We've qualified for 4 tournaments in the history of both the World Cup and the European Championships and made an impression on two. We've never been to a semi final, nor do we look likely to for the foreseeable future. On this basis how do we have a history of doing well in tournaments? You do realise the qualification process is part of the tournament too right?Originally Posted by RogerMilla
I think we've done fairly well in all 4
Euro 88: beat England and were within 8 minutes of the semis
WC90: going out to the hosts in the quarters wasn't too shabby
WC94: beat Italy and only lost to a very good Dutch team in the 2nd round.
WC02: were undefeated and took Spain to a shootout.
So I think its fair to say we achieved more than was expected in all 4 of the major competitions we have qualified for
I doubt that many countries with a similiar qualifying record could beat that.Scotland have a terrible record at the tournaments but a pretty good record qualifying for world cups[historically]
My first post (#46) was a simple agreement with Stojkovic, when he argued against expanding the tournament.
My next two (#49, #55) followed a widening (by others) of the thread on how increasing the teams would affect the format of the Finals.
Post #67 was in direct response to Edmundo's post, where he speculated on which countries, including ROI, could host or co-host an enlarged Finals, as were #70 and 73.
And my post #74 was in direct response to IFK101, who took the "ROI to host it" theme further.
Therefore at no stage did I lead this thread off topic, yet you choose to single me out for blame, rather than those various posters to whom I was only replying.
Further, there were no pipe-dreams from me; on the contrary, I was actually debunking some of the more fanciful pipe-dreams of others (inc the idea that UEFA might pay the FAI hundreds of millions of euros to co-host a future Finals)
Finally, I was in no way "smug" when I "denounced" what imo was unrealistic speculation. If you imagine that I take some sort of pleasure in the fact that the ROI is nowhere near suited to be a candidate to host even a 16 team Finals, e,g, with Scotland, then that says far more about you than it does about me. For the record, I'd be perfectly happy if FAI were to stage the Finals with one of the four "Home" Associations, since it would make my own attendance so much cheaper and easier, as well as likely being fine hosts.
With 24 teams to qualify, via two teams from each Group, you would need 12 Groups. At present, UEFA has only 53 Members, therefore seven Qualifying Groups would have 4 teams and five Groups would have 5 teams.
Further, with at least eight countries being "no-hopers" - San Marino, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Kazakstan, Azerbaijan, Faroes, Andorra and Malta - all of the five team Groups would effectively have four teams and two of the four team Groups would effectively have only three contenders.
Add to this the fact that Iceland, Cyprus, Estonia, Lithuania and Belarus have hardly much stronger hopes of progressing, then the qualification process would often be little more than choosing two teams from three.
Worse still, by the luck of the draw, you could have a Group where the third team is actually not that good, so that the top two teams are all but guaranteed to Qualify.
Alternatively, you might get a Group where the third and fourth teams are the strongest of their particular seeds, thereby producing a much harder Group than others. (For example, in Euro2008 Qualifying, NI were 6th Seeds, yet finished third in a tough Group)
I don't understand this.
The profile may be raised in those 12 -15 countries whose Qualification hopes of being in the extra 8 are increased, but what happens when the Finals themselves come along?
Inevitably, the extra eight will perform much more like the poorer teams at Euro2008 (e.g. Greece, Poland), than the top teams (Spain, Netherlands). Many of them will effectively be eliminated after their first two games. Therefore, the majority of the extra games produced by adding 8 teams will be meaningless as to outcome and/or of mediocre standard.
Consequently, you might be interested in your own team's progress, but how much interest will you have in a game between e.g. Belgium and Hungary?
Despite my having no affiliation whatever with any of the Finalists for Euro2008, I enjoyed this Tournament more than any other for years. This was because the majority of games were open and exciting, competitive and skilful, which in turn was (imo) because it only involved the elite teams.
Moreover, I thoroughly enjoyed the Qualifiers, even though my own team fell short.
My fear is that if we extend the Tournament, then the quality of both the Finals AND the Qualifiers will suffer, to no-ones overall good, bar the Accountants. And that's not what football should be about, as far as I'm concerned.
As for NI being more likely to qualify - and we were amongst the top eight third placed teams, btw - I don't particularly want to see us just making up the numbers. On each of the three occasions when we have qualified, it was because we had an unusually good team, and so were going off to Sweden, Spain and Mexico with realistic hopes of doing ourselves proud.
The same applied, I dare say, to those ROI teams which qualified in their turn.
In the end, if I wanted to support a mediocre bunch of also-rans at a major sporting finals, I'd follow the Ireland Rugby team!
I think Ireland's now team has more talent than the 2002 team against Spain.
And the dozens we've failed to advance past the first stage (qualification)? I mean we've qualified for 4/31 tournaments, thats not what I would call a good record
Last edited by jebus; 03/07/2008 at 7:38 PM.
Are you intentionally missing the point?
What he was saying was that we dont qualify that often but when we do we do well at the tournament itself. Our record in the World Cup FINALS is amazing. I cant imagine many teams have qualified for the tournament 3 times and got out of their group each time. (Compare to Scotland who have never gotten out of their group).
The relevance is that for some reason we do well at the tournaments themselves. I suspect there is something around team spirit here but irrespective of the reason this seems accurate.
I think it has to do with the underdog mentality. When we're up against, we up our game, no question.
However, we have lacked the ruthlessness against teams at or below our level.
Not missing the point at all. He's saying we have a good record in the World Cup, I say we've qualified for 2 out of 18 World Cup Finals, which isn't a good record. Both of you fail to understand that the qualification process is part of the World Cup, and so every time we don't qualify we have been eliminated at the first hurdle. This is all irrelevant to the fact that people who want this tournament expanded to give the regular good but not good enough teams a place is going to do so at the loss of the overall quality of the tournament. Can anyone say that the European Cup means as much now as it once did? Or that the World Cup group stages are of any interest whatsoever? Jesus most people complain about the amount of dud teams allowed into the World Cup finals and now people are advocating doing the same to the European Championship
I think most people view the qualification process and the tournament itself as being separate despite the fact you have to do well in the former to even get invited to the latter.
As far as the tournaments themselves go I think it's fair to say we've done pretty well when we've managed to reach them. Which hasn't been very often sadly.
We couldn't host it with 16 teams, let alone 24. The idea is a non-starter. The best we can hope for, is a Euro final at Lansdowne, that's as much as we can manage.
As long as Rangers aren't involved.....
What is about Galway fans and the word invite when talking about football?We qualify, we don't get invited, hence the World Cup qualifiers are as much a part of the World Cup as the Champions League prelim rounds and first stage
They are not separate, just at a different level.
My fear of us getting hammered in any of the finals is about 100 times greater than us doing okay.
So it has been a great relief that at our worst we have just been dead boring but never peed upon.
is it really ? well do explain...
Was he crazy!! Yeah , in a very special way , an Irishman.
I slept, and dreamed that life was Beauty;
I woke, and found that life was Duty.
germany renovated and use the stadia now even leipzig which is used for athletics , austria and switzerlands may have been improved upon but were definitely poor , portugal i have no idea
and as for south africa , poland and ukraine , vanity excercises...
Was he crazy!! Yeah , in a very special way , an Irishman.
I slept, and dreamed that life was Beauty;
I woke, and found that life was Duty.
The difference been in those countries, when they say they'll build it, it gets built. Here, as the FAI and Rovers know, the time between idea and completion is roughly 10 years.
Even something like the Luas in Dublin, took 9 years to build two lines that don't connect.
Look at the Germans. When they won the WC rights, only half the stadiums were ready. Now, they've got some of the finest stadia in the world. The Allianz in Munich was built in 3 years, from the first brick to the key handover, even with the freezing winter months. Despite the fact that both countries are supposed to be among the richest in the world.
germany spent as much renovating stadiums as new ones would cost to build. they also built about half from scratch. they still didnt have the stadiums in place when they won the right. no country ever has and thats the point i was making. IF (big if!) we ever won the rights to hold a tournament jointly we would have CP (provided the gaa allowed it be used and why wouldnt they given the money they would make), lansdowne and two other new 30,000 stadiums in cork and say galway would be viable for mixed use afterwards.
switzerland re-built basle, zurich, geneva and berne for the euros not just "improved" upon.
ok but my point is that they were not vanity excercises from the germans and swiss... ours would be.
lets forget about hosting it , and concentrate on making hay from the fact that we could conceivably qualify for every Euro going forward once ot becomes 24 teams...
Was he crazy!! Yeah , in a very special way , an Irishman.
I slept, and dreamed that life was Beauty;
I woke, and found that life was Duty.
Posting Permissions
Quote
Bookmarks