Belarus v England thread

[papereyes]

If we won the Euro's this Summer and beat Estonian away 3-0, and you'd think we'd complain

Depending on the performance, I don't necessarily think there would be no complaints.
Not saying that there would be complaints, just that you couldn't rule them out.

Anyway, the middling nations have improved, undoubtedly. Yes, certain aspects of their game are weaker - squad depth, pace, stamina would be three that I'd highlight - but by and large you've got teams that are now professional, players with reasonable levels of experience and managers that can get them organised and disciplined.

The micronations - Malta, Andorra, Leichtenstein, Luxembourg, Faroes, San Marino - will always struggle due to their tiny populations but even then we've seen wins against rather big nations from one or two of them.

[readingbedding]

Bullshite generalisations.

In regard to media...
How many football newspapers do we have here?
How many in Italy?

Have you seen a football game abroad?

Is this head-in-the-sand fan specific to England?
If so, how?

Or is it another load of bollox.

[papereyes]

I thought I'd look it up and tag the populations to the country.

Malta - 403, 000
Andorra - 67, 000
Leichtenstein - 35, 000
Luxembourg - 469, 000
Faroes - 47, 000
San Marino - 28, 000

Similar sized countries include Iceland (304, 000), Montenegro (620, 000) and arguably Cyprus (818, 000). Estonia's only got a population of about a million.

So is it a surprise when you see the bottom 11 UEFA countries feature 9 of the 10 smallest European countries listed here plus Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan?

[rg6royal]

Really looking forward to the match tonight. A comfortable win for england, lets say 3-0.

Wayne Bridge is sh*t!

[soggy biscuit]

draw.....maybe just scrape a 1-0.

[rg6royal]

Typical lack of confidence from Reading fans

[RTFC Drummer]

3-1 to EngLOLand with 1 EngLOLand player being sent off

[Barry the bird boggler]

Belarus's last 7 games, with one defeat out of those 7 they are not going to be push overs.

Andorra 1 - 3 Belarus
Ukraine 1 - 0 Belarus
Belarus 0 - 0 Argentina
Finland 1 - 1 Belarus
Germany 2 - 2 Belarus
Belarus 2 - 2 Turkey
Malta 0 - 1 Belarus

[SpaceCruiser]

Belarus's last 7 games, with one defeat out of those 7 they are not going to be push overs.

Andorra 1 - 3 Belarus
Ukraine 1 - 0 Belarus
Belarus 0 - 0 Argentina
Finland 1 - 1 Belarus
Germany 2 - 2 Belarus
Belarus 2 - 2 Turkey
Malta 0 - 1 Belarus

How many of those were friendlies?

[RIP ELM Park]

Does anyone know if or where it's on tintenet tonight?

[Gordons Cumming]

Belarus's last 7 games, with one defeat out of those 7 they are not going to be push overs.

Andorra 1 - 3 Belarus
Ukraine 1 - 0 Belarus
Belarus 0 - 0 Argentina
Finland 1 - 1 Belarus
Germany 2 - 2 Belarus
Belarus 2 - 2 Turkey
Malta 0 - 1 Belarus

.......and amongst those teams are such giants as Andorra, Finland and Malta.

[earleyroyal]

Belarus's last 7 games, with one defeat out of those 7 they are not going to be push overs.

Andorra 1 - 3 Belarus
Ukraine 1 - 0 Belarus
Belarus 0 - 0 Argentina
Finland 1 - 1 Belarus
Germany 2 - 2 Belarus
Belarus 2 - 2 Turkey
Malta 0 - 1 Belarus

.......and amongst those teams are such giants as Andorra, Finland and Malta.

You're right, but luckily there were games against the minnows of Argentina, Germany and Turkey to puff up the record.

And they beat Holland.

And would that be Finland who nearly qualified for Euro 2008?

EngLOLand fans.

[papereyes]

Belarus's last 7 games, with one defeat out of those 7 they are not going to be push overs.

Andorra 1 - 3 Belarus
Ukraine 1 - 0 Belarus
Belarus 0 - 0 Argentina
Finland 1 - 1 Belarus
Germany 2 - 2 Belarus
Belarus 2 - 2 Turkey
Malta 0 - 1 Belarus

.......and amongst those teams are such giants as Andorra, Finland and Malta.

You're right, but luckily there were games against the minnows of Argentina, Germany and Turkey to puff up the record.

And they beat Holland.

And would that be Finland who nearly qualified for Euro 2008?

EngLOLand fans.

Finland are above Belarus in the FIFA rankings system - although all that shows is that they've been more succesful over the last four years overall.

[earleyroyal]

Wasn't Woy Hodgson's last job as Finland manager, before he (unfortunately) took over at Fulham? Seem to remember they were close to qualifying from Portugal's group, might be wrong.

Either way there might be some 'rollovers' in Europe but there's not many, any win would be a very good result for England tonight.

[papereyes]

Wasn't Woy Hodgson's last job as Finland manager, before he (unfortunately) took over at Fulham? Seem to remember they were close to qualifying from Portugal's group, might be wrong.

Either way there might be some 'rollovers' in Europe but there's not many, any win would be a very good result for England tonight.

I think it was. It was a tight group with four teams (Poland, Portugal, Serbia, Finland) in with a shout before the final two games, iirc, as well as Belgium not being far off.

In terms of weak sides - I'd suggest that the 11 countries mentioned above, simply given their size, would be the weakest. But, for example, cyprus haven't been terrible in recent years - they're still pretty poor but capable of playing football and taking a game to an unprepared 'bigger' nation.

[earleyroyal]

And even of the 'shit' teams the Faroes drew with Austria last week, Liechtenstein drew in Azerbaijan last month, Cyprus beat Ireland 5-1, San Marino were about two seconds away from getting a draw against Ireland.

The 'big' teams should still beat these teams easily but as you say when they just turn up expecting to win they quite possibly won't, however I can't see Capello allowing that to happen.

[cmonurz]

Didn't realise just how many good results Belarus have had - 1/2 England win doesn't look great value at all.

But then Belarus lost 1-0 at home to Luxembourg in Euro 2008 qualifying.

[winchester_royal]

3-1 to EngLOLand with 1 EngLOLand player being sent off

YouROFL'ROFLe HiLOLaROFLious

[bobby1413]

Any links to watch this online?

[winchester_royal]

Unless there are 2 gunnarson's in the Iceland team, then Bryn has scored.