Preliminary Draw of the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil

[paul_oshea]

That black guys accent isn't bad at the end

[Crosby87]

In Fairness Danny the he also picked Kazakhstan b/c of the rampant anti-semitism there. Which you I am sure would not excuse.
However as Pineapple pointed out the movie is from 2006 so who cares. I cannot imagine it being a big deal and how many Kazakhies are really going to travel to Dubs anyway? They will be lucky if they can get the team over here.
Incidentally the funniest Borat thing is from the HBO show where he is on a farm and pretends to not know what a chicken is. What the **** is that thing? Farmer: Its a chicken. Borat: A whhhaaat?
I dont care what year it is, that is still funny.

[paul_oshea]

Except he reused the joke from when he was Ali G over here about 10 years ago on Channel 4....

[Brendan 82]

I can't find any info about whether or not the playoffs will be seeded. I'm sure fifa will adjust things to their liking if need be.

[paul_oshea]

There was something during the week about it still being seeded. It is definitely seeded like before.

[BonnieShels]

first reaction is that I'd only swap our group for A, B or possibly E. So we didn't get a good draw, but not the worst draw either that's clearly Group I
Should beat all the lower seeds. As said above, we can beat Sweden, Sweden can beat us. Germany to top the group, it's what they do.
not ecstatic about it, not disappointed with it.

G is pretty terrible too.

[Closed Account 2]

The draw is ok, I think we can aim for second. Germany are a pain because they are the best 1st seed in terms of grinding out results. By that I mean that even if we were to somehow get 2 draws or a win and a defeat against them, the Germans are very unlikely to slip up against the Swedes, Austrians (they actually just beat them in Vienna a few weeks ago, 2-1 out played at times but like a typical German they still won) and there is no chance the Germans will drop points in Kazakhstan or the Faroe Islands. Müller is also a sensational player, if he was Spanish people on here would be creaming themselves about him - I still think the Germans would have won in Durban if he hadnt been suspended. The Germans are very very slick, in Durban the Australians created a few chances against them but were still punished 4-0. Russia played them in Dortmund in October 2009 and were sensational, hitting the post and bar (Dzagoev ran the show) but the Russians still lost.

I think had we drawn the Spanish or even the Dutch, we might have had a chance of them dropping one or two points against the other teams (as we will invariably do).

Sweden really aren't all that good. They are well organised and can be a physical threat. But they have big weaknesses at the back, their best defenders are past it Mellburg (33) Majsterovic and Petter Hanson (both 34), their only reliable defender with a bit of pace is the lad at Genoa Grandquist. In midfield they have a lot of average ball winners, but a lack of creativity. Wilhelmsonn looked like a promising player but has utterly stagnated since he moved to the Middle East, Kallestrom is ok but not massivly creative, he's no Johnas Turn he's a bit of a poor man's Hackan Mild. There is a lot of hype about Albin Ekdal, but he's yet to play for them and he hasnt set the world alight in a very mundane Juventus side. They do have Ibrahimovic upfront and Elmander too, but these are both immobile strikers and if we can cut of the creativity they shouldnt be too much of a handfull, they've no real pace which is a good thing looking at our back line. I'd be more worried about Rosenburg or Markus Burg running at our center backs, but they've faced pacier attackers in the past and shut them out. We should be beating the Swedes at home and aiming for a draw away. They were lucky to get to Euro 2008, getting a 3-0 default in Copenhagen against the Danes after a mad home fan struck the ref, which caused the game to be abandoned. If the Danes had won that they would have finished ahead of Sweden and made it to Euro 2008. Northern Ireland beat the Swedes 2-1 in Windsor Park and drew 1-1 away. In WC2010 qualification they were beaten home and away by the Danes 1-0 home and away, drew 0-0 with Portugal home and away and drew 0-0 in Albania. People are saying their current form (in Euro2012s) good, to an extend that's true, but theyve yet to face their hardest away games (aside from in Holland where they went down 4-1), their remaining games are Hungary away, Finland away, Holland at home and San Marino away, I'll be surprised if they get more than 4-5 points from those.

[DannyInvincible]

Sounds like a good summary.

Groups E and G really are weak groups. Such an outcome was probably made all the more inevitable with Norway and Greece in the first pot.

Do people reckon this group is easier or tougher than our qualification group for Euro 2008, which also featured Germany? Fair enough, we didn't qualify then, but I think that group was tougher, albeit with an extra team. Sweden might be around the same level as the Czechs were then (or are they?), but I don't think Austria are as good as Slovakia would have been. They'd be more on a par with Cyprus (embarrassing 5-2 drubbing aside) or maybe Wales then. Would that be a fair assessment? Six points has to be the aim with Austria if we're to entertain any hope of qualification.

Kazakhstan are ranked lower than the likes of Liechtenstein. They can't really pose a huge deal of threat, can they? Surely we should expect a guaranteed 12 points from them and the Faroes or we might as well just pack it in now? As should Sweden and Germany, however, I suspect. Interestingly, Germany, Austria and Kazakhstan are all competing in the same Euro 2012 qualifying group at the minute. Germany are romping home to a first-place finish in that with the other two doing relatively poorly. Austria's most impressive result to date would have to be a 4-4 away draw against Belgium. Otherwise, their only points came against Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, losing their other home game with Belgium along with their Germany and Turkey games.

[MeathDrog]

Germany beatable? LOL.

[mypost]

I don't think Austria are as good as Slovakia would have been. They'd be more on a par with Cyprus (embarrassing 5-2 drubbing aside) or maybe Wales then. Would that be a fair assessment? Six points has to be the aim with Austria if we're to entertain any hope of qualification.

Austria took 6 points off us the last time we played them. They're not rubbish like Cyprus, and will be a real banana skin. There's no Andorra, San Marino or Lichtenstein in the group, the Faroes have obviously improved enough to climb a pot, so no real 6 point pushovers for us in the group.

[Closed Account 2]

Sounds like a good summary.

Groups E and G really are weak groups. Such an outcome was probably made all the more inevitable with Norway and Greece in the first pot.

Do people reckon this group is easier or tougher than our qualification group for Euro 2008, which also featured Germany? Fair enough, we didn't qualify then, but I think that group was tougher, albeit with an extra team. Sweden might be around the same level as the Czechs were then (or are they?), but I don't think Austria are as good as Slovakia would have been. They'd be more on a par with Cyprus (embarrassing 5-2 drubbing aside) or maybe Wales then. Would that be a fair assessment? Six points has to be the aim with Austria if we're to entertain any hope of qualification.

Kazakhstan are ranked lower than the likes of Liechtenstein. They can't really pose a huge deal of threat, can they? Surely we should expect a guaranteed 12 points from them and the Faroes or we might as well just pack it in now? As should Sweden and Germany, however, I suspect. Interestingly, Germany, Austria and Kazakhstan are all competing in the same Euro 2012 qualifying group at the minute. Germany are romping home to a first-place finish in that with the other two doing relatively poorly. Austria's most impressive result to date would have to be a 4-4 away draw against Belgium. Otherwise, their only points came against Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, losing their other home game with Belgium along with their Germany and Turkey games.

I would say that this group is almost identical. I would put the current Austrians ahead of the 2006/8 Slovaks, there are some talented Austrian players, midfielders like Arunatovic and Alaba will be a handfull, and Janko and Hoffer could cause a bit of a problem. We should be able to beat them at home and we should be aiming for a win out in Vienna too. I'd have the 06/08 Czechs ahead of the current Sweden team by a wide margin. That Czech team had proven CL players (Rosicky, Nedved, Jankoulovski) they had Cech in goal and big Jan Koller (who we were never able to deal with) with Baros next to him, that team had it's best years behind it by 06/08 but it was still a very strong team. I would say that Wales team is similar to the current Kazakh team (I think their low seeding is a legacy of the switch from the Asian federation, they sarted off on the bottom of the pile and never really had an easy draw). We should beat the Kazakhs at home, but away the heat (if summer), dryness and distance mean it could be tricky.

[Closed Account 2]

Also it should be said that we are now much better than back in 06/08, player for player it might not look that different, but were far more organised and we will (still, hopefully) have a good manager, with an intimate knowledge of German and Austrian football.

[Maroon 7]

Tough draw really, there are 9 teams in each pot and we got the 3rd best (by official Fifa rankings).
IncidentallyI think were were the second best team in pot 3.

England got it easy, Montenegro, were they not one of the 5th teams in Euro 2012, yep indeed they
were they were in pot 5 and and they are now englands toughtest opposition!!

What a fix!!!

Actually I wondered about this in the pub earlier. How the feck were Montenegro in pot 2? Or did I dream that?

[DannyInvincible]

Austria took 6 points off us the last time we played them.

That was a year after World Cup 1994; a tournament in which Sweden finished third. Is it worth reading too much into two results from over a decade and a half ago? If that's the case, we might as well be saying Sweden are certs to top the group. Austria plummeted down the rankings since peaking at 17th in the world in 1999 and ended up as low as 105th position by 2008 (admittedly they hadn't played competitive games for a year or two due to hosting Euro 2008) and whilst their current position of 66th might be indicative of a slight resurgence (although they were ranked higher earlier this year), I don't think it should strike too much fear into us. The likes of Algeria, Georgia, Scotland and NI are ranked ahead of them; all teams we've beaten in fairly recent times.

I've encountered Marc Janko before. He played twice against Bohs for Salzburg in the Champions League qualifiers in 2009, but it was more his insufferable play-acting that left an indelible mark with me than anything else. His record does appear quite prolific, but the overall strength of the Austrian Bundesliga must also be taken into consideration. I understand he's playing the Twente now.

They're not rubbish like Cyprus, and will be a real banana skin.

If our recent games against them are anything to go by, Cyprus are as much of a banana skin than anyone.

[mypost]

I know when it was. People thought they would be a guaranteed 6 points when we last faced them, and we know what happened. They could still make the play-offs for the next Euros.

[DannyInvincible]

Just looking at some of their recent results, their away form is certainly a weakness. As is ours, I suppose, but they haven't won a competitive away game at all since March of 2005 when they beat Wales. That does include the spell prior to Euro 2008 when they wouldn't have had any competitive games, but it also includes this campaign and the whole of the last campaign where they lost to Lithuania and drew with the Faroes away. Of course, the major scalp of note in recent times was their shock victory over France at the beginning of qualification for the 2010 World Cup, but other than that, they haven't done a huge deal to get worked up about. I'm not dismissing them but would cautiously hope for six points from them if we approach the games with the right attitude and don't lose the plot like France when they caught the French off-guard. Otherwise, I think we might as well forget about even reaching the play-offs either as group runner-up or one of the top eight runners-up.

[Supreme feet]

That and the retirement of key players by the next Finals of Messrs. Robbie, Dunne & quite possibly Shay means no Brasil, sadly.

Robbie will be 32 by the time the campaign kicks off, which is the same age John Aldridge was at the start of the USA 94 qualifiers, in which he was our top scorer. Also, Dunne will be 33, same age as Paul McGrath at the start of the USA 94 campaign. Both McGrath and Moran (who was 36 when he started away to Denmark) played key roles in that campaign. Also, Kenny Cunningham was 33 at the start of the '06 qualifiers, when he was one of our outstanding players.

I don't think age is such a big deal to players who are totally committed to their country. When Denis Irwin retired from international football at 34, his subsequent form for United and Wolves led many to say his retirement was premature. And if anything, players are having longer careers these days, thanks to the general improvement in conditioning and diet within the English game. I think the only players we will lose by the next campaign are Duff (persistent injuries) and Kilbane. With the likes of McCarthy, Meyler, Wilson, Clark, Coleman and Cunningham to come through, I think the Irish team will be in better shape in September 2012 than at present.

[DannyInvincible]

Just for the record, here are Kazakhstan's most recent competitive results:

European Championships 2012
Date	Round	Opponent	Venue	Result	
03.06.2011	qrga	Az'jan	home	W2-1	
26.03.2011	qrga	Germany	away	L0-4	
12.10.2010	qrga	Germany	home	L0-3	
08.10.2010	qrga	Belgium	home	L0-2	
07.09.2010	qrga	Austria	away	L0-2	
03.09.2010	qrga	Turkey	home	L0-3	

World Cup Europe 2010
Date	Round	Opponent	Venue	Result	
14.10.2009	qrg6	Croatia	home	L1-2	
10.10.2009	qrg6	Belarus	away	L0-4	
09.09.2009	qrg6	Andorra	away	W3-1	
10.06.2009	qrg6	Ukraine	away	L1-2	
06.06.2009	qrg6	England	home	L0-4	
01.04.2009	qrg6	Belarus	home	L1-5	
11.10.2008	qrg6	England	away	L1-5	
10.09.2008	qrg6	Ukraine	home	L1-3	
06.09.2008	qrg6	Croatia	away	L0-3	
20.08.2008	qrg6	Andorra	home	W3-0	

European Championships 2008
Date	Round	Opponent	Venue	Result	
24.11.2007	qrga	Serbia	away	L0-1	
21.11.2007	qrga	Armenia	away	W1-0	
17.10.2007	qrga	P'tugal	home	L1-2	
13.10.2007	qrga	Poland	away	L1-3	
12.09.2007	qrga	Belgium	home	D2-2	
22.08.2007	qrga	Finland	away	L1-2	
06.06.2007	qrga	Az'jan	home	D1-1
02.06.2007	qrga	Armenia	home	L1-2	
24.03.2007	qrga	Serbia	home	W2-1	
15.11.2006	qrga	P'tugal	away	L0-3	
11.10.2006	qrga	Finland	home	L0-2	
07.10.2006	qrga	Poland	home	L0-1	
06.09.2006	qrga	Az'jan	away	D1-1
16.08.2006	qrga	Belgium	away	D0-0

I note they beat Serbia at home and Armenia away in 2007. They also managed two draws with Belgium in qualification for Euro 2008. They've managed to beat Andorra (twice) and Azerbaijan since, but, other than those results, their form has been pretty abysmal.

[DannyInvincible]

In Fairness Danny the he also picked Kazakhstan b/c of the rampant anti-semitism there. Which you I am sure would not excuse.

Just on this, without question. However, and I'm probably going a bit off-topic here, is it actually rampant there or was that not simply part of the act, and thus a crude resulting assumption on your part? Such an opinion might be in need of a slight reformulation with a bit of research. Any literature I've encountered - admittedly, I'm no expert - portrays Kazakhstan to be a religiously open and generally tolerant society. I wasn't saying the movie was offensive; rather, it will be the boring inevitability of people having a cheap laugh at the expense of "Borat's backward Kazakhstan", based on their own misguided perceptions of the country due to the fact they didn't actually pick up on the point or irony behind the film (the only cultural reference to Kazakhstan to which most of us can actually relate), that will be offensive. I'm not saying I have any great knowledge of that part of the world myself, but I'll at least try to avoid defining the Kazakh people in terms of Borat's persona or presume that a comedy mockumentary from five years ago is in any way relevant to us drawing Kazakhstan in a World Cup qualification group. Just so we can relate, that would be doing the equivalent of the idiots in the 'Californians on Ireland' video who make fools of themselves assuming the same old usual Irish stereotypes to be true.

Beyond exploiting ignorantly-assumed Western preconceptions of the country's inhabitants as a staged persona in order to help draw out and expose Westerners' own prejudices, I didn't think Sacha Baron Cohen was making a major comment, if any at all, on Kazakhstan actually, which is why I cringe when people assume that Borat was some sort of attempt to realistically portray or poke fun at the Kazakh people and subsequently seek to join in or think of Kazakhstan as a bit of a joke. For a start, the character's appearance didn't even look remotely Kazakh. The Kazakhs are a predominantly Mongoloid people. The Kazakhi government themselves took offence and condemned the film, but clearly completely missed the subtlety therein and misunderstood what it was setting out to achieve. Other commentators from within Kazakhstan were more astute in their analysis and saw to look beneath the layers, lauding it as very funny and even "cruelly anti-American". Apparently, even the football team themselves are fans: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage...cle1775147.ece

Little is known about the former Soviet republic and even less about their national team.

But former boss Arno Pijpers, who was axed last month, said: "They are normal footballers who train and prepare like any others.

"When they are on away trips and they are not playing or training they will play cards or watch DVDs.

"Yes, they do watch the Borat movie. I know the country's politicians didn't like it, but the players find it funny.

They get the jokes and don't think the movie makes fun of Kazakhstan. It makes fun of the US more than it does Kazakhstan."

Of course, it's a bit ridiculous that their coach feels the need in the post-Borat era to confirm to the outside world that they are "normal footballers". What else would they be, for God's sake? But that's not the film's fault. Rather, it serves to prove and enforce the film's point.

Borat's rampant anti-Semitism was all part of the act and was a play on the idea that Westerners, in their cultural snobbery and ignorance, wouldn't know any better, or even be too concerned by it; that they'd inevitably find themselves off-guard in the company of such a naïve buffoon from this apparently unsophisticated backwater who might, in their minds, make their own unsavoury views appear even benign or reasonable in contrast to his. It worked because their ignorance allowed Borat to appear to them like a completely plausible and genuine persona. He utilised the act in a bible-belt gun-shop to expose the attitudes of the gun-shop owner, for example - not the attitudes of Kazakhs - when he asked, "What's the best gun to defend myself from the Jews?", to which the shop-owner responded without hesitation, "That'd be a 9mm or a .45." He's not Chris Morris, but, yeah, I think that's pretty decent satire.

I suppose the point is, let's not be ignorant. Or at least, if we aren't bothered to do a bit of rudimentary research on a certain group of people, let's not embarrass ourselves by replacing a lack of knowledge with insulting presumptions we might have learned (and done to death) from an irrelevant artefact of popular culture released half a decade ago. Regrettably, it's already happened two or three times in this thread.

[Spudulika]

Kazakhstan, for the benefit of those who've not been there from someone who's been 3 times in the last 3 years and whose boss (read her indoors) mother's family hail from there - my other half spent 4 glorious holidays there and still has a grandaunt and host of cousins there - Russians who stayed behind, it's a great country. It's run, as our own, by a consistent upper class of families who rule along tribal lines. Titles are passed from father to son/daughter and there is a system of privilege we all are familiar with - completely incompetent cretins keep being employed because of who their Daddy is. While in Ireland political parties have been infused into the village mentality of the ruling elite, in Kazakhstan it's more about a single warlord doling out jobs and money to smaller ones.

Not unlike Ireland, many of this gobdaw privileged class have been able to migrate to more glam urban centres - like London, where Kazakhstan's golden youth get jobs through connections and nicely get along. While the both countries commoners toil and have the odd bit of bread and games thrown to them, they too have to emigrate to survive, though to less salubrious surrounds - Manchester and Moscow - Irish Kazakh respectively. While the Irish golden youth with their party political-tribal connections pick up a handy cheque bankrupting some bank or company or filling out papers in Nama, the ones whose parents have not been blessed with links to the local cumann head off to building sites in Australia, teach english in Italy or tend bars in Boston. Kazakh less fortunates can be seen manning McDonalds mops in Moscow, serving sushi in franchise "japanese" cafes, or servicing mid-ranking western businessmen in "night clubs".

Kazakhs are uniformly respectful to foreigners, there is still the touch of the steppe about them (I clearly remember going out for a jog one morning in a typical Soviet style 8 story building project and seeing an old lady dressed in traditional garb milking a cow next to the playground). The former capital of the country was one of the most stunning in Central Asia, though it was outside the leaders tribal area, Astana is glittering and glam but can be sterile. Foreign footballers there get paid very well, and there are a number of very promising young locals (one of whom was coming on trial before SFFC were put out of business). The standard of local football is middling, there is still too much corruption in the game, and ultimately football is lower down the pecking order for local sports. Martial sports still hold pride of place.