Best Possible Qualifying Group for Ireland, you choose

Spud83

Pot 1:Italy,Spain,Germany,Czech Republic, France,Portugal, Netherlands, Croatia, Greece

Pot 2: England, Romania, Scotland, Turkey, Bulgaria, Russia, Poland, Sweden, Israel

Pot 3: Norway, Ukraine, Serbia, Denmark, Northern Ireland,Republic of Ireland, Finland, Switzerland, Belgium

Pot 4: Slovakia,Bosnia-Herzegovina, Hungary, Moldova, Wales, FYR Macedonia, Belarus, Lithuania, Cyprus

Pot 5: Georgia, Albania, Slovenia, Latvia, Iceland, Armenia, Austria, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan

Pot 6: Liechtenstein, Estonia, Malta, Luxembourg, Montenegro, Andorra, Faroe Islands, San Marino

Winners Qualify, Best Eight runners up go into playoffs.
Ireland best possible Group for the 2010 World cup qualifiers:

Greece
Romania
Rep of Irelnad
Belarus
Armenia
San Marino (or no one at all)

kaimera

Italy
England
Ireland
Wales
Georgia
Malta.

cson

Greece
Sweden
Lithuania
Armenia
San Marino

ftw

Probably;
Italy
England
Belarus
Austria
Montenegro

Would be the toughest.

BaZmO*

I'll have 1 big one and 4 small ones please Carol.

shane86

alanmurphy83 wrote: »

Pot 1:Italy,Spain,Germany,Czech Republic, France,Portugal, Netherlands, Croatia, Greece

Pot 2: England, Romania, Scotland, Turkey, Bulgaria, Russia, Poland, Sweden, Israel

Pot 3: Norway, Ukraine, Serbia, Denmark, Northern Ireland,Republic of Ireland, Finland, Switzerland, Belgium

Pot 4: Slovakia,Bosnia-Herzegovina, Hungary, Moldova, Wales, FYR Macedonia, Belarus, Lithuania, Cyprus

Pot 5: Georgia, Albania, Slovenia, Latvia, Iceland, Armenia, Austria, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan

Pot 6: Liechtenstein, Estonia, Malta, Luxembourg, Montenegro, Andorra, Faroe Islands, San Marino

Holland (we have been their bogey team for 20 odd years now, ignoring the friendly last year of course)
England (the Scots would take us. Israel would cost us a valueable 2 or 3 pts in Israel)
Belarus are pretty poor
Albania
Any bar Estonia or Montenegro. Estonia are very poor, but could hold a draw at home

Nightmare

Anyone from P1 bar Holland, and maybe France and Czech
Scotland or Israel
Wales or Cyprus (Welsh are improving)
Latvia
Montenegro (because nobody knows what they are like yet)

patmac

If we drew Greece from group 1 and avoided England in group 2 then we would fancy our chances then. I wonder will the draw affect who we get to manage the team?

loyatemu

Czechs (they're not great - we should've beaten them this time round)
Scotland (they overachieved last time - player for player they're no better than us)
Ireland
Moldova (though its a very long trip)
Pots 5 & 6 - who cares - if we can't take 12 points against the whipping boys we don't deserver to qualify.

loyatemu

patmac wrote: »

If we drew Greece from group 1 and avoided England in group 2 then we would fancy our chances then. I wonder will the draw affect who we get in the next round?

what next round?
1 team from each pot in each group.
the group winners go to South Africa, the runners up play off for the remaining places.

menoscemo

Czech Republic
Bulgaria
Lithuania
Austria
anyone from bottom pot

jameshayes

FTW;
Greece
Romania
Lithuania,
Albania
Liechtenstein

Worst Case;
France
Israel
Cyprus (bad memories)
Iceland
Estonia

dbnavan

Czech Republic
England
Republic of Ireland
Wales
Albania
Malta(had my honeymoon there I wanna go back!)

Pigman II

Best/Easiest Draw
=========
Spain
Scotland
Wales
Iceland
Andorra


Worst/Hardest draw
==========
Czech
Poland
Bosnia
Austria
San Marino

ninebeanrows

Greece
Scotland
Ireland
Lithuania
Iceland
San Marino

Now if we didn't qualify from that:eek:

Green Giant

Greece
Bulgaria
Rep of Ireland
Hungary
Iceland
Luxembourg

PHB

Greece
Scotland
Republic of Ireland
Wales
Iceland
Luxembourg

I think we could top that group. I pick Scotland as I think although they play great, we have more talent than them, and if we got our team right, we could beat them, just like we could beat Greece.

menoscemo

Why don't you put up 5 seperate polls asking the easiest team from each pot?

Meh, probably no time/ waste of time lol

smackbunnybaby

i dont really care who we get, but i am delighted we cant draw NI, cus i think we would definitely lose to them.

shane86

Id like to see the nordies. Healy is moderate enough against prem players he knows, he only seems to be on fire against defenders who underestimate him/never heard of him.

shane86 wrote: »

Holland (we have been their bogey team for 20 odd years now, ignoring the friendly last year of course)
England (the Scots would take us. Israel would cost us a valueable 2 or 3 pts in Israel)
Belarus are pretty poor
Albania
Any bar Estonia or Montenegro. Estonia are very poor, but could hold a draw at home

Nightmare
Anyone from P1 bar Holland, and maybe France and Czech
Scotland or Israel
Wales or Cyprus (Welsh are improving)
GEORGIA (played a stormer against the Scots)
Montenegro (because nobody knows what they are like yet)

Further to that somewhat rushed post made when I was meant to be working

Holland. They had a shaky qualification round this time iirc. Might force at least a point from the games
England. If we have a bit of injury luck (Rooney, primarily) we can take them both home and away I truly feel
Belarus have an awful record, check their wikipedia article. Im surprised they arent 6th seeds
Albania. Not too far from home for travelling support, not a great side (though iirc they caused the Dutch some worry this time around)
Estonia and Montenegro are the only two in the last pot that have a chance of taking 3 points, so we want anyone but them

Nightmare:

As we know, the Irish can get murdered by Cyprus and nearly draw with minnows and then play out respectable results to top 5 teams like Germany. Nevertheless, dont like any of them, Holland, France, Czechs are the teams we could beat at home and in one or two cases gain points abroad.
Scotland: home and away defeats
Macedonia have also been known to stall the odd team
Kazakhstan. Meh, far from home, who knows.

_blank_

shane86 wrote: »

Id like to see the nordies. Healy is moderate enough against prem players he knows, he only seems to be on fire against defenders who underestimate him/never heard of him.

:eek:

Good old Irish begrudgery at it's best.

He scored thirteen goals in qualifying, got his team to a very good Third place finish in the group.

Jesus Christ, credit where it's due ffs.:rolleyes:

shane86

I think Healy is a great international, Id love to have him on our squad, but he hasnt fired Fulham into the big 4 has he? And Leeds werent doing a whole pile during his time there.

patmac

loyatemu wrote: »

what next round?
1 team from each pot in each group.
the group winners go to South Africa, the runners up play off for the remaining places.

I've edited the post I meant will the draw affect what manager we get?

herbieflowers

I wouldn't think so, we're bound to get a tricky side from the first pot, the most we can hope for is another mediocre 3rd place finish or, if we get a decent manager in, a play-off place.

Unearthly

shane86 wrote: »

Holland (we have been their bogey team for 20 odd years now, ignoring the friendly last year of course)
)

and the playoff for Euro 96 and World cup 94 raping

Czech rep and israel out of pot 1 and 2 please

Chardee MacDennis

when is the draw?

jameshayes

Sunday 17:00 (durban time) 15:00 Irish time...

Peyton Manning

I had a dream we got England. Would it be naive to assume that fixtures aganst England would go ahead without too much trouble from some of the *ahem* 'fans'?

jameshayes

Archimedes wrote: »

I had a dream we got England. Would it be naive to assume that fixtures aganst England would go ahead without too much trouble from some of the *ahem* 'fans'?

I remember 95, i was only 11, all dessed up ready to go and my dad came into me and told me that we cant go - he had a bad feeling.

Turns out my seats were in the lower stand under the trouble.

Nunu

shane86 wrote: »

Holland (we have been their bogey team for 20 odd years now, ignoring the friendly last year of course)
England (the Scots would take us. Israel would cost us a valueable 2 or 3 pts in Israel)
Belarus are pretty poor
Albania
Any bar Estonia or Montenegro. Estonia are very poor, but could hold a draw at home

Nightmare

Anyone from P1 bar Holland, and maybe France and Czech
Scotland or Israel
Wales or Cyprus (Welsh are improving)
Latvia
Montenegro (because nobody knows what they are like yet)

We beat them at Lansdowne in 2001. Other than that they have knocked us out of Euro 88 and World Cup 94 and beat us in the playoff for Euro 96. In World Cup 90 we both settled on a draw to progress from Group stages. Their have been no other competitive duels with them.

So, I'd say the bogeyness leans in their favour over the last 20 years.

shane86

Nunu wrote: »

We beat them at Lansdowne in 2001. Other than that they have knocked us out of Euro 88 and World Cup 94 and beat us in the playoff for Euro 96. In World Cup 90 we both settled on a draw to progress from Group stages. Their have been no other competitive duels with them.

So, I'd say the bogeyness leans in their favour over the last 20 years.

Ever been in work and typed up something really quickly because you arent even meant to be using the net for rec purposes at the time, and therefore the post isnt fully thought through?

Ahem

herbieflowers

needless to say the 'new Ireland' with our flashy new manager with experience and our fantastic young players will take Europe and the world by storm! So we won't need to rely on bogey-teams for results, our scintillating flowing football will blow every team away!

eirebhoy

Nunu wrote: »

We beat them at Lansdowne in 2001. Other than that they have knocked us out of Euro 88 and World Cup 94 and beat us in the playoff for Euro 96. In World Cup 90 we both settled on a draw to progress from Group stages. Their have been no other competitive duels with them.

I think we were the first team to ever beat them in the Amsterdam Arena (built in '95) when we won there a couple of years ago. The boos they got off the pitch that night was worse than ours vs Cyprus and a few of their players got dropped from the team for the Euros. We drew with them over there too so I'd say bogey team in the last 5 years.

Mr.Nice Guy

I would be chuffed with this one:

Greece
Scotland
Ireland
Wales
Kazakhstan
Liechtenstein

YeatsCounty

Czech Republic - I'd pick them over a Greek side who pretty much ran away with their group, especially since we've played them so recently.
Israel - For the return of Dudu Awat to Dublin.
Republic of Ireland
Wales - Would be very happy with either the Welsh or Hungary
Austria - Cack. Just utter cack.
San Marino - Guaranteed 4 points (we should be able to get a draw in the away game )

Raekwon

Greece - Probably the poorest team from the top seeds.
Poland - Not a great team that over achieved in recent campaigns. Plus the game in Dublin would have an amazing atmosphere!
Republic of Ireland
Hungary - Terrible team, so much so that and I can see us even winning in Budapest.
Kazakhstan - Just for the Borat banter.
Luxembourg - Like San Marino but we less heart.

Mr.Nice Guy

Is the draw going to be televised?

BaZmO*

Mr.Nice Guy wrote: »

Is the draw going to be televised?

Yeah it going to be televised on the....eh....telly

Mr.Nice Guy

BaZmO* wrote: »

Yeah it going to be televised on the....eh....telly

Which channel, do you know? I'd like to see this.

Unearthly

Sky Sports News always have these draws on.

MrJoeSoap

jameshayes wrote: »

I remember 95, i was only 11, all dessed up ready to go and my dad came into me and told me that we cant go - he had a bad feeling.

Turns out my seats were in the lower stand under the trouble.

I remember '95, I was only 10, all dressed up and ready to go and there was no f*cking way we were going to miss Ireland v England in Lansdowne!

Turns out my seats were pretty much opposite the trouble, I remember my uncle spotting it when it was just two or three people throwing digs. It spread like wildfire, needless to say.

radiospan

It's not on RTE or Eurosport.

It's on BBCi (press the red button on BBC1 or 2), Sky Sports News and ITV.

wowy

It's on rte.ie.

estebancambias

I hope we are not in the five team group, for the simple reason I want a match against a minnow.

whatawaster

Greece/Czech Rep
England/Israel
IRELAND
Macedonia
Albania
San Marino

I'd really love to get england

estebancambias

Me to, but to say Macedonia would be a good draw is insane, sure we may be assured a home 3 points but away a defeat would be very possible.

whatawaster

TBH i know little about any teams from pot 4 down.

estebancambias

Sorry I meant to say in my opinion. When I say insane I'm not saying its stupid, as if we want to qualify then we should be beating Macedonia, just I feel we could get a weaker team.

Hungary are a poor team.

whatawaster

dare I say cyprus should be an easy 6 points?

estebancambias

Tough one, I would prefer them to Macedonia.

estebancambias

I can just see England being in the same group.

estebancambias

Lol on sky sports the guy said Greece struggled through their qualifying group..the got more points than anyone else. This guy is meant to be an expert.

darkman2

Jezus get on with it ffs!