New thread as the last thread seems to be broken.
To be fair they'll all be saying the same thing about us as you are about Wales, considering we lost to Armenia and, in my opinion, were comfortable 2-0 winners over Portugal.
Poland/Italy side of the draw would be fucked
Suppose even one of those is equally as fucked
Imagine every other team in 'our region' qualifying and us at home
Northern Ireland won't qualify. Wales would be 50/50. Poland is the worse draw. The other two are beatable.
Do we know tomorrow whether our second match, if we made it, would be at home or away?
Wales are no great shakes.
Lots of Championship players.
Their golden generation is over.
I think Bellamy's a good motivator though.
.
Poland drew twice with the Netherlands. Lots of good footballers.
Yes.
Big day so.
The nightmare is Poland away followed by the probability of Italy away. Yikes.
Hard to judge Italy but they're a shadow of some of their previous teams. They beat Israel, Moldova and Estonia in qualifying and were spanked by Norway home and away. Our path to the play off is far more impressive. A well set up side like the Nordies could turn them over even in Italy.
On paper Italy would be a rough draw.
However, like Portugal, despite the talent at their disposal, they're not a very strong team. Definitely beatable if we can play like we have been doing.
In fact I'd go as far as saying Poland are probably the best team out of that whole list.
Imagine having to go away to Poland and win and your reward is having to go away to Italy and win though.
I know Italy are a shadow of themselves but that's still insanely difficult.
Actually having even the possibility of two playoff games like that just to qualify is a bit ridiculous to be honest. They are the type of games that should be at the business end of the tournament.
If Kelleher wasn't picking up niggly injuries he would have been Kenny's number one. As you said Bazunu took his chance after Travers got dropped and impressed. I think even as a number two at club level he'd have been our number one as long as he was performing for Ireland. Going on how he'd step into the Liverpool team and perform well I think he would have done similar for us.
Ah Jayus come on - it is clear progression, development and genuine positivity now. Not pretending to be positive. Like it was before.
Whether Ireland qualify or not, at least are in the mix now. Which is light years away from the depressing, embarrassing state of affairs it was only a few years before. From team of what looked like rudderless no-hopers, to a team that put a bit of pride back in the jersey. Who are not afraid to give it a go.
Plenty of young kids now will remember the last two games, and particularly the Hungary one in 20 years time.
Sorry to ask if covered ..but how do we know tomorrow if our potential 2nd game is home or away ?
Also we just have to accept that our poor performance for many years has us in the **** at the back end out this .
And to go against the Irish grain..i actually get that the top seeded teams get the easiest route ..they earned it....
Unless there is a late change to the procedure, it should be a random draw to decide which team is at home in the final.
So after the initial draw which says for example 'winner of Italy/Sweden plays winner of Czechia/Ireland' there should be another draw to decide which tie gets home advantage in the final. Presumably another drum with two balls in it saying TieA and TieB and whichever ball is drawn gets home advantage. That's the plan as I understand it.
A completely random draw for home and away makes no sense for last match.
In fact , that is an advantage to us ..as we could have no argument that being based on performance in nations league or FIFA rankings.
A small bit of good news...unless we are unlucky twice in draw...
A bad draw then away again...
Means to qualify for world cup will have had to win 3 times away in a row.....mad stuff..
Armenia game looking a way eaisier prospect in hindsight.....
Turkey would worry me more than Italy from Pot 1.
I wouldn't fear Turkey IF we got to bring them to Dublin.
Sometimes I think we'd be better with an away draw.
Let teams attack us and hit them on the break.
Ireland moved up 3 places in FIFA rankings, only overtaking 1 UEFA side, Albania. No impact on the events in 2 hours time.
The exact same could be said for us Wales lost to Canada in September and we lost to Armenia...but more importantly the Wales game was a friendly unlike ours....
Don't fear anyone IF we get them at home. Always want to stay away from Italy though...I feel like there could be serious funny business at play as FIFA and UEFA won't want the 4 times champions to miss another World Cup in a row.…
Can do that at home too. The only game this campaign where we had more possession than the opposition was Hungary at home. Actually going back to last year even Finland had 55% of possession when we beat them in Dublin. That Hungary game is the only game since HH took over where we had more possession than the opposition.
Not sure Italy still have that pull or are that big a draw. Donnarumma is their only truly big star and FIFA will be as happy to have the Irish and Irish Americans as the Italian ones.
I think they are happy enough now with how things have gone.
Exactly this. I really hope one of the lessons taken on board by the team in future is how much easier it genuinely is just to win your group than having to be subjected to the playoffs.
I'm glad you are around. No one else would ever think up this profound wisdom.
Next time we should just tell the team to win the group instead of trying to come second 🙄
We dropped 4 points to Hungary and Armenia. That would have qualified us in the end.
we should tell them to score more goals that the other team. They did eventually but if we did it from the start we’d have qualified already. So frustrating
Hungary dropped 5 points against us, that would have qualified them in the end
Lol. You should be manager really.
HH is clueless.
