They didn't look horrible, Northern Ireland was just an underrated team. Northern Ireland do have good chemistry and organization.
Did you see the chances Switzerland were missing towards the end the match? The execution and decision making was awful.
Ref is way too quick with his yellow cards. Should let them battle a bit. Slight advantage to Italy so far
Italy are horrible, much worse than the Dutch at this point. Massive failure on the manager and players.
But where are all the strikers? The commentators on the US feed were mentioning the strikers on the 1998 team that also had to win a play off: Inzaghi, del Piero, Totti, and some others. All this team had was Immobile and he's of questionable talent.
Its true we do not have strikers that are that talent, but many national teams don't. Its no excuse. Germany doesn't really have a world class striker either, since Klose retired, and I see no problem in their team. Arguably the best team in the world. Same can be said with Spain, but they have played many times with a false #9 and it has worked. The talent we do have in striker options is enough to compete with the best, considering what we have in other positions.
Italy out. FIFA on suicide watch. Their bottomline took another massive hit. Together with Holland they're two of biggest money-spinners. Good luck selling Panama v. Tunisia. Maybe FIFA will get the message now that they can't keep slashing UEFA's share of teams at the World Cup.
Its just starting to sink in that that two Euro-giants (according to the BBC) wont be playing at the next World Cup. Feck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The fact Italy is also out now makes everything even worse!! Now we have 2 big countries out!!!!!
3 really. Chile as well is a big team and has world class players like Vidal and Sanchez. Italy, Chile, and Netherlands should have made it.
One thing is for sure, it should lay to rest all those silly conspiracy theories that had Italy making it to the world cup final. That ref was TOTALLY against Italy in case you hadnt noticed......LOL
What strikers, O14??? They (currently) dont have any!! They're just like Holland ATM, completely devoid of any talent whatsoever. *kicks rock at computer screen*
Is this some kind of a joke? Sweden had two clear penalties denied, the ref was not against us at all. These are just excuses Ventura is trying to use. Its ridiculous.
^^^^ I wrote that early on as the game went along. The ref I thought was fair when he shouldve handed out 4 penalties....LOL. I thought he was too quick with his yellow cards though, but.......whatevah
Yeah but the penalties were some for us and some for Sweden. Wouldn't have made the result any different in terms of who advances.
Fair enough. I thought over 12X45 minutes Italy were the better team for 8 of those. But the soccer Gods dont care about that, she's a cruel mistress. FYI Sweden shouldve lost at home against us, Bassie Dost's disallowed goal was MOST definitely a goal. You take that away, plus their lucky away win in France and perhaps we both qualify. I know. Could have, should have, would have......LOL. See you in 2022
With almost 3 teams per group making it, its virtually impossible not to qualify. Oh wait..................
The "Nations League qualifiers" start next year. In January you'll know who'll be in your group. Italy and Holland could end up in the same group with e.g. Spain. Only 1 team qualifies while 1 team will be relegated. That's cut-throat and if you get a new manager in he'll have to hit the ground running. He'll start with 6 very tough fixtures.
I think this is how it works. We have the 2018-19 League of Nations at the end of 2018, with the playoffs in June 2019. Then I believe Euro 2020 qualifying starts in march. No playoffs I think, it will be just the top 2 teams in each group who qualify, with the best third placed team. Then 4 teams from League of Nations will take the last 4 spots. We have a few friendlies in march for the new manager to experiment a bit.
There will be 10 groups (5 groups by five teams and 5 groups by six teams). Top two teams from each group will qualify for UEFA Euro 2020 final tournament. So no best third placed team. - here's more info + the schedule I heard Ventura is refusing to leave (probably wants to extract as much money as possible). Let's hope for Italy's sake that gets sorted out quickly. The new manager won't get much time. Italy will be used as cannon fodder first by teams that are going to the World Cup but those are only friendlies. Then you don't get to ease into competitive matches. Instead of playing quite a few soft fixtures, which was the case when regular qualifiers followed the WC, UNL qualifiers offer much, much better opponents and you can't afford to not show up (dropping points will be punished, it's a lot more cut-throat than regular qualifiers).
Things could be worse, we could be like Belgium who only qualify once every 10 years or so, and never made a world cup final
Holland don't qualify as often as you like to think, m8. Holland have qualified to 10 WCs while Belgium have qualified 13 times. Holland can't add to their good WC record in Russia (mind you I'm not disputing that it looks good despite never actually winning the title). 6 times Holland had a decent enough run yet in those other 15 WCs Holland didn't do much. 11 out of 21 WCs Holland failed to even reach the WC. Pro-tip: 11/21 is more than 1/2. That's more of a rule and Russia2018 isn't really an exception for Holland. Again with those 3 lost games, those 3 national traumas ... TL;DR of Holland's WC history = the Neverlands ... the Netherlands are the Neverkusen or Neverton of the international game. Sure Holland have 1 (one) win ... in a less prestigious tournament than the World Cup ... dating back to 1988 ... still the likes of Denmark and Greece have won the EC more recently while Portugal lifted the last one. So Holland only have 1 EC win more than Belgium ... that's not much and it doesn't exactly make Holland our most successful neighbour. According to Uruguay's "reasoning" (who added 2 extra stars to their crest), Belgium also have won the big one. The 1920 Olympics was the most prestigious trophy in football at the time. Back then there was no World Cup and football at the Olympics was an event for senior teams, not youth like it is now. TBH we don't give a shit about it, most Belgians don't even know about it, it's ancient crap. We're too busy living in the present. If dutchies weren't so insecure they'd stop looking back all the time and have something to look forward to ... besides Belgium at yet another major tournament Holland failed to reach ... Holland are dinosaurs now and believe me 4-3-fvcking-3 doesn't have the same ring to it as 4-4-fvcking-2. Neverlands please, stop living in the past, drooling nostalgia and instead fix the sad state Holland are in right now ... Luxembourg can do with a good sparring partner ... not so fast Holland ... I said a good one ... Holland have ways to go before they can keep France from scoring 4 on them.