Euro 2012 draw

[Crosby87]

Why not consider our favorite tournament march madness?

[Gather round]

Fair play to Slovakia topping their group and qualifying for the World Cup but their group contained a very poor Czech and Polish team along with Northern Ireland who although capable of pulling off a good victory are not as good as they believe

I believe Northern Ireland are better than Poland and (on the evidence of points gained in other but roughly-equivalent standard groups) than Montenegro, Cyprus and at a pinch Bulgaria too. I'm not making any claim to match the larger number of countries that are clearly better than us.

Fair enough if you're confident of seeing off the Slovaks and challenging for first place. I'm merely defending our modest record against any suggestion it was gained against poor opposition

The reality is that on form currently- ie just WC 2012, rather than in the previous tournaments which seedings take into account- Slovakia are the seventh best team in Europe. Of course that may change by September, but don't underestimate them.

[Closed Account 2]

Why not consider ourselves as favourites??? I know it's alot easier to consider yourself the underdog as it eases the disappointment at the end but we have a great chance here.

Losing Hiddink is a massive blow for Russia and after losing to Slovenia in the play-off's it show's they are not as great as everyone thought.

Fair play to Slovakia topping their group and qualifying for the World Cup but their group contained a very poor Czech and Polish team along with Northern Ireland who although capable of pulling off a good victory are not as good as they believe.

I think in this campaign we will win games we would previously have drawn and this group is considerably weaker than our last group so why not.

I would say we're second favourites behind Russia at the moment. Even though Hiddink is gone they still have players who can cause any team problems, and they also are likely to replace Hiddink with a decent manager who has a degree of experience - maybe Sven. We could do with playing them in Dublin at around 2nd / 3rd fixture (Nov 2010) as the new manager will not have had as much time to sort out the team, the domestic russian league will be finishing (around Oct 2010) so a lot of their players might be fatigued and strikers Pogrebnyak and Pavyluchenko are still likely to be under-used and out of form at Stuttgart and Spurs. I don't mind when we play Russia away as it will be very difficult to go to Moscow and get a result, so we should only really bank on getting 3 points across the two games with the Russians.

A lot of people on here seem to be creaming themselves over the prowess of the Slovaks, I don't fear them at all. To me only Hamsik is a player of genuine quality in that team, and I would like to think we can put a midfielder to man mark him to reduce his threat. Other players like Durica, Holosko, Vittek and Karhan are decent enough but nothing like world beaters - we nullified far better players in the last campaign (Italian midfield, Jovetic, Petrov x2 etc). To me they are the best pot 2 team we could have got, and while they might make it out of a weak (given Cabanas situation) WC Group I think 6 points should be our aim here.

[SkStu]

lets be honest, we are third seeds for a reason. Up until very recently we were an average side. Sure, we are among the top of the third seeds so we have the ability to come second again. Im not sure we have the ability to take advantage of the draw and top the group. We still struggle to win games and kill teams off when we take the lead. Unless that changes radically, i dont see us topping the group. All that said, this is our best chance to do so in a long long time, the draw has certainly been favourable. Our biggest challenge will be ourselves.

[Kingdom]

I like Ed's post above with one exception. I'd like us to get the Russian away game out of the way as soon as possible. This group has the potential to be very tight, and while I'd always fancy us at home against the Russians, given that we're a quite close knit team, and the conflicting season times, I see Moscow as the toughest game, and one I'd run a mile with a point from. If we could achieve that early, and I'd be more confident of doing it early than later, it would be a result to set us up.

[Charlie Darwin]

lets be honest, we are third seeds for a reason. Up until very recently we were an average side. Sure, we are among the top of the third seeds so we have the ability to come second again. Im not sure we have the ability to take advantage of the draw and top the group.

Bear in mind that more third seeds won their World Cup qualifying groups than either first or seconds.

[SkStu]

really? I had no idea of that stat.

I still think that theres a little something missing in the mentality of the irish squad. We have a tendency to draw games we should win and lose games we should draw. I still think we have a great chance of topping the group but the players need to believe in their ability to kill a game off and Trap needs to allow them to do that.

[Charlie Darwin]

I misremembered - it was actually 4 firsts and 3 thirds, but it was still a remarkable turnaround.

[pineapple stu]

I still think that theres a little something missing in the mentality of the irish squad. We have a tendency to draw games we should win and lose games we should draw.

Going on the last campaign, I think we've a tendency to draw games we should win and draw games we should lose. Which isn't very conducive at all to winning a group outright.

[Wolfie]

I believe Northern Ireland are better than Poland and (on the evidence of points gained in other but roughly-equivalent standard groups) than Montenegro, Cyprus and at a pinch Bulgaria too. I'm not making any claim to match the larger number of countries that are clearly better than us.

Fair enough if you're confident of seeing off the Slovaks and challenging for first place. I'm merely defending our modest record against any suggestion it was gained against poor opposition

The reality is that on form currently- ie just WC 2012, rather than in the previous tournaments which seedings take into account- Slovakia are the seventh best team in Europe. Of course that may change by September, but don't underestimate them.

I'd take nothing for granted in this group - particularly in relation to the Slovaks and Macedonia.

The Slovaks caused plenty of problems in the Euro 2008 group and our previous against Macedonia is not exactly a roll call of triumph either.

[Greenbod]

Going on the last campaign, I think we've a tendency to draw games we should win and draw games we should lose. Which isn't very conducive at all to winning a group outright.

Sounds like we've a tendency to draw games then.................except those we should draw??

[mypost]

Reality to Lenny?!

We did well in one campaign and now we have to consider ourselves favourites in a group containing the last European semi-finalists and one country who qualified for the World Cup (as group winners)? Let alone that we've not won in two visits to Macedonia.

Never ceases to amaze me how far detached from reality some people's views of an upcoming campaign can be.

Look who's moaning now?????

[TrapAPony]

I'd be confident of winning the group if Andy Reid & Stephen Ireland return to the fold along with the hopeful addition of Jamie O'Hara.

[Cymro]

Look who's moaning now?????

How is that 'moaning'? If it's anything it's a slightly sarcastic chastisement of a fellow poster, but I see no element of complaint in it or any suggestion that things should be different.

[Closed Account 2]

A good Welsh forum is www.dragonsoccer.co.uk . That is the best one for discussing the national team. (You will notice at the moment there is a thread entitled 'Wales to finish bottom' - that shows how confident we are!)

In the first two matches I'd like to play the Montenegro away game and then Bulgaria away. At the beginning of the group teams will be more concerned with not losing than with winning, and I think if we could get draws in both games it would be a great result. I also want us to have England in the later games, but we will all have to make concessions in the negotiations.

Could be uphill for you now, looks like Ramsey will be out for a while, there was a horror tackle on him at Stoke tonight.

[stiffler]

What date is the fixtures meeting for Ireland's group?

[Acornvilla]

What date is the fixtures meeting for Ireland's group?

http://www.rissc.org/

The meeting to determine the fixtures in Qualifying Group B of EURO 2012 is scheduled to take place in Moscow on Monday 15 March and possibly Tuesday 16 March 2010

[Charlie Darwin]

Could be uphill for you now, looks like Ramsey will be out for a while, there was a horror tackle on him at Stoke tonight.

Was a 50/50, to be fair. Nobody's fault.

[Cymro]

Awful news, felt bad for about an hour after seeing the pictures. It's difficult to say what sort of part he'll play in the qualifiers now, it looks like he might be spending most of them just getting back to fitness.

Massive shame as he was having a great season.

[mypost]

What date is the fixtures meeting for Ireland's group?

Knowing how stubborn the Russians are, it'll probably be the 16th before they're released. Given the time difference between here and there, I'd say it'll be about 11am here when they become available, so anyone looking for flights will have roughly a nanosecond to glance at the draw and book them, before the air fares increase 200% on the capital in question.

Of course, there were supposed to be 30 days in order to arrange these games, only in Russia, 30 days seem to mean 37 to them. They just couldn't leave it any later to arrange them.