World Cup 2010 Qualification - Europe

Nah, he doesn't realize that our old players can't play to save their lives. In every game Krzynowek is playing, it would help us big time if the ref gave him a red card on the first minute. He destroys plays rather then help. We'd be better off playing with 10 men then with 11 including krzynowek.

Everyone above the age of 26 has to be out (excluding GK's, Brozek and Jelen) imo. Boruc is still a great goalkeeper, he is just incredibly unstable at the moment. Fabianski should play until boruc get's back to normal. (By the Euro 2012 qualification boruc should be back to normal).
 
a non-european non-soccer-addict breaks down an outsider's views on each group.

Group 1 - Denmark appears to be set. if they don't get 3 points against albania, something is wrong. Hungary will need to TRY and lose to Malta, so 13 points after 6 games and 13 points after 5 games might be insurmountable for Sweden and certainly would be for Portugal. Portugal completely looks out, but should Denmark only tie Albania, and Sweden beats them in June (a victory over malta is again, almost guaranteed), that would mean Sweden has 12 to a Danish 11. Sweden needs to win over Denmark or they have no chance without Portuguese help against Hungary.

Group 2...

April 1 will decide the fates for Israel and Greece. If either team wins, they are mostly set, barring a major collapse. However if there is a draw that plays out in benefit to the Swiss and Latvians (who still cling to a tiny hope of 2nd place spot if everyone else kills each other). If the Swiss don't get 3 points on April 1, they've f***ed themselves over but not fatally. Luxembourg will enjoy playing spoiler but Moldova has pretty much rolled over and taken everything.

Group 3 is a tricky one, but to me the team in contention in the WORST position is north Ireland. though currently in the top spot, they have played 1-2 more games than anyone else and have 6 points against San Marino (not a tricky feat), while everyone else has 0 (slovenia) or 3 (rest). Slovakia looks good, as do the Czech Rep, but Slovenia has 6 guaranteed points left and Poland is still kicking.

Group 4 is interesting. Russia actually looks better to me than Germany, though Germany needs a major catastrophe of epic proportions to lose. On october 10, a whole lot of teams will be rooting for Liechtenstein to beat Azerbaijan to claim NOT 6th place in the group, helping out with the 2nd place tiebreaker. Keep in mind for a second that Germany has beaten Liechtenstein twice, whereas russia has yet to, and russia has only played azerbaijan once (6 free points vs 3) furthermore the tie with finland is worrisome to germany, considering they allowed 3 goals in 20 minutes scored by a team that only has 6 total. however, if germany beats wales they have essentially clinched the group.

Group 5 is a competition between 3 teams for 2nd place, and 2 teams for counting in tiebreak. Turkey certainly hopes that Armenia crush estonia on wednesday. If turkey can get at least a single point out of spain, they definitely have the upper hand in the group, though belgium should not be counted out. I'm personally not sold on the Bosnians.

Despite their embarrassment against England, I believe that croatia is a better team than the Ukraine. England has this group locked up though.

Lithuania is an upstart team that will unfortunately fold to france yet again and lose all momentum wednesday. Serbia has the group and France 2nd.

Italy/Ireland shall be an interesting game for first, but both should qualify easily. Bulgaria pleasantly surprised in 2/4 draws, the other 2 show why they won't make it on.

Netherlands are the only team worth talking about here. any team could take 2nd, but hopefully they will be the one that doesnt qualify.

I have said it, fire back at me.
 
I like Lithuania. I think they'll be like Croatia or Czech Republic, be good for 5 or so years then start to decline.
 
Some more Group 1 Arithmetic::)

Games Won Tie Lost Score
Denmark 4 3 1 0 10
Hungary 5 3 1 1 10
Portugal 5 1 3 1 6
Sweden 4 1 3 0 6
Albania 6 1 3 2 6
Malta 6 0 1 5 1

OK, Denmark is set to take this one. The scenarios proceed from what it would take for someone else to beat them out. (And its all provisionary on the understanding that I've done me numbers right too.)

So, Sweden goes through in first place IF Sweden wins its remaining games against Albania (1), Hungary (1, Hungary at home, tricky), Malta (2), AND Denmark (2, ouch). That leaves Sweden with 24 p, Denmark with max 22 p. It also works for Sweden if it ties one with Denmark provided Portugal wins or ties its remaining match against the Danes (Sweden 22, Denmark 20/21, Portugal max 21).

Portugal absolutely needs to win every damn game remaining, no ties, or else. At best it leaves Portugal with 21 p, meaning it will need the results between Sweden and Denmark to go their way, and/or have the Hungarians steal points from both (which they might well do).

The Hungarians can theoretically win the group. "All" it requires is probably for them to win twice against Denmark (2), and against Sweden (1), the second Portugal game they can "afford" to lose if so. Then Hungary could rack up 25 p (5 victories) or 22 p (4, one defeat), with at best Denmark at 22, Sweden at 21, and portugal at 21. It would be a an upset if they did, but nothing is decided yet.
 
jeps said:
Group 4 is interesting. Russia actually looks better to me than Germany, though Germany needs a major catastrophe of epic proportions to lose. On october 10, a whole lot of teams will be rooting for Liechtenstein to beat Azerbaijan to claim NOT 6th place in the group, helping out with the 2nd place tiebreaker. Keep in mind for a second that Germany has beaten Liechtenstein twice, whereas russia has yet to, and russia has only played azerbaijan once (6 free points vs 3) furthermore the tie with finland is worrisome to germany, considering they allowed 3 goals in 20 minutes scored by a team that only has 6 total. however, if germany beats wales they have essentially clinched the group.
Click to expand...

Russia is certainly the biggest question in Group 4. I wouldn't be surprised if they for example lose to Wales or Azerbaijan, though I wouldn't be surprised if Russia steamrolls through the qualifications and wins rest of their matches. We just hope that Russia isn't fully concentrated or just doesn't play well against us in June, because if we win Russia in Helsinki, we're maybe closer than ever to qualifying to a World Cup.

If we assume that Germany, Russia and Finland win all their matches against the bottom three, Wales, Azerbaijan and Liechtenstein, then all we have to do is to win in Helsinki and hope that Germany wins Russia in Moscow(yeah, Russia is really, really good at home, but they have to lose some day). That way we would surely qualify even if we lost to Germany in the last game. Otherwise we would have to draw or win against Germany in the last match to qualify.

If we don't lose or draw with the bottom three but Russia or Germany does, our chances are much bigger. Again, our game against Russia in June will be extremely important, but if we would manage to win it and Russia is the one that loses points to the bottom three, we would be almost sure to qualify.

Of course, this is meaningless speculation, but I just wanted to say that if we manage to beat Russia in Helsinki, we have a great chance to qualify to the WC 2010.
 
@Boruc: Well, you're playing San Marino, you could put the friggin' dead pope on goal and you should still be alright.
 
He packed his bags and left for Glasgow yesterday Morning. Fabianski is playing.

About Beenhakker, i think he should leave. He is a good coach to take a team which is already playing decently and has good players, and take them to the next level. (For example, Trinidad and Tobago, they did well in WC cause of him). What Poland needs is a coach that can completely rebuild the team from nothing but a couple decent players that stay around on bench in their club games, and a couple youngsters. (no more older players anymore). Beenhakker isn't that kind of coach, we need to find another coach.
 
Just some random trivia I thought would be important to share...since it could change tomorrow.
Netherlands, Israel, and Spain have not lost games in this set of WCQ. Nor have they lost games in qualifying (or not, in Israel's case) for 2006 world cup. In fact, the last time these teams lost in a qualifier was Sept 1, 2001 (Netherlands), March 28, 2001 (Israel), and March 31, 1993 (Spain). Now I don't THINK turkey will beat spain, but 4 world cups have come and gone since their last qualifying loss...wow. kinda says a lot about the team.
 
Well, it isn't as much about not losing, it's about winning. See Portugal in their current qualification for that.
 
Well Poland 10 - 0 San Marino

Perhaps we are doing well and Northern Ireland was just a 1-off game?
 
Russia also beat the crap out of Liechtenstein.
 
Italy 1 - 1 Ireland

We lost one man at 3', scored at 10' then in the end Irish perseverance paid off. Good heart they have - in the last minutes after they leveled score it looked as if they were about to score another one.
 
Czech Republic - Slovakia 1:2

First half was like in Slovenia, horrible perfomace without any idea. Slovaks shot nice goal but thanks own goal after 9 minutes the score was 1:1.
After break Czechs started somewhat play and keeping Slovak GK busy, ironically Slovaks in one break-away in last 10 minutes scored winning goal.

We have practically lost chance on WC, on the other hand, it was probably last match for our coach. Of course its now question if our coach realy sucks that hard, maybe our players have simply forgot how to play football.
 
I really hate how Slovakia and Northern IReland won. I wished they were both ties. That would've been awesome for us.
 
I think that N.Ireland will fall behind.
 
^^ They'll suck away from home

England won :D

But we made it difficult for ourselves, still we haven't yet lost or drawn so thats something...
 
Seems like we broke some records.

10-0 is our highest ever score, the previous being 9-0 vs Norway.

We also broke the country's fastest goal ever with Boguski scoring from a charge straight of the kick-off scoring just at 25 seconds.
 
jeps said:
Just some random trivia I thought would be important to share...since it could change tomorrow.
Netherlands, Israel, and Spain have not lost games in this set of WCQ. Nor have they lost games in qualifying (or not, in Israel's case) for 2006 world cup. In fact, the last time these teams lost in a qualifier was Sept 1, 2001 (Netherlands), March 28, 2001 (Israel), and March 31, 1993 (Spain). Now I don't THINK turkey will beat spain, but 4 world cups have come and gone since their last qualifying loss...wow. kinda says a lot about the team.
Click to expand...
I think you jinxed it there :mischief:
 
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