Official World Cup 2010 Qualifying Thread

[Disturbance]

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England get drawn with Croatia lol.




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Do you support Ireland or anyone but England? :/

[Iplayboard]

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Group 7 - France, Romania, Serbia, Lithuania, Austria, Faroe Islands


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I think that France got a very difficult draw. I'm unsure of Lithuania's strength relative to other teams from pot 4 and Faroe Islands are a joke. Besides that, Austria are a pretty good pot 5 team. More importantly the only team worse than Romania would be England. I also think that Serbia are the strongest team from pot 3.

[ikestoys]

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Anyway, not an impossible task, but with the dubious officiating in CONCACAF, I think it will be tough for us to qualify.


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I think its more of the Canadian team being very mediocre than poor officiating.

[sharkstevie]

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England get drawn with Croatia lol.




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Do you support Ireland or anyone but England? :/

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Yeah I support Ireland lol, but I thought that draw was funny as it came out.

I think Ireland should get the play off spot, Bulgaria ain't nothing special but our last campaign with Steve Staunton was a shambles but if we get our act together we should finish 2nd comfortably

[eurythmech]

How is anyone Irish cocky about their chances? I mean, when was the last time they played a tournament, 94?

Anyway, looking forward to this a great lot. I thionk a lot of interesting things have been said.

As for Sweden, I think we're a close 2nd favorite to Portugal. Lots of key games, as usual. Looking forward to have the fixtures set.

[sixfour]

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How is anyone Irish cocky about their chances? I mean, when was the last time they played a tournament, 94?

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Obviously forgot 2002 then

[sharkstevie]

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How is anyone Irish cocky about their chances? I mean, when was the last time they played a tournament, 94?

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lol i never said anything about finishing top of the group which would be cocky, every time we've gotten to the world cup we've gotten out of the group and performed well '90,'94 &'02. 1990 we got to the quarters lost 1-0 to Italy, 1994 we were the only team to beat Italy in normal time who were runners up, 2002 we got beaten on penalties by the Spanish who got lucky and drew against the finalists Germany in the group stages. How is saying we should get the play off spot being cocky our team isn't bad and Bulgaria is our competition? Everyone else here is expecting us to get 2nd if we don't [censored] up like last campaign, I know plenty of people who expected us to get out of the Germany & Czech Republic group for the Euros but our manager was terrible just like Englands for the last campaign.

[eurythmech]

True, true. You should obviously expect at least 2nd, seeing how you have made it through one qual (my bad, it was a play-off against Iran, wasn't it?) in the last 6 atttempts [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Seriously, though, I kind of like Ireland and wouldn't mind seeing you go through - but Bulgaria aren't too bad. I agree that Ireland should be 2nd favorite, but it wouldn't come as a shock to me at least if they failed to do so.

[sharkstevie]

Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised either we could finish 4th easily too [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] we can be that bad, nothing surprises me with Ireland, well losing 5-2 to Cyprus shocked me a little i'll admit lol. They nearly beat us at home too and they were the better team.

Anyways enough about Ireland, we're only a small country who would be delighted to qualify.

[Iplayboard]

As an admirer of Brasilian soccer, I am disheartened by the play of the national team under Dunga.

I realize Kaka and Ronaldinho were missing this summer, but Brasil played very poorly for most of the tournament, struggling to beat lesser nations. To their credit, they played a solid tactical match against Argentina, disrupting their free-flowing attack and hammering them on quick counterattacks. However, it was Argentina who looked the superior side throughout the campaign. Despite having a wealth of talent, Brasil looked lost and required Robinho to almost single-handedly pull them to the final.

The World Cup qualifying campaign hasn't gotten off to the best start either. Eight points from four matches is certainly not bad, but the last home victory against Uruguay was very lucky.

The main issue I have with Dunga is player selection. If Ronaldo and Adriano regain their fitness, they should be included. Luis Fabiano is a solid striker, but I am not at all impressed by Vagner Love, who plies his trade in Siberia, or Afonso Alves, no matter how many goals he scores against second-rate Dutch competition. Also, Mancini, despite wonderful form in Roma, has not played for his country since 2004.

In Kaka Brasil have perhaps the world's finest player. Ronaldinho is starting to regain his form and Robinho is exploding in Madrid. Combined with Daniel Alves, Fabiano, Alex, Juan, Elano, Diego and talented teenagers, Brasil have the skill to match the run that the previous generation accomplished from 1994-2006.

One only has to go back as recently as the 2005 Confederations Cup, particularly the championship match in which their unmatched skill and deadly finishing shredded Argentina, to understand the benchmark for Brasil.

Once again Brasil are the oddsmakers favorites to lift the Jules Rimet trophy, but a stubborn coach and grinding style of play could prevent that.