World cup qualifiers

[TBM]

We are talking about the real minnows here, not the likes of Northern Ireland or Wales,

The likes of Andorra, San Marino, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Moldova, Wales etc should all be in a group before this starts

Well not all of you are!?

[papereyes]

We are talking about the real minnows here, not the likes of Northern Ireland or Wales, who have always won the odd game here or there, and pushed some of the bigger sides - similarly Ukraine, who iirc have generally been competitive right from the break up of USSR.

Look back 10 years, and yep, San Marino, Andorra, Faroe Islands, they are all still there, getting thumped.

Anyone who thought that countries like Ukraine and Croatia wouldn't end up being half-decent was a complete mongtard.

I did have the opinion of TBM and Dirk on this, but then I bothered to look at the countries we're talking about:

The 11 worst countries in UEFA consist of the least populous nations (every country with a side with a population of less than 1 million (Montenegro, Luxembourg, Malta, Liechtenstein, Faroe Islands, Andorra, San Marino) with two exceptions*; the next most populous country (Estonia) and three countries that lie to the East of the Black Sea (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazachstan)x.

*Iceland and Cyprus.
xGeorgia is the only other UEFA nation to the East of the Black sea
All three of these countries are in the next 6 of the FIFA rankings system - the bottom 17 nations in UEFA consist of the 10 smallest and 4 of the poorest.

And UEFA want to add Gibraltar into the mix.

If we were to organise a Thought Tournament, the 12 sides entering would be San Marino, Andorra, Faroe Islands, Liechtenstein, Malta, Azerbaijan, Kazachstan, Armenia, Luxembourg, Montenegro, Estonia, Moldova.

[papereyes]

Crouch had so many chances that he fluffed them all. It was only when two defenders f**ked up to allow him to sneak in a tap in the goal. But I'm not worried, because we won 6-0. Having said that, I'd rather Heskey than Crouch.

That's the think - you say he got his goal but he missed some decent chances and was being pushed off the ball by a publican and a postal worker. If the ref had seen his push, then he might have even got a, frankly hilarious, red card.

[Thaumagurist*]

Crouch had so many chances that he fluffed them all. It was only when two defenders f**ked up to allow him to sneak in a tap in the goal. But I'm not worried, because we won 6-0. Having said that, I'd rather Heskey than Crouch.

That's the think - you say he got his goal but he missed some decent chances and was being pushed off the ball by a publican and a postal worker. If the ref had seen his push, then he might have even got a, frankly hilarious, red card.

That push....I think he was trying to shove him off in the chest, but because of his height, his fist ended up in his face.

[papereyes]

Ecuador 2 - 0 Argentina

Get on youtube to see their first goal, what a banger

http://www.mightyfootball.com/ecuador-a ... ts-100609/

[TBM]

Ecuador 2 - 0 Argentina

Get on youtube to see their first goal, what a banger

http://www.mightyfootball.com/ecuador-a ... ts-100609/

How does that leave the group? - are Argentina in trouble of not qualifying?

[Alan Partridge]

We are talking about the real minnows here, not the likes of Northern Ireland or Wales,

The likes of Andorra, San Marino, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Moldova, Wales etc should all be in a group before this starts

Well not all of you are!?

Wales was very much tongue in cheek TBM.

[Alan Partridge]

We are talking about the real minnows here, not the likes of Northern Ireland or Wales, who have always won the odd game here or there, and pushed some of the bigger sides - similarly Ukraine, who iirc have generally been competitive right from the break up of USSR.

Look back 10 years, and yep, San Marino, Andorra, Faroe Islands, they are all still there, getting thumped.

Anyone who thought that countries like Ukraine and Croatia wouldn't end up being half-decent was a complete mongtard.

I did have the opinion of TBM and Dirk on this, but then I bothered to look at the countries we're talking about:

The 11 worst countries in UEFA consist of the least populous nations (every country with a side with a population of less than 1 million (Montenegro, Luxembourg, Malta, Liechtenstein, Faroe Islands, Andorra, San Marino) with two exceptions*; the next most populous country (Estonia) and three countries that lie to the East of the Black Sea (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazachstan)x.

*Iceland and Cyprus.
xGeorgia is the only other UEFA nation to the East of the Black sea
All three of these countries are in the next 6 of the FIFA rankings system - the bottom 17 nations in UEFA consist of the 10 smallest and 4 of the poorest.

And UEFA want to add Gibraltar into the mix.

If we were to organise a Thought Tournament, the 12 sides entering would be San Marino, Andorra, Faroe Islands, Liechtenstein, Malta, Azerbaijan, Kazachstan, Armenia, Luxembourg, Montenegro, Estonia, Moldova.

Perfect.

[rabidbee]

I am surprised to learn that the population of Wales is as high as almost 3m.

[rabidbee]

By the way, Kazakhstan has a large pop, and they're throwing money at other sports (witness the Astana cycling team, for instance), so I don't see why it too is destined always to be a minnow.

[Alan Partridge]

By the way, Kazakhstan has a large pop, and they're throwing money at other sports (witness the Astana cycling team, for instance), so I don't see why it too is destined always to be a minnow.

They could start in this minnow league, if they were to win it and get to the main qualification rounds, get a few points their ranking would soon improve and they wouldn't have to pre qualify. For now they are certainly in minnow category.

[papereyes]

By the way, Kazakhstan has a large pop, and they're throwing money at other sports (witness the Astana cycling team, for instance), so I don't see why it too is destined always to be a minnow.

but I don't think its a coincidence that the four UEFA countries in that part of the world (Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazachstan) are currently amongst the worst.

They could start in this minnow league, if they were to win it and get to the main qualification rounds, get a few points their ranking would soon improve and they wouldn't have to pre qualify. For now they are certainly in minnow category.

They'd also get points by actually getting out of the pre-qualifying.

Further to that, every other confederation bar CONMEBOL does it. CONACAF does a caribbean pre-qualifying with the bigger teams coming in the second round to muller Barbados and the Bahamas.

I don't think Montenegro are going to stay as low as they are - although they haven't yet won in qualifying, they've a solid record 0-4-2 with defeats to only Italy in the group.

Have a suitably large number of pre-qualifiers (my suggestion was 4 from 12) and they get competitive games against teams of a similar standard. At the moment, they're not even being drawn against those teams because of the seeding system!


EDIT: current standings of these 12 countries

Bottom of their group: Malta, Moldova, San Marino, Liechtenstein, Armenia, Andorra, Faroe Islands

Second Bottom: Azerbaijan, Kazachstan, Luxembourg, Montenegro, Estonia

ones in bold have no wins.

[Whore Jackie]

EDIT: current standings of these 12 countries

Bottom of their group: Malta, Moldova, San Marino, Liechtenstein, Armenia, Andorra, Faroe Islands

Second Bottom: Azerbaijan, Kazachstan, Luxembourg, Montenegro, Estonia

ones in bold have no wins.

Luxembourg won?

Looking it up and they're on a bit of a roll.

The team scored its first victory in almost twelve years in February 2007, beating Gambia 2-1 in a friendly match. In October of the same year Luxembourg recorded its first competitive win in 12 years, beating Belarus 1-0 in a EURO 2008 qualifying game, following it up on 10 September 2008 with a win away to Switzerland, their first World Cup Qualifying win since 1972.

[who are ya?]

Ecuador 2 - 0 Argentina

Get on youtube to see their first goal, what a banger

http://www.mightyfootball.com/ecuador-a ... ts-100609/

How does that leave the group? - are Argentina in trouble of not qualifying?

http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/preliminaries/southamerica/standings/index.html

[anR]

Why was Beckham getting booed in the Andorra game?

[TBM]

Why was Beckham getting booed in the Andorra game?

"Shoooooooooooooooooooooooooot"

As he's not scored a goal for England at Wembley!

[Gordons Cumming]

Why was Beckham getting booed in the Andorra game?

"Shoooooooooooooooooooooooooot"

As he's not scored a goal for England at Wembley!

Only because England games were played throughout the country while Wembley was being rebuilt.

[rabidbee]

[Victor Meldrew]

I agree with those putting forward the idea of a minnows group.
The earlier poster who went and thought it was a good game surely can't be a fan of sport.
As I see it the idea of sport is that any opposition has a chance of winning-what would be the point of a heavyweight fighting a bantamweight as the bantamweight just couldn't hit the big guy?
So it was last night where the opposition didn't have a single shot in 90 minutes and Andorra will most likely never have a population of more than 80,000-that's TOTAL population including U16s and over 40 MALES.
That means there are about 15,000 qualifying adults and as a ski-ing nation that probably means that no more than about 3,000 actualy play football.
So we are talking about somewhere like Aldershot.
If England can't beat Aldershot 6-0 then we have real problems.

What can we take from last night's game?
Almost nothing apart from Johnson being a decent attacking full-back (which we knew already) and that Beckham can pass a ball if he is unchallenged (which we knew already) and the wide player has 10 yards of space and time to control the ball .It also showed us that we don't need Beckham taking corners when Lampard and Gerrard have done a better job in more competitive and important games.
In my view against better sides the game would pass him by and nobody would give him the ludcrous amount of time and space on the ball.
All in all a non-sporting event and I agree with Greavsie the worst opposition that I have ever seen from a side with a centre-half who doesn't actually play for anybody other than this pub side.
I'm glad we are more or less through and that the remaining games will have an element of competition including the friendlies.

[TBM]

Why was Beckham getting booed in the Andorra game?

"Shoooooooooooooooooooooooooot"

As he's not scored a goal for England at Wembley!

Only because England games were played throughout the country while Wembley was being rebuilt.

He still hasn't scored at Wembley, even Micah Richards has done that.