Flip side is that Sweden were seconds away from a draw in Tallaght which would have seen them through instead.
Swings and roundabouts.
The flip side is Ireland missing penalties cost them 4 points, those 4 points were the difference between needing a win and needing a draw away to Italy on the final day.
Well, yes really. You can almost always pick moments in a campaign that change it on its head. I don't think it's balanced to only pick the ones that would have benefitted us.
That we had to play Sweden again is irrelevant; had they held on for 30 seconds more in Tallaght, we'd have finished third. And that was closer to happening than us winning in Montenegro
Yes, we could have been a better second place with a small bit extra. But we could equally have been third by that same margin
Swings and roundabouts
Last edited by pineapple stu; 16/06/2022 at 7:33 AM.
Eh no, you are totally missing the point, the fallacious point was offered that we were fortunate to beat Sweden at home therefore also fortunate to finish the table in 2nd place, but this is a group campaign where teams play home and away. After beating Sweden at home whether fortunate or not, we then went to Sweden and beat them in Sweden. There's no equally 'could have been third' that's total bull, when you go to their home town and beat them for a second time fair and square, that says it all. Absolutely earned 2nd place and ridiculous to refer to that fortunate home result, Sweden had their chance to rectify matters and they failed.
And the reality is Ireland dropped 4-5 points they shouldn’t have meaning if anything Sweden were fortunate they even were in the running at all in June.
No, you're still missing the point.
I'm not arguing we didn't deserve or earn second place.
I am saying that you can't really say "If only we had beaten Montenegro, we would have been the best second placed team and qualified automatically" (as Eirambler did) without also acknowledging that we benefitted at key moments of our own along the way. And they tend to balance out (hence "swings and roundabouts"). We could equally have done better than we did or worse than we did, but we deserved to finish where we did in the end.
Last edited by pineapple stu; 17/06/2022 at 9:26 AM.
Draw today at 12, live streamed on uefa.com - https://www.uefa.com/under21/news/02...-at-13-00-cet/
no seedings, straight draw
home and away ties to be played in September
Ireland v Israel,home first…
Irish by birth ,Harps by the grace of god.
Second to Germany and ahead of Poland and Hungary. A point ahead of Poland with one more win. They took 4 points off Poland and 6 off Hungary. Seems like Liel Abada player a couple of games in qualification but I assume seniors took precedence for him as he wasn't in their squad for June qualifiers.
Almost identical record to ourselves in their qualification group, they did score three more
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_U...cation_Group_B
that must be a v good draw!!
As good as we could have hoped for I think. Though they will probably be saying the same thing. Croatia and Denmark drawing each other opened the draw up nicely for everyone else.
The UCD manager Andy Myler has confirmed that Liam Kerrigan is to join Serie B side Como 1907.
I like him as a player. It'll be interesting to see how he does.
Presale for the 1st leg went on sale this morning. Great value at €10
Squad announced:
https://twitter.com/faireland/status...115476481?s=21
Connolly coming back is the big surprise. I think injuries are: McEntee, Bagan, Kilkenny, Noss.
Keepers and centre halves straight forward.
Tayo Adaramola is probably a bit hard done by. He was good in his last game he played and with Bagan injured, you’d think he had eyes on starting. Andy Lyons perhaps the one to get the nod?
Midfieldwise, hadn’t heard of Azaz till now. Connell an obvious replacement for Kilkenny. Not that he really deserves to be there, but I feel really sorry for Ryan Johansson. Made such an effort to switch and has basically been forgotten.
Maher
O’Connor
McGuinness
Bagan
Lyons
Coventry
Smallbone
Tierney
Ebosele/Kerrigan
Ferguson/Odubeko/Kayode
Connolly/Wright/O’Neill
Strong squad with the exception of goalkeepers. We should have enough to beat Israel over two legs, as long as keeper makes no mistakes.
might be the only one but i dont see it with tyreik wright. hes been a regular pretty much so it's probably harsh not to include him but i was surprised they've dropped young burns already.
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