Steve Bruce "concern" at Ireland's end of season friendlies

therecklessone

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/b/birmingham_city/3732225.stm

I see Brucie is unhappy with our end of season plans. He has a point, but I did find it funny when he said

I can't see the point of international friendlies at that time unless you are building up for a European Championship or a World Cup

So if you're preparing for Euro 2004, who do you play? One of the other 16 teams who qualified?

eirebhoy

Originally posted by therecklessone
So if you're preparing for Euro 2004, who do you play? One of the other 16 teams who qualified?

good point. Anyway, is there no such thing as preparing for the qualifiers? I don't think he meant a bit of what he said, he just wants to keep Cunningham safe TBH.

TwoShedsJackson

Birmingham don't have a competitive game for two and a half months now, so it'd want to be a broken leg or something to keep an injured player out. Anyway isn't Cunnigham banned for the first two games of next season after getting sent off a couple of weeks ago?

Dewey

You would think Bruce would want morrison to have more games. he has only scored only 4 goals this season and if he scored a few ireland it would give him a boost. I understand about Cunningham cause he is 32, but Kerr will be fair to him and i think he would like to see O'Brian and Breen in CD.

Pigman II

Originally posted by therecklessone


So if you're preparing for Euro 2004, who do you play? One of the other 16 teams who qualified?

Yes, why not? After all Ireland played all their pre-WC2002 full international friendlies against fellow qualifers (Russia, Denmark, USA and Nigeria).

therecklessone

Originally posted by Pigman II
Yes, why not? After all Ireland played all their pre-WC2002 full international friendlies against fellow qualifers (Russia, Denmark, USA and Nigeria).

Because there are twice as many qualifiers for the WC as the EC.

Could get awkward when all 16 teams want to play 3 friendlies for example. Who gets to play at home? Who'd organise it!

Pigman II

Originally posted by therecklessone
Could get awkward when all 16 teams want to play 3 friendlies for example. Who
gets to play at home? Who'd organise it!

If you only have to play 3-4 friendlies then you still have a choice of 12 teams to fill those three slots. Hardly a logistical nightmare.

As to the home and away question that pretty much solves itself. Teams with good support (eg Ireland) usually play at home because we can generate viable revenues from friendlies whereas teams with crappy local support (eg Czech Republic) or the 'glamour factor' (eg Brazil) ususally elect to playing away in order to pick up appearance fees for their inconveniences.

Villain

Yea but pigman a team is hardly going to want to play a friendly againts a team in their group so that only leaves 12 teams to choose from to try and play 3 or 4 games against each other!.

Come on it doesn't make much sense.

Pigman II

Originally posted by irish1
Yea but pigman a team is hardly going to want to play a friendly againts a team in their group

If you had read it - you would see I aleady mentioned the number '12' in my previous post for that very reason.

Originally posted by irish1
so that only leaves 12 teams to choose from to try and play 3 or 4 games against each other!.
Come on it doesn't make much sense. [/B]

If you have 16 teams and each of them has to play single 1-off games against a particular 12 (ie not the 3 in your group) then you are left with 96 choosable fixtures.

In order to give each of these 16 sides 4 games against each other you only need to fulfill 32 games out of those 96 choices - leaving a lot of room for maneuver.

It makes perfect sense and I don't see how much simplier it could be.

Villain

Originally posted by Pigman II
If you have 16 teams and each of them has to play single 1-off games against a particular 12 (ie not the 3 in your group) then you are left with 96 choosable fixtures.

In order to give each of these 16 sides 4 games against each other you only need to fulfill 32 games out of those 96 choices - leaving a lot of room for maneuver.

It makes perfect sense and I don't see how much simplier it could be.

Yea but try and get them agreed to that, friendlys against non qualified teams makes a lot more sense, a lot easier to arrange.

Bruce is just getting annoyed because his captain is having to play a few games for his country if we had qualified would he still be complaining?? I doubt it we have a young team that needs all the games possible for experience.

So that blue shirt boy can go feck off:D

PS I'm a Villa fan so I just love Bruce;)

Pigman II

Originally posted by irish1
Yea but try and get them agreed to that, friendlys against non qualified teams makes a lot more sense, a lot easier to arrange.

UEFA Could organise it with input from the associations themselves. I personally couldn't care less if it did/didn't happen, point is it COULD be arranged without too much difficulty if all concerned were willing.

Villain

Originally posted by Pigman II
if all concerned were willing.

In there you had the magic word IF

Pigman II

Originally posted by irish1
In there you had the magic word IF

Remember the farsical World Club championships? When FIFA said 'jump' the clubs said 'how high? This would just be a similar dynamic and none of them would go against the grain.

eirebhoy

Does anyone know if the Nigeria and Jamaica matches are going to be televised?