Football (Soccer) Thread

[Josquius]

November Play-offs

Republic of Ireland-France
Portugal-Bosnia-Herzegovina
Greece-Ukraine
Russia-Slovenia

A couple of possible upsets here. All I can say is go Bosnia!

That will be a interesting match. Three teams on the field at once...


...

[Josephus]

Imagine if Bosnia Herzogovina played Trinidad and Tobago.

[Warspite]

November Play-offs

Republic of Ireland-France
Portugal-Bosnia-Herzegovina
Greece-Ukraine
Russia-Slovenia

A couple of possible upsets here. All I can say is go Bosnia!

That will be a interesting match. Three teams on the field at once...


...

Four, actually

[clandestino]

It seems I'm kind of rooting for BiH to win the play-off, although I shouldn't say this out loud for fear of being decapitated by my fellow countrymen.

BiH has a good team that wouldn't shame itself on the WC and I think it could be helpful on the construction of a national identity over there, a thing that they might need.

Portugal on the other side should go back to the drawing table after sacking Queirós and removing Ronaldo from the captain spot and giving it to someone who actually deserves for what he has done on the national team like Simão or Ricardo Carvalho.

[Cerr]

November Play-offs

Republic of Ireland-France
Portugal-Bosnia-Herzegovina
Greece-Ukraine
Russia-Slovenia

I bet France, Portugal, Ukraine and Russia will go through.

It's going to be tough for Ireland but not entirely impossible to get through. I think the French manager is the real weak point for France.
Everyone was hoping to draw Greece from the 4 seeded teams.

I'm still annoyed with FIFA for pulling that cynical move about seeding the play off draw when they saw that some of the big teams would be in it. 

[Valmy]

? Will the curse live on now?

Doh!  I totally forgot about the blessing of Valmy.   Je suis désolé, mes amis français.

[The Larch]

Yet you still don't have a real goalkeeper and your strikers, besides Rooney, are not up to the task. I mean, Heskey is still being capped.

The Bent star is rising.
The lack of a world class keeper is a big problem though.

You don't just lack a world class keeper, you lack a plain good one. I mean, Spain's 4th keeper would be a shoe in for England. Weren't there talks of giving Almunia the British nationality before the WC so he could play for England?

[The Larch]

BTW, apparently there are rumours going on in UEFA circles saying that Ukraine will most probably be stripped of co-organizing Euro '12, with Poland getting the same treatment if their part of the organization doesn't shape up in the coming year.

[Josephus]

You don't just lack a world class keeper, you lack a plain good one.

Yup...that will be the thorn in England's side. Most teams that win the world cup, in my memory, have always had a top class goalie backing them up...be it Buffon or Kahn or Zoff or whomever. England's goalkeeping issue is my biggest worry going into South Africa.

I know it's very early to make predicitons, but I imagine we can see one of the African teams breaking out and coming close. There's always one or two African teams that have done pretty well, and maybe having the cup in their continent will be rewarding for them. I don't imagine an African team will win...but a semi-finalist? Perhaps.

[Liep]

Weren't there talks of giving Almunia the British nationality before the WC so he could play for England?

I could believe that, they even talked about giving Schmeichel's son British nationality... then you're really desperate.

[Josquius]

He does have English nationality.
According to Wiki though the powers that be are opposed to him playing and insist he's Spanish.
That would be very very iffy behaviour if we did that. I'm not so sure I'd be comfortable with it. And if England did win...well it'd be a huge scandal and would likely lead to such mercenary behaviour becoming ever more widespread.
You could well imagine the ruler of Dubai taking a interest in football and granting UAE citizenship to a bunch of awesome 3rd world players in exchange for big sums.
International football should remain pure even if club football is very tainted.


African teams: IIRC Ghana (I think it was them...) are quite heavily tipped as a good nation to put money on to win. High odds but a great team. Apparently.

[Agelastus]

Where have all the budding Peter Shilton's gone...

[Alatriste]

He does have English nationality.
According to Wiki though the powers that be are opposed to him playing and insist he's Spanish.
That would be very very iffy behaviour if we did that. I'm not so sure I'd be comfortable with it. And if England did win...well it'd be a huge scandal and would likely lead to such mercenary behaviour becoming ever more widespread.
You could well imagine the ruler of Dubai taking a interest in football and granting UAE citizenship to a bunch of awesome 3rd world players in exchange for big sums.
International football should remain pure even if club football is very tainted.


African teams: IIRC Ghana (I think it was them...) are quite heavily tipped as a good nation to put money on to win. High odds but a great team. Apparently.

IIRC the rules are you can't play in two national teams, ever. If Almunia had played for Spain, then he would be barred from joining England's team. But he never did so it would be OK for England to have him. I don't think that would get a raised eyebrow in Spain. We have had players born in Argentina, Hungary... and even in today's team: Marcos Senna was born in Brazil, he's an Spanish citizen only since 2005. 

[Valdemar]

IIRC the rules are you can't play in two national teams, ever. If Almunia had played for Spain, then he would be barred from joining England's team. But he never did so it would be OK for England to have him. I don't think that would get a raised eyebrow in Spain. We have had players born in Argentina, Hungary... and even in today's team: Marcos Senna was born in Brazil, he's an Spanish citizen only since 2005.

Just look at the Portuguese team, they nationalised their third Brazilian only 10 days before their game in Copenhagen.

V

[Duque de Bragança]

IIRC the rules are you can't play in two national teams, ever. If Almunia had played for Spain, then he would be barred from joining England's team. But he never did so it would be OK for England to have him. I don't think that would get a raised eyebrow in Spain. We have had players born in Argentina, Hungary... and even in today's team: Marcos Senna was born in Brazil, he's an Spanish citizen only since 2005.

Just look at the Portuguese team, they nationalised their third Brazilian only 10 days before their game in Copenhagen.

V

Tordesillas treaty still applies after all