goals and wins for Kenny. The FAI better not agree to Serbia home or away first game.

[seanfhear]

They did, yeah - Randolph fumbled an easy catch (the lashing rain probably didn't help) and they belted it off the bar from 6 yards. 1:50 here.

Soft penalty.

[Bielsa´s irish]

Thread renamed to 2022 FIFA World Cup Group A

Perfect.!!

we have slim chances, One main point is Portugal with a full schedule, because of the EURO , that thing can be a problem for them but they have depth.
Im very wary of the serbian.

We could have got worse from pot 4 and 5 , we got away with that one.
Imagine bosnia or montenegro and cyprus not kosovo because of Serbia, the are no mugs.

We got 2 pot 5 teams there lets make the best out of them.

we've got very slim chances tbf, not the worst group.


we were lucky that we didnt end up inGroup B is a banana skin group for Spain, Tough teams. Or Group D tough very even group to La France. Nor Group E has Belgium who is gonna win the group, the form team. Those 5team-groups are very ugly. the Italy group is the easiest


I would have loved to be in group F, G, H or even I,

[Bielsa´s irish]

To be honest, we would be up against it in any group. Let's not kid ourselves, even the likes of Denmark are streets ahead of us. Croatia have been mentioned but they have several world class players and will probably unearth a few more in the next two years.

Regarding our group, Portugal have it in their locker to tear us apart. So many outstanding players and a bona fida legend of the game in Ronaldo. It could be two very long nights against them, but the hope would be that we could even snare a point against them. I'm predicting a 4-0 loss in their place and a 2-0 loss in Dublin.

Serbia are a funny one. A very temperamental bunch. It's next to impossible to know what Serbia will show up. Morale in their camp is often flakey and they don't have the number of stars they normally have. Like Croatia, they probably have incredible talents bubbling under. They are better than us, but I'm predicting two draws. If they start the group poorly and start arguing, we could even get a win against them. Teams like Estonia have beaten them in their place when they throw in the towel it can get savage. Their fans could cause them to play behind closed doors.

Luxemburg should be 6 points. Easily the best pot 4 side we could have got imo. Play nice football in fairness.

Azerbaijan could be tricky. They don't score many but they don't concede many either. Capable of taking points off us and I'm predicting we take four off them rather than six. Much happier we got them than Kosovo though.

Think we have a decent shot at a playoff but can't see us having any hope against the likes of Poland or Switzerland.

You couldnt get Kosovo once you got Serbia

[elatedscum]

Yeah, I changed the peno. It was soft, but a penalty I think. We can't complain about it. Our first goal was deflected - so stuff happens.

Infogol doesn't decide games, but expected goals is a very powerful analysis tool. And if the expected score is 3-1 and the actual score was 2-2, that's a huge swing and indicates you got a bit lucky (their keeper being ****e for example). But luck evens out over time.

There are serious flaws in XG. they literally changed the algorithm to add a subjective element 'big chance', basically where a human decides if it's a big chance and the value gets bumped up. they only did that cause it was so poor that any long term analysis of what it was doing was awful.

take for example the XG table for the premier league last season. it had Man City winning the league with 87 points (81 real) and Liverpool in second with 74 points (99 real). that 30 point swing is due to a really bad model.

There's a number of issues:

This all starts with moneyball and the narrative behind that. that there's inherent randomness in a game and the process rather than the result are predictive of future success. markets overvalue certain stats more than others and there's market inefficiencies if you exploit that.

even then, many of the assumptions they made were really primitive and would be thrown out nowadays. baseball is a series of set pieces, which makes it far easier to analyse statistically than football, which is a fluid game filled with thousands of unrepeatable decisions.

i just lost the rest of a big long post and i'm not gonna retype it so in a nutshell


2 issues:

1) the first with calculation - XG doesn't factor in where defenders or goalkeeper are on the pitch, so if you take the ball around the keeper to a wider angle and shoot, you'll have a lower XG than if you shoot with a goalkeeper and a defender right in front of the ball and 5 men on the line. loads of other issues - penalising good goalkeepers, rewards certain tactics over others, penalises certain attributes within strikers.

2) nature of football - if you're cruising 3-0 and have an XG of 0.8, you can coast to a victory. Take Spurs game against Arsenal yesterday, they ended with an XG of 0.39 but they went into halftime 2-0 up, knowing what they had to do to win. Arsenal ended with 0.60 XG. See also the 2-0 win against City with 0.76 to 1.66.

people can talk all they want about XG after the game, but the real score within the game dictates players actions.

i'm all for stats, as long as they're good but when something is this bad, it's worse than useless. i think you'd probably need another 5-10 years of honing before it's anything other than counter-productive...

[Bielsa´s irish]

I love this draw. I think its as good as we could possibly have hoped for. Portugal will win the group ( and I'll probably divorce my Portuguese Mrs), but outside of that there is nothing to fear. I watch most Portugal games and they have a habit of having some weird results in qualifying, they never are comfortably qualified in their last games. Although I have a feeling it might be different this time.

Serbia are very average and we are very capable of getting 4 points against them. Luxemburg and Azerbaijan are obvious a must 12 points.

The fixture arrangements are vital. We need to start with easy game to get the monkey off the back of no goals and wins for Kenny. The FAI better not agree to Serbia home or away first game.

To get a few chances we may need something like

Azerbaiyàn at home
Luxemburg away
Serbia at home
Portugal away
Luxemburg home
Serbia away
Portugal home
Azerbaiyan away