Is it getting tougher to qualify?

[paul_oshea]

I find that I am making a fairly obvious statement here, but looking over the last two qualifying campaigns, winning away from home is getting more and more difficult, not just for us for everyone, and there are a lot more suprise results. It seems nowadays that you no longer need to beat all the 3-6 entries in a table, but also at least 1 of the top 2 at least twice. The points for second were extremely high in all groups this time round.

Finally, people on here predicted 22 points or even 24 would have been enough to qualify. We were 10 points off Germany, so looking back it WAS NOT lost in cyprus or away in slovakia or even the home draw with cyprus, even if we had won all of those we would still be only 24 points and 3 behind Germany. So that goes back to my point above, but I believe for the next campaign we will HAVE to beat each top team once or one top team twice in order to qualify for the next campaign. Discuss.....

*Top meaning 1st or Second seeded team.

[OwlsFan]

We need to be able to win away from home against mid ranking teams. Until that happens, we'll have no hope. At least our home form was ok but no wins there either against the top two.

[Sligo Hornet]

We need to be able to win away from home against mid ranking teams. Until that happens, we'll have no hope. At least our home form was ok but no wins there either against the top two.

Also, drawing too many games puts on added pressure

[Hibernian]

i think it is.

I looked at all the 16 teams who got to Euro 2008 and I feel we are not better then any of them imo.

I think we be easily in pot 4 for Euro 2008 if we were in it right now for sure and be honest think all teams would want us in there group.

As for World Cup it may get tougher but depends on the draw we get

[RogerMilla]

we need to win ALL home games , and we should be winning them , we have the personnel.

[Stuttgart88]

We look at our players and think a few of them are as good as we've ever had. England think they have a golden generation.

Well, here's news. Every other country has better players than they used to have too. Everyone is fitter and better coached these days.

It made me laugh at the number of people here who thought we should "win easily" in Israel in 2005.

[Dr. Ogba]

imho we have to be more ruthless and start killing off games against the weaker teams...Wales Slovakia and Cyprus were all prime examples of not believing that we could go and kill the game off with the third goal (or the second goal in Cyprus' case)...hopefully a new manager can instill that belief just like Sanchez and McLeish did for the north and Scotland respectively...

[Real ale Madrid]

It made me laugh at the number of people here who thought we should "win easily" in Israel in 2005.

Yeah but we should have definitly won that game all the same - not easily mind you.

It has always been difficult to qualify - it will be very difficult next time but when you see average teams like Poland, Greece, Czech republic and Romania all winning thier groups, then with a good manager and a set of properly motivated players there is no reason why we cant get in the top two of any group.

[OwlsFan]

Yeah but we should have definitly won that game all the same - not easily mind you.

It has always been difficult to qualify - it will be very difficult next time but when you see average teams like Poland, Greece, Czech republic and Romania all winning thier groups, then with a good manager and a set of properly motivated players there is no reason why we cant get in the top two of any group.

Each with populations far greater than ours and much bigger pool of players to choose from. How many countries with a population of 4 million qualified as a matter of interest and where soccer is only the 2nd sport behind the national game? We need to get realistic about where we are in the world pecking order.

[RogerMilla]

We need to get realistic about where we are in the world pecking order.

no we don't , we need to punch our weight and then above our weight and move ourselves up in that pecking order.

[Cymro]

As I said in another thread, the larger the group, the harder it is for medium to small-sized nations to qualify for these things. A 7 team group like this time (8 in one group) creates problems for a small nation with little depth when injuries, suspensions or just plain lack of consistency start to kick in. With the format back to 6 teams for the World Cup we should both benefit and come closer to qualification.

[Ireland4ever]

We also need to be not Sh*te!

[Cymro]

Well that helps too I suppose.

[Real ale Madrid]

Each with populations far greater than ours and much bigger pool of players to choose from. How many countries with a population of 4 million qualified as a matter of interest and where soccer is only the 2nd sport behind the national game? We need to get realistic about where we are in the world pecking order.

Forget about populations - we are well able to mix it with the four teams above - we played atrocious away against the Czechs and nearly got a result - imagine a good solid well motivated outfit we would have a chance of getting 4 points against the Czech Republic.

I mean if we want to be defeatist - or in your words - realistic - just bring back Stan and let us plod along for another campaign. We are capable of much better than that. With the players at our disposal, we are capable of mixing it in any group.

[carloz]

This is all Sepp Blatters fault. It is almost a guarantee that 6 of the last 8 at the next world cup will be from Europe. Yet of the 32 teams that qualify we only get 13 spots, the damn holders even have to qualify. Yet we are going to have a nothing nation that has come third from CONCECAF, probably Jamaica or Trinidad and Tobago, we are going to have at least one nothing team from Asia, probably Saudi Arabia, and we are going to have a nothing team from Africa along the lines of Angola.

[Drumcondra 69er]

As I said in another thread, the larger the group, the harder it is for medium to small-sized nations to qualify for these things. A 7 team group like this time (8 in one group) creates problems for a small nation with little depth when injuries, suspensions or just plain lack of consistency start to kick in. With the format back to 6 teams for the World Cup we should both benefit and come closer to qualification.

True to a point but the problem will be that only the winners go through and only the best 8 second places reach the playoffs.

It's going to be hell to try and qualify, I'd sooner the larger group and top two automtically going in.

For me there shoud be pre qualifying for the weaker nations, let them get some proper competition in their games before they get put in a group where the finish up on zero points.

[eekers]

This is all Sepp Blatters fault. It is almost a guarantee that 6 of the last 8 at the next world cup will be from Europe. Yet of the 32 teams that qualify we only get 13 spots, the damn holders even have to qualify. Yet we are going to have a nothing nation that has come third from CONCECAF, probably Jamaica or Trinidad and Tobago, we are going to have at least one nothing team from Asia, probably Saudi Arabia, and we are going to have a nothing team from Africa along the lines of Angola.

yes that really had an effect on our euro 2008 qualifying

for germany '88 there were 6 qualifiying spots available
for euro 2008 there were 14

for italia 90 there were 13 spots
for south africa 2012 there are 13 spots

it cant be harder to qualify

and personally i think that any well organised team from a medium sized country like ourselves well qualify.
croatia for example have a population of 4.5m

[Drumcondra 69er]

yes that really had an effect on our euro 2008 qualifying

for germany '88 there were 6 qualifiying spots available
for euro 2008 there were 14

for italia 90 there were 13 spots
for south africa 2012 there are 13 spots

it cant be harder to qualify

and personally i think that any well organised team from a medium sized country like ourselves well qualify.
croatia for example have a population of 4.5m

There were a lot less coutries in Europe back then though. One Yugoslavia, one Czechoslovakia, one Russian team etc.

Not comparing like with like.

[gustavo]

yes that really had an effect on our euro 2008 qualifying

for germany '88 there were 6 qualifiying spots available
for euro 2008 there were 14

for italia 90 there were 13 spots
for south africa 2012 there are 13 spots

it cant be harder to qualify

and personally i think that any well organised team from a medium sized country like ourselves well qualify.
croatia for example have a population of 4.5m

groups had less teams then though , like our group for euro 92 only had 4 teams

[carloz]

yes that really had an effect on our euro 2008 qualifying

for germany '88 there were 6 qualifiying spots available
for euro 2008 there were 14

for italia 90 there were 13 spots
for south africa 2012 there are 13 spots

it cant be harder to qualify

and personally i think that any well organised team from a medium sized country like ourselves well qualify.
croatia for example have a population of 4.5m

Im talking about the World Cup BTW, not the European Championsips. When we qualified for Germany and Italy there was only Yugoslavia instead of the 6 nations there now, Czechslovakia was still there and all the Russian satellite countries were not around. So that kind of runis you argument a tad. I just think Europe deserves more than 13 spots from 32 for the World Cup