Ireland's World Cup 2006 qualifying chances

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podgerodge

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So what do people think things will pan out like given the table below and the rest of the fixtures?


World Cup 2006 Qualifying Europe Group 4 - Table, Results & FixturesTeam GP W D L GF GA Pts

Ireland 7 3 4 0 11 4 13

Switze 6 3 3 0 13 4 12

Israel 7 2 5 0 10 8 11

France 6 2 4 0 5 1 10

Cyprus 7 1 1 5 7 12 4

Faroe 7 0 1 6 3 20 1



September 3, 2005 France v Faroe Islands Switzerland v Israel

September 7, 2005 Cyprus v Switzerland Faroe Islands v Israel Republic of Ireland v France

October 8, 2005 Cyprus v Republic of Ireland Israel v Faroe Islands Switzerland v France

Wed, October 12, 2005 France v Cyprus Republic of Ireland v Switzerland
 
Originally posted by podgerodge
That's not enough! We can't have our womenfolk getting bad ideas off the tele. We should have them better occupied keeping the house clean.
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Sorry podgerodge, too busy doing important housework to even comtemplate something as frivolious as a few men running around a field after a ball! :p
 
The Irish Team's group position may fall as well as rise.
Past performance may not be a guide to future performance.
Terms and Conditions apply.

-Rd
 
A few men .. A FEW MEN !!! Ello Ello, 'ow can you Irish girls say zis when 'alf of them are full of raw passion waiting to be vented at you women at, what iz it ? oh oui Lands down road - think of ze 'air styles- they are worth eet , think of ze cafe, or as you say 'coffee' - think of the aromatic mix of sweat and embrocation as ze goals go in and the roar of ze crowd! 'ow can you say NON!

I too understand zere are onze (or 11 to you) Frenchmen playing as well!
 
jasconius said:
A few men .. A FEW MEN !!! Ello Ello, 'ow can you Irish girls say zis when 'alf of them are full of raw passion waiting to be vented at you women at, what iz it ? oh oui Lands down road - think of ze 'air styles- they are worth eet , think of ze cafe, or as you say 'coffee' - think of the aromatic mix of sweat and embrocation as ze goals go in and the roar of ze crowd! 'ow can you say NON!

I too understand zere are onze (or 11 to you) Frenchmen playing as well!
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Passion Stakes

French 10 Irish 0 :D
 
Given that Robbie Keane, Richard Dunne, Gary Doherty and Stephen Carr were just spotted by myself in the Portmarnock Hotel having a few swift ones-not great!!

Seriously, I don't know if we can win either of our home games (France and Switzerland) or our away game (Cyrpus). People tell me that we are a better team than Switzerland, but recent results (in this qualifying campaign and others) suggest otherwise. I think that Viera (suspended for the Paris game), Thuram, Makelele and Zidane will make a big difference to the French team. Whether they can score or not is another matter, but I don't fancy our chances of finding the net.
 
the french will score ;) in dublin. Might even get a goal too:(
 
CCOVICH: This is one I am going to avoid betting on. On a good day we can match anybody ie in Paris in the first game. On a bad day ie in Tel Aviv we couldn't string two passes together. same goes for France. Good days and bad days. thank goodness it's been mostly bad days this campaign. Israel is the real danger.they will beat the faroes twice and then its up to somebody else to take the group by the scruff of the neck. If and its a big if Isreal qualify then group 2 will have produced the worst team to qualify for the world cup directly. they do have guts though. I think they were behind in most of their games. Can we win on Wednesday. Course we can. Depends on which Ireland turns up. the team we watched against the faroes and Isreal (x2) or the team that turned up in Paris last year. Positive thinking. YES WE WILL WIN.:)
 
Confidence growing.....

Oh what a night! [broken link removed]

1-0 tomorrow night (8/1)....... come on the Duffer! (9/1) or 45/1 the double!

Roy
 
robbie keane looked unfit and as for the duffer. got the impression he knew where his €€€€€ every week comes from. maybe I am being too hard and maybe Brian Kerr should have switched him to the other side and even down the middle with 10 mins to go but he didn't get a sniff on the left. Cant remember his last really good game for us. He definitely played better for Ireland when he was at Blackburn. can still come 2nd and reach the plays offs. Want to avoid the likes of spain though. Maybe Scotland will come 2nd as well , you never know. Poland and England have both qualified in my books as one of the best runner up spots will go to that group and maybe the Swedish group as well. Its still all up for grabs but it's time we stopped playing for a draw.
 
cuchulainn said:
Its still all up for grabs but it's time we stopped playing for a draw.
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Exactly. I thought that the French were bodering on terrible, they lacked imagination (except for Henry's goal, but then he had the freedom of the pitch didn't he?), and if we had any drive we could have beaten them. Good and all as Roy K. played, he's not the dynamic player he was (a la Holland in 2001) and cannot carry this team anymore. Someone wrote yesterday that Robbie Keane needs regular football. That's part of it, but he was one of those allegedly living it up last weekend (I certainly saw him having a light ale on Friday evening). Pretty pathetic that our last throw of the dice was to bring on Ian Harte and Gary Doherty.

Don't really fancy our chances of winning in Cyrpus given that we'll be without the three suspended players, and the fact that we'll be under huge pressure to win.
 
Irrespective of ability I would contend that the payment of economic rent to top footy players in general acts as a disincentive to their efforts at an international level. Most of them are very well paid on a weekly basis anyway so the hunger for success with the national team isn't there. Michael Owen seemed not to have a care in the world at his press conference the day following his teams defeat by Northern Ireland.
 
Maybe, but if you don't have a measure of pride in playing for your country you shouldn't be picked. The gaelic footballers of Tyrone and Armagh are amateurs to all intents and purposes (any money they make pales in comparison to soccer players) and yet they played out of their skins on Sunday. It's great to see that sort of commitment, I wish that some of our national teams would show it more often and that my own county would exhibit it on the field. I would give practically anything to represent my country, I don't think it matters as much to some of today's players.
 
You are right of course, when the players earn far less playing for Ireland than they do playing for their clubs, there is no incentive - look at the performance of NI where the reverse is true.

However, the other factor is that in hardly any position on the field, is the player under pressure to be picked. With such a small squad to choose from, Mr Kerr does not have a lot of choice.
It is the same in effect for the England team , where Sven has a large squad but steadfastly picks his favourites.
 
I've just read that we are likely to be fourth seeds (third seeds at best) when the draw is made for the next Euro qualifying campaign. Doesn't bode well for our chances of qualifying for the next championships, but there are some 'poor' teams (Latvia, Bosnia, Slovakia) currently ranked above us. There will be seven groups, with the top 2 from each group to qualify (no play offs).
 
jasconius said:
Yes,

Here they are

[broken link removed]


Can't believe 28th in Europe !!!!!!!!
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Weird how EUFA's formula can rank us 28th in Europe yet FIFA rank us 14th in the world.
 
cuchulainn said:
14th - no way
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You wouldn't think it from recent performances but thats what was in the [broken link removed] last month. To be fair I wouldn't put us as far down as 28th in Europe but 14th in the World seems a lot. I think they must be getting a lot of weight for how far they got in the last World Cup.
 
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