Euro 2004

Augmerson

May I drawn your attention away from the forthcoming World Cup in Asia for a moment. The Euro 2004 Championships being held in Portugal are looking like a promising event, if I do say so. So I do.

September 7/8: Russia v Ireland.
October 15/16: Ireland v Switzerland.
2003
March29/30: Georgia v Ireland.
April 1/2: Albania v Ireland. <

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My Birthday
June 7/8: Ireland v Albania. June
10/11: Ireland v Georgia.
September 6/7: Ireland v Russia.
October 11/12: Switzerland v Ireland

Ireland has the top ranking in the group. Russia, is in at 27th. Switzerland is 64th, Georgia 58th and Albania 95th. Ireland havent qualified for a European championship since 1988, so I have a feeling that this might be it. We might break a 15 year drought. It wont be a walk over, but we have a good chance of qualifying, and we have to atleast get a playoff place from this group(Group Ten)

Pigman

The high number of Eastern European teams in the group leads me to believe we will win all four of our home games. It's just a question of how many points we can pick up on the road.

plastic membrane

Looking at the draw, id give us a better chance than i gave us with the last draw we had, involving teams like Portugal and Holland. We all know how that turned out..

jonno

I'm expecting max points with comfortable victorys. I think against Russia thought that we might stuggle to score more than two

Switzerland were beaten 3-1 by Canada of all teams last nite in Switzerland so im optimistic about Irelands chances.Canada are ****e. They have Paul Peschisolido and Jim Brennan playing for them and were atrocious to look at in the confederations cup highlights last year.

Cerdito

I hope to God we qualify for this one.....I really want to travel to watch Ireland in an international tournament. Typical, though that of the 6 tournaments since Italia 90 (Sweden, USA, England, France, Belgium/Holland, Japan) the two we've qualified for were the only two non-european tournaments! Impossible to go to unless you've bags of money.

Ah well, next one's in Portugal, and after that Germany....so it might happen in my lifetime :cool:

nasty_crash

yeah we should do well in the group but dont take anything for granted!!! how many times did we mess up against other small teams in the last 6 - 8 years!!! finally we got over that at the qualifications of the world cup but hopefully we can continue our great run!!!

Please let us never see another game like the Leitenstein(spellin) game again!!!

Bateman

You dont have to have bags of money to go to Japan. Quite apart from getting a loan, you can save like a bastard, and do it reasonably cheaply.

I think we should be confident of getting out of this group. We should be able to take Russia and Switzerland at home, and get draws at least at both away games, ideally beating Switzerland away and drawing in Moscow. However, McCarthy will have to play to win in Moscow, remember what happens when he goes for the draw. We lose.

Its a reasonable group though, I would expect us to top it. Whether or not McCarthy will still be in charge though is another thing.

bobsmith833

Originally posted by Cerdito
Ah well, next one's in Portugal, and after that Germany....so it might happen in my lifetime :cool:

And then in 2008, quite possibly in Ireland itself... Do people on this board think there's a realistic chance of the Scotland/Ireland bid succeeding?

Bateman

No. It would be unlikely that a city as small as Dublin would be allowed to stage two venues (on one of which building has not yet commenced) , and the Scots don't really need our help. I don't think the bid has a chance, and personally I am against joint-staging anyway. I think the FAI should be more interested in trynig to build their OWN stadium than anything else.

Pigman

Hate to blow it for you all but this whole bid is a scam! The SFA are only bringing the FAI on board because they have been presurised into making a bid that they know they can't sustain and therefore want to use us as the "fall-guys" when the bid inevitably collapes.

On the other hand it's in the FAI and Irish governments interests to make this token bid because it will further fuel the "need" for national stadium to be built and by the time our joint bid has been rejected the first bricks will already have been laid.

Sorry!