First leg finals Norway 0-1 Czech Republic Switzerland 2-0 Turkey Spain 5-1 Slovakia Uruguay 1-0 Australia Trinidad & Tobago 1-1 Bahrain Spain and Switzerland really impressed me. The Spaniards really brought it against outmatched Slovakia. Switzerland proved it could score more than one goal against a non-minnow, and have a decent shot to knock out the reigning 3rd place team. Norway is really up against it for their return leg too, and Australia got as good a result they had hoped for without getting a draw. Bahrain have the early advantage in their tie, but perhaps T & T will open things up a bit in Manama Wednesday. Of the four play-off series, one seems to be over (Spain), while Switzerland look good if they can keep it together in Istanbul. Anything can still happen in the other 3, although the pressure on the home teams may not be as great as it is for the Turks.
Turkey can still beat Switzerland, they were better or equal to the Swiss, much more faster but the finishing sucked, i also dont know why Emre, Hasan Sas, Alltintop etc didnt play from the begining and the 2nd swiss goal??? wasnt that offside ?
The non-European series seemed to be more exciting. Spain is probably more than 90% sure of getting in. Slovakia might beat Spain by two goals but no more. The Czech Republic is probably close to 80%. Norway stood no chance at home and I do not see them overturning the reslut away. Switzerland needs to defend against Turkey. Turkey can beat them 2-0 at home and force overtime. I rated T&T a better side than Bahrain, but Bahrain is tough to beat at home. They also defend well so I do not see them losing two away goals at home. If T&T scores early and force Baharin to attack, then T&T still has a chance for a 2nd goal. If Bahrain prolongs the game, they might even score a counter-attacking goal.
If the Socceroos win by at least two goals in Sydney, there will be partying and rioting in the streets. If the Socceroos draw or lose again (effectively continuing their futility and indesirability as a football nation), there will still be partying and rioting in the streets. But in Montevideo.
They're in. Unless they do an impression of AC Milan circa '04 and '05 late in the Champions League, they're in and Slovakia doesn't have the weapons to win it. It would be one thing if they kept it tight, losing 2-0, 1-0, 3-1 or whatever, but down 1-5? It's over. In terms of surprises, I was a bit surprised that Turkey ended up getting rolled. I thought the Swiss would draw or win by a goal, but 0-2? Heard they were quite injured though. Additionally while T&T is at best the sixth or seventh best squad in Concacaf and advanced to their playoff because Guatemala choked, and Jamaica and Honduras missed out on the final round due to flukes (Panama upsetting Jamaica, and Honduras, losing only 1 of their six qualifyers, but unfortunately they tied four of their five others, and went home despite beating Costa Rica in Costa Rica 5-2, and tying at home 0-0 (and beating them this past Gold Cup as well), I still thought they'd win at home. Athletic and fast, I thought they'd take Bahrain at home 2-0 or 3-1, and then have to keep it close in the away game. Instead they played one of their very worst qualifyers of the entire campaign. Bizarre. The Uruguay game was a bit of a surprise too. I thought they'd win 2-0 and win on aggregate 3-2 or something like that. Instead they'll need to keep it very close or win outright, and I doubt they'll do that.
Not according to Australian coach Guus Hiddink: "I fear the lack of an away goal is going to kill us. I would have been more than happy with a 2-1 result." From http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com/06/en/051113/1/58i3.html By 2-1 he means a 2-1 loss would have been better than a 1-0 loss.
Must have watched a different game then. A well deserved victory for Switzerland in my opinion. Now they have good chances to qualify.
I must admit all the results I predicted were wrong, except Spain beating Slovakia and Uruguay Beating Australia. For what I saw in the Spain-Slovakia match, all Spain needs to do in the second leg is try to mantain ball possesion, because their defense doesn't look very tough. I agree, Slovakia can win, even by a couple of goals, but that's it. It will be an interesting match unless Spain decides to attack early and score, which will seal the deal. I never thought Spain was going to get such good result. Good for them. Even when I thought I didn't care, I found myself rooting for Uruguay throughout the match. The last 20 minutes or so were frustrating as they lacked the final touch to define the playoff. One more goal would have made a huge difference. Good stuff by Recoba, Diogo, and Garcia, IMO. My guess is that on Wed. Australia will play the way they did at the beginning of this match, and score, but Uruguay will hang in there and qualify, after much effort. I think there will be a 1-1 tie in Sydney, or a 2-1 win for Australia at most. Trinidad has it difficult but not impossible. They must score no matter what. I see another 1-1 tie and PK's. So I find it unpredictable. Czech Rep should at the very least draw against Norway. I think they will win again, though. Turkey will probably beat Switzerland, unless the latter play brilliantly. I didn't see their first match so this one is also hard to predict for me, but I'm gonna say Turkey wins 3-1, getting killed by the away goal.
You do realize that we are unbeaten in 14 consecutive games? Not that Turkey isn't capable of winning, but "probably" is a bit of a strong word...
No, I didn't know about that streak. Nice. But I'm just giving some credit to Turkey, I don't think they will be easy at home. However, like I said, I think Suisse will qualify, and I personally would prefer them to qualify. I think they will be a lot more entertaining.
If you have seen this one, you would probably predict a 0-0 draw in Istanbul. The Swiss played a great game. They also played great against France too. The Swiss defense is tough to score on. However, I still believe the Turks are not finished yet. The Swiss lacked international experienses. Some of the guys are young. I am wondering how they would react to play in a place liked a Turkey.
That's the thing, since I couldn't see the 1st leg, I just base it on the fact that it's nowhere near pretty to go play in Istanbul (in addition to my tencency to wanting cardiac results )
Please go tell the Slovakian coach and the trolls in the Spain NT BS board that are saying they were robbed.
They did fine at Lansdowne Road in a do-or-die match. Istanbul is a different animal, but I doubt the venue by itself will make a huge difference...
Really? The only one that surprised me was the Bahrain-T&T game. T&T is a third tier squad in Concacaf behind Tier one (USA, Mexico), tier 2 (Costa Rica, Honduras), and behind at least two of the tier three teams in my view (Jamaica, Guatemala who choked down the stretch, if T&T had had their away match against Mexico at any point save where they had it, they would've been rolled and Guatemala would have played Bahrain meaning Bahrain go home), but they still are athletic and fast enough to be able to win at home. The result was pretty surprising, supposedly they were just awful, really nervous and out of form. Bahrain drawing-suprise, I saw that as 3/2-1 or 1-0 T&T Swiss Winning-Expected, I saw it as 1-0, or 2-1 Swiss. Czech's Winning-Expected. Czechs are a much better team, though dinged up, Norway had to be playing for 0-0 or a counter goal 1-0 victory. They lost, not surprising in my view. Spain Winning-Big time chokers offer their first decent performance since they were in Group Play 3 and a half years ago. These guys are just utter disappointments, I have no idea how you have that much talent and accomplish virtually nothing with it. Finally a good result. Uruguay Winning-Expected, though if Hiddink is right (i have no idea) and the set piece was a referee error due to a flag malfunction that is an epic potential tragedy for them. Anyway Uruguay winning at home was not at all shocking, that they only won by one goal is pretty surprising to me. I expected a 2-0 or 3-1 win. I really see only the Bahrain result as surprising. Expecting a draw in the Czech-Norway game? Well, maybe considering the weather and field conditions (I hadn't realized they'd be playing in Arctic conditions), but other than that they all seemed to go as expected from my perspective. Expectations on the return legs: Bahrain advance (3-2) I dont see T&T winning by 2 away, could happen though as Bahrain isn't very good at home of late. Swiss advance (3-1) They have an amazing defense this qualifying cycle. Czech Republic advances (3-0) They'll easily take it at home. Spain Advances (6-2) No problem there for these chokers. Socceroos advance (2-1) I just see them pulling it off this time. I think Hiddink can get it done, this guy lead PSV to victories over AC Milan in two of his last three games against them, and I believe he's 2-0-1 during that streak. Should be able to pull this out. Should be interesting though, the only home and home that is over is Spains, not even Spain could choke their way out of that.
The free kick was one of those 50/50 decisions. It could just as easily gone Australia's way, or ignored altogether. Both players seemed to be leaning against each other and the only real contact between them I could see was shoulder to shoulder. We were lucky that we didn't concede a penalty or two so these things even out. I think that we really needed to score in Uruguay, and should have done so in the first half of the first half. Uruguay made a mistake playing an injured player in a key position, and until he was substituted we made the most of the space provided. I would only rate us a 15% chance of qualifying now.
I am the one who claimed Turkey is a tough venue, but I just looked at the recent home results. 2-1 Germany 2-2 Denmark 0-0 Greece 2-0 Albania 0-3 Ukraine 4-0 Kazakhstan 1-1 George Not too impressive!!!
most of my predictions for the final qualifiers were wrong,, my predictions for the next games are that the Turks would defeats the Suisses 2 - 0, and force it to the pks while the Aussies would defeat Urugauy 2 - 0 and qualify. but who knows, but predictions have always been wrong,,