Really and truely you can speculate on various players but you will never know until they are in that situation. Look back at all the champions league finals that have been decided in recent years, look at the names of people who missed, Trezegeut, Seedorf, Shevchenko, Pirlo, Ronaldo and Anelka. All players you would put your house on to score if it was a normal EPL game at Wolves but in intense pressure situations they buckled. As far as I'm concerned anyone could miss or any one could score for Ireland, who thought Dave O'Leary would put away a winner?
Just in general I think should it go to penalties, the reletively newly independent country on the verge of qualification for the first major tournament in front of a hostile Dublin crowd may not have the nerve to see themselves over the line.
Again, I expect the game to be resolved long before penalties.
I have a question from 2009 that still hasn't been answered. If we do go to extra time after the 2nd Leg in Dublin, would away goals still count double in the extra time period (i.e. if we scored and then they scored they'd go through)? The obvious answer would be they do, but then obviously the away side has a somewhat unfair advantage.
Last edited by theworm2345; 08/11/2011 at 5:39 PM.
My Guarantee
Am looking for old Irish matches on VHS, PM me if you have some and I'll upload them here
You wouldn't call McGeady a good striker of the ball, nor the type of player when placing the ball on the spot who exudes the confidence that would loosen the hands from your eyes, but he has poked home the pressure penalties time and time again. I'd take him anyday ahead of a player who hasn't converted one on the pitch.
The view of Estonia's centre-back, Raio Piiroja...
http://examiner.ie/sport/soccer/esto...#ixzz1dFK5FciP
Interesting...He insisted: "Everyone here likes to compare this to the Northern Ireland match that we won in Belfast last month but that is not a good comparison. This Ireland will be totally different, even to the team that played here 10 years ago, because 10 years ago they were like a typically British team, playing a lot of long balls straight away.
"This is different. Now Ireland is pretty creative as well under Trapattoni. He is a great manager who has made a big difference. Ireland are playing much better football now, are more organised, have only conceded one goal in nine games and don’t play a straight game anymore. It will not be easy for us."![]()
Why on earth would our play-off against Estonia be compared to a game in Belfast where they happened to beat NI last month?
Whether or not we're "pretty creative" nowadays is one thing, but if Estonians assume we play at a standard as poorly as NI, they'll be in for a bit of a surprise.
Piiroja would certainly be correct if he was to say that we're a more organised outfit now than we have been in recent years, but we were also accomplished at the back in 2000-2001 when we beat Estonia 2-0 both at home and away. We only conceded 5 goals throughout the qualification campaign for the 2002 World Cup, or 6 if you include the play-off games against Iran. That was over a total of 12 games in which we also scored 23 goals. In fact, we conceded the least number of goals in our group that campaign. Portugal conceded two more than us whilst the Dutch conceded a total of 9. As a comparison, in our qualification group this time round, we conceded 7 goals over 10 games.
Anyway, how's the buzz building up for this at home? It's hard to gauge when I'm off the mainland.![]()
Unreal that they would compare this in anyway similar to their game against a team of group minnows
The Ref for the 1st Leg seems to have some good experience
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Kassai
We've had hiom before!
Here they come! It’s the charge of the “Thanks” Brigade!
Excellent article on the opinion of some Irish fans on Trapattoni's management: http://www.football365.com/f365-says/7299220/F365-Says
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