Not to mention the fact that two of their key players will be missing in our game, Okkas and Constantinou.Originally Posted by DeLorean
Despite what we think, Cyprus are not a good team. They are ok but i think we have put them on a pedestal because of the mauling we got by them in Nicosia, and our last three performances excluding that match against this opposition. They are still a team that we should always always expect to 6 points against. When we played them in Nicosia during out 5-2 match, i was utterly shocked at how much more physically strong they were compared to us
As Napolean is often quoted "Give me a lucky General anytime"
Perhaps we will be beneficiaries because Trap is a man of destiny.
Yes, they did
August Satsias (46 'Ch. Michael), Charalambous, P. Christou, M. Elia (77' C. Panagi) M. Nicholas (59 'Marangos), Charalambidis, Okkas, Konstantinou (46' Christofi) Alonefti (56 'Alexander), Abraham (46' Garpozis)
I really don't think anybody has them on a pedestal and I'm sure everybody in Ireland would consider anything less than 6pts against them a failure. That said they have obviosly improved a bit the last couple of yrs and there's no point in ignoring that. The fact that they've given us more than a game the last 4 times we've played them has opened our eyes even more. But yes anything less than 3pts in Nicosia would be rightly seen as a disaster, especially under the circumstances.
is this true ? why will they be missing.
suspended, both picked up their second bookings of the campaign in their last game against Montenegro: http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/prelimi...112/index.html
Thats great news for us.
Going through the bookings, Okkas only has 1 booking from the 4 games he has played, Konstantinou and Makridis are suspended.
Its not just the the time we got molested 5-2 by them but the other 3 times which were all home games were extremely tight, we were lucky to beat them 1-0 under Kerr, Finnan saved us another defeat under Stan and in the last game we were saved by a terrible ref. I wouldn't say anything other than a win in Nicosia would be a major shock, my money is on a draw, hope I'm proved wrong and we hammer them but I doubt it.
i actually think we will eek out a win there.
That was away but you're right we were very lucky that evening. Given even made a rare penalty save.
Just reading through a few forums, apparently the ref for the Albania game was Turkish, needless to say Cypriots not happy!!
Apparently gave Albania a dodge peno
What about the other five goals?
LOL the match should've ended like 10-1 for Albania man.. cyprus barely ever touched the ball. They were lucky Albania's coach decided to bring in the C team in the 2nd half..
Albania is crap but never seen a worst team than Cyprus
of yeah.. what the fvck am I doing in this forum? I have no idea
Ireland have the knack of making Cyprus look good.
Sometimes football is not as straightforward as "this team is better than this team," but rather, "this team is good against this type of team."
Think of it like a game of rock-paper-scissors: teams with certain attributes can more readily beat teams of a certain type, but may lose to a perceived better team of a different type.
Cyprus are big, powerful, and athletic, and they simply overran us last campaign because we lacked structure, a coherent midfield, and any steel in midfield.
The likes of Andrews and Whelan, for all their limitations, should be tailor made to deal with the athleticism of Cyprus.
Very good post irishfan. Reminds me of Gaelic Football where Kerry hammer Mayo, Mayo do really well against Tyrone and Kerry struggle big time against Tyrone. Different strengths and weaknesses exposed. Don't really agree with the last bit though as Whelan was part of a midfield that struggled in a big way at Croke Park against Cyprus, might be different away though.
a draw is not an absolute disaster. assuming bulgaria get nine points (beat georgia and montenegro at home and cyprus away, and lose to italy) we need five points to finish above them.... draw with cyprus, draw with italy and beat montenegro....
if however we beat cyprus, we would ideally like bulgaria to get a draw in italy but not to win.... because if bulgaria beat italy, but then we lost to italy at home, or even drew with them, we could finish third, unfathomable as it seems, were each of those two teams to win the remainder of their games.... a bulgaria win in italy is actually probably the worst result for us, strange as that sounds.
now: italy 6 / 14, ireland 7 / 13, bulgaria 6 / 8, so if bulgaria won all their games they would have 20 points (and most likely a superior goal difference), if the italians lost to bulgaria, drew against us and won the other two, they would have 21, and even if we beat cyprus and montenegro and drew with italy we would have 20.... although strangely if you switch the italian results to a loss to us and a draw with bulgaria, we win the group on 22, to the italian 21 and the bulgarian 18.
in short, and its really not where i started this post, our final position in this group is going to be decided as much by the outcome of that one game as by any of our own: if italy win, we are looking quite good for second but miles from first, if italy draw, first is a distinct possibility with second pretty secure, but if bulgaria win, first would depend on us beating the italians and third would be distinctly likely if we didn't.
all in all, there is a long way to go and the cyprus game is almost not as important as one we won't even play, four days later.
p.s. will rte be showing that game?
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