Nations League B/C Promotion/Relegation Playoffs - March 2025

[Diggs246]

happy out, flights booked, roll on 2025!

You've booked already! Fair ,play

[Eirambler]

It's a decent draw. It would be disappointing not to get the better of them over two legs. Maybe they're better than I'm giving them credit for but I honestly couldn't name a single current Bulgarian player - maybe they have some younger talent coming through?

Since the 90s, is there another nation in Europe who have fallen as much as ourselves & Bulgaria?

Hungary collapsed from the late 80s onwards and have only recovered recently. Bulgaria went higher than us (World Cup Semi Final) and have fallen further and for longer I'd say. Norway haven't qualified for anything since Euro 2000. Scotland went from France 98 to Euro 2020 without qualifying for anything. Wales of course famously didn't qualify for anything from 1958 to 2016.

But Greece must have had one of the biggest and swiftest ever collapses - they won Euro 2004, qualified for Euro 2008, WC 2010, Euro 2012 and WC 2014, then collapsed to 1 win in 10 games in a soft Euro 2016 qualification group and haven't qualified for anything since. Obviously they're on the way back now.

I think the point is that loads of countries of similar size to us go through lean spells, but eventually come back from them. Bulgaria's fall seems longer and deeper than most though. This playoff might give us a hint as to whether we're on a Bulgaria trajectory (I don't think we are) or something on a smaller scale.

[Eirambler]

By the way.. another thing making the play offs so important

If Norn Iron are still considered "part of the bid".. then they'll be in Path B next time

Only two of the "bid Nations" get automatic qualification

England will qualify through groups, so us, Scotland, Wales.. you'd imagine one of Scotland and Wales would qualify.. leaving us in by default

But, if Norn Iron are in the mix..then as a Path B team, they'd automatically be ranked higher than us, should we drop to Path C..

Then we'd need two of Scotland, Wales, Norn Iron to qualify direct for us to pick up a default spot

March's games will be so so important for us for the next half a decade

This is important, but as I understand it not in respect of the north. They're understood to be accepting that they are no longer involved as far as automatic qualification goes. However, we do need to stay in B to compete with Scotland and Wales as, in the not unlikely event that none of the three qualify automatically, the Nations League ranking next time might be used to allocate the two automatic qualification places. That said, Scotland and Wales may well be in the A division anyway, so it may not be seen as a fair way to allocate the places and they may use performance in the qualification groups, or a mini playoff instead.

[Fixer82]

Record V Bulgaria

Didn’t Aidan O’Brien score against them too to secure a 1-1 draw? From a Callum O’Dowda cross? Or did I imagine that?

[Fixer82]

Didn’t Aidan O’Brien score against them too to secure a 1-1 draw? From a Callum O’Dowda cross? Or did I imagine that?

Just realised that was against Poland. Expected O’Brien to kick on a bit tbh. He played very well in a couple of games for us

[Eirambler]

Just looking through the Bulgaria squad it's incredible that they now haven't got a single player contracted to a club in a Top 5 European league (for contrast we have called up 16 in the last year, even in our current state). Was reading a few articles about what's gone wrong in Bulgarian football and their situation makes our current issues look small in comparison. We really need to be putting them away in March, no excuses here.

[Fixer82]

Just looking through the Bulgaria squad it's incredible that they now haven't got a single player contracted to a club in a Top 5 European league (for contrast we have called up 16 in the last year, even in our current state). Was reading a few articles about what's gone wrong in Bulgarian football and their situation makes our current issues look small in comparison. We really need to be putting them away in March, no excuses here.

Remember them in ‘94. Lethal!

[SkStu]

Remember them in ‘94. Lethal!

Yordan Letchkov (sp) was one of my favourite players of that tournament! Class! They played some great stuff too, all round. A lot of fun watching them in that tournament.

[samhaydenjr]

Remember them in ‘94. Lethal!

Yordan Letchkov (sp) was one of my favourite players of that tournament! Class! They played some great stuff too, all round. A lot of fun watching them in that tournament.

Of course, Stoichkov was the star but, boy, could he moan... at the ref, his opponents, his teammates - at one point, against Sweden I think, he fell over and lost the ball - when he got up he was scowling and muttering and Jimmy Magee said "Sometimes, I think, he even hates himself"

[Eirambler]

Seemingly Boris Mihaylov, who was the goalkeeper in that team, went on to become a John Delaney type figure in the Bulgarian football association and is blamed for a lot of their more recent troubles.

[pineapple stu]

The keeper with the toupee of course (allegedly!)

[seanfhear]

The keeper with the toupee of course (allegedly!)

Can you really trust a man that won't show you his real scalp ? !

[elatedscum]

Seemingly Boris Mihaylov, who was the goalkeeper in that team, went on to become a John Delaney type figure in the Bulgarian football association and is blamed for a lot of their more recent troubles.

The keeper with the toupee of course (allegedly!)

His son Nickolay was a good keeper, at least in his early 20s. He was bald by 21, so I strongly suspect, on a windy day, the toupee might not have fallen far from the tree…

Back in 2008, I befriended a lad from Bulgaria who I asked about Valeri Bojinov and Nickolai Mihaylov - and he ended up ranting about Boris and corruption in the football association and the country at large. He was also shocked to see our attendances at a friendly - I think it was around 43,000 in Croke Park against Serbia. I think he said their most recent friendly had about 3,000 people at it (against Finland maybe?)

Thinking back to that time, you used to have 7 and 8 team groups to qualify for a tournament unlike our new poxy 4 team groups. 14 games… we’ll have 6 to qualify for a World Cup

Those were the days… https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA...008_qualifying

[elatedscum]

Those were the days… https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA...008_qualifying

David Healy scored as many goals in one qualifying campaign as anyone had scored in their entire Northern Ireland career (at the time) - that’d be like Evan Ferguson scoring 68 goals in the qualifiers next autumn.

[seanfhear]

David Healy scored as many goals in one qualifying campaign as anyone had scored in their entire Northern Ireland career (at the time) - that’d be like Evan Ferguson scoring 68 goals in the qualifiers next autumn.

Over to you Evan !

[nigel-harps1954]

happy out, flights booked, roll on 2025!

Considered doing the same but getting to Plovdiv is the guts of a full day of travel for me. No direct flights from Ireland in March either.

[Eirambler]

FIFA apparently released their World Cup draw regulations last night/this morning which has confirmed it. Makes things a bit easier in terms of fitting in match dates as we (and the other Nations League playoff teams) can't play qualifiers in March. There will probably be teams with four qualifiers played (in the March and June windows) before we even start in September.

Apparently an about turn has been done on this and the draw has been opened up again, adding a small possibility that we could still get a five team group and have two qualifiers in June.

[geysir]

Can you really trust a man that won't show you his real scalp ? !

In this regard and only this regard would I offer some solace with Bulgarians. Post Chernobyl fall out, large enough parts of Bulgaria were ‘toxified’ by radiation fall-out. It became a thing, sudden total hair loss (total alopecia) among many young men. Another footballer from the same area was Stillian Petrov, a heathy young man stricken with acute leukemia, that being a major disease effect of the post-Chernobyl disaster.

Bulgaria’s gov. (i.e. Kremlin approved) put the lid on the reports they themselves commissioned post Chernobil, but somehow the original reports themselves were leaked out.
In football terms, Bulgaria are where they should be in the rankings, I’d bet the garden shed that Ireland will be too good for them.

[Stuttgart88]

Seems like there’s now a small chance of us being in a 5 team group - with England / Switzerland - due to a change FIFA has just made to the qualifying procedure.

https://x.com/dalejohnsonespn/status...ydrwumxbzBxdHQ