International games v Club Games

Iang87

Something similar was done last week in club v country but this isnt about the choice of which you'd prefer.

I'm wondering is it just me or do international qualifiers etc have absolutely no comparison to Champs League football and premiership football. After watchin Ireland v Bulgaria, Wales v Finland and Brazil v Ecuador this weekend. I've never seen lower quality stuff.

What i'm wondering is that is it the lack of big games that make these qualifiers terrible. Do FIFA need to look at this and think their should be almost a qualification round to get into the qualification group stage almost like a champs league type set up where in the group stage you have to perform in most cases to get a result.

I've read in a lot of places and listened to players in interviews saying that International football is the peak where you get the real test. A step up from the club game but is this actually accurate

therecklessone

Iang87 wrote: »

What i'm wondering is that is it the lack of big games that make these qualifiers terrible. Do FIFA need to look at this and think their should be almost a qualification round to get into the qualification group stage almost like a champs league type set up where in the group stage you have to perform in most cases to get a result.

That's not FIFA's job, it's up to each individual continental association to decide their own qualifying structure. Others such as CAF and CONCACAF have a different structure.

Iang87

therecklessone wrote: »

That's not FIFA's job, it's up to each individual continental association to decide their own qualifying structure. Others such as CAF and CONCACAF have a different structure.

ok man do you think UEFA should relook at it

therecklessone

Iang87 wrote: »

ok man do you think UEFA should relook at it

Yes, there are too many teams competing in the European qualifying for the World Cup.

Ideally there should be no more than 5 teams per group IMO.

This qualifying campaign has 53 teams competing, I would cut that to 35 and have 7x5 team groups, with the winners and 5 best 2nd place teams qualifying automatically, and the worst 2 runners-up having a play off for the last place.

_blank_

therecklessone wrote: »

I would cut that to 35

How?

Quint

I'm surprised more Irish fans don't support England as an international team

Dearg81

Des wrote: »

How?

They could do preliminary qualifier groups for all countries who are 4th/5th seeds or lower. They do it in CONCAAF and asia i think.

Dearg81

Quint wrote: »

I'm surprised more Irish fans don't support England as an international team

Why? its not as if they are racking up trophies recently

Dub13

Quint wrote: »

I'm surprised more Irish fans don't support England as an international team

I don't mind seen England do well,I don't support them but I am not one of these types who cheers on whoever they are playing.

therecklessone

Des wrote: »

How?

53-35=18 to be cut.

Best way of cutting would probably be two/three rounds of two-legged knock out ties for the lowest ranked sides.

ziggy

This post has been deleted.

Dub13

therecklessone wrote: »

53-35=18 to be cut.

Best way of cutting would probably be two/three rounds of two-legged knock out ties for the lowest ranked sides.

This has been talked about before in the media,I think the suggestion was to have a kind of B league with 2/3 teams moving up/down for the next campaign.

I am not sure how feasible it is but there certainly is a lot of dead weight around European International football.

therecklessone

Quint wrote: »

I'm surprised more Irish fans don't support England as an international team

Can you expand on that please?

Bounty Hunter

Quint wrote: »

I'm surprised more Irish fans don't support England as an international team

im not, ive nothing against the English national side but due to the fact that we have a high amount of support for the English league we already have a (albeit unpopular so oft not talked about) much greater support for our only true historical international rival (ex Northern Ireland) than most countries. I doubt you see many Portugese Spanish fans for example.

Kev_ps3

Quint wrote: »

I'm surprised more Irish fans don't support England as an international team

Yeah esp since they ripped up our statium last time they were here.. Im sure some west-brits do tho

Quint

therecklessone wrote: »

Can you expand on that please?

Because England are better and they can cheer on their premiership heros while they play for their country. Have a look at the club v country thread, lots of people would rather see spurs/liverpool/man-u do well than Ireland.

Kev_ps3

Quint wrote: »

Because England are better and they can cheer on their premiership heros while they play for their country. Have a look at the club v country thread, lots of people would rather see spurs/liverpool/man-u do well than Ireland.

Anyone who supports a foreign team for the reasons above is not a true supporter.

therecklessone

Quint wrote: »

Because England are better and they can cheer on their premiership heros while they play for their country. Have a look at the club v country thread, lots of people would rather see spurs/liverpool/man-u do well than Ireland.

Kev_ps3 wrote: »

Anyone who supports a foreign team for the reasons above is not a true supporter.

Wonderful stuff chaps, but very little to do with the thread topic.

bohsman

Would be even harder for Ireland to qualify if they had to get through qualifiers to get into the group stages.

therecklessone

bohsman wrote: »

Would be even harder for Ireland to qualify if they had to get through qualifiers to get into the group stages.

I think we'd still have a good shout, but yes it would mean it would be harder for some countries to make it to the group stages.

Dearg81

Iang87 wrote: »

Something similar was done last week in club v country but this isnt about the choice of which you'd prefer.

I'm wondering is it just me or do international qualifiers etc have absolutely no comparison to Champs League football and premiership football. After watchin Ireland v Bulgaria, Wales v Finland and Brazil v Ecuador this weekend. I've never seen lower quality stuff.

What i'm wondering is that is it the lack of big games that make these qualifiers terrible. Do FIFA need to look at this and think their should be almost a qualification round to get into the qualification group stage almost like a champs league type set up where in the group stage you have to perform in most cases to get a result.

I've read in a lot of places and listened to players in interviews saying that International football is the peak where you get the real test. A step up from the club game but is this actually accurate

To be fair, if you are going to compare Champions League to Internationals, then maybe it would be better to compare them to actual world cup games. In terms of the premiership, most games on tv involve 1 of the big 4, i'd say an avg match like everton v stoke would not be that much better than an avg international.

Iang87

Dearg81 wrote: »

To be fair, if you are going to compare Champions League to Internationals, then maybe it would be better to compare them to actual world cup games. In terms of the premiership, most games on tv involve 1 of the big 4, i'd say an avg match like everton v stoke would not be that much better than an avg international.

dude comparing ireland v bulgaria or ireland v anyone to everton v stoke is lousy to stoke and everton.

Prob more along the lines of greys athletic v forest green

Fromvert

I find the internationals extremely difficult to watch. Id have to agree that it is not the pinacle of football. The World Cup, European Cup, Copa America are all great but the qualifiers are extremely poor on the most part. Given a choice between watching Ireland play and a Premiership/Championship match id choose the Prem/Cham match. Its not that I wont support Ireland and go to the game when able but it is a poor spectacle of football. There is nothing that can be done about this because the players available are not good enough to play attractive football. This is generally the same for most of the teams in the qualifiers therefore we see alot of poor games.
So Id take club games all the time over interantional games.

Sorry off topic.
On the
'I'm surprised more Irish fans don't support England as an international team.'
'Because England are better and they can cheer on their premiership heros while they play for their country.'

Alot of English fans who support English clubs dont support the national team. Most of the English teams dont have many English players playing for them. So if I support Liverpool I should support Spain, reason they have 5 spanish players in the Spain national side.

Dearg81

Iang87 wrote: »

dude comparing ireland v bulgaria or ireland v anyone to everton v stoke is lousy to stoke and everton.

Prob more along the lines of greys athletic v forest green

I disagree, i think ireland are better than Stoke, maybe not Everton.

Dub13

bohsman wrote: »

Would be even harder for Ireland to qualify if they had to get through qualifiers to get into the group stages.

I don't think we would be in the qualifiers,now I cant remember all the info as it was over a year ago I was reading about this but from memory they planned on talking 12 teams (i think it was 12) out main draw.These would be the minnows of Int football in Europe.

kingshankly

Dearg81 wrote: »

I disagree, i think ireland are better than Stoke, maybe not Everton.

wouldnt say there is much between them, i could see ireland struggling to stay in the premiership unfortunately

LuckyLloyd

therecklessone wrote: »

53-35=18 to be cut.

Best way of cutting would probably be two/three rounds of two-legged knock out ties for the lowest ranked sides.

I disagree with this. Remember the 1992 qualifiers when we hammered Turkey twice and they were considered absolute whipping boys? Look at the strides Cyprus have made over the past 10 years. Consider how the likes of The Faroe Islands or Andorra become a little more competitive every time they play.

If there was absolutely no upward mobility or improvement amongst the lessor teams I would be fine with splitting things into A and B divisions. But instead what the last twenty years have shown is that teams do have the ability to learn from their mistakes, improve and climb up the rankings. Let them play.

The qualification campaigns aren't about entertainment anyway. I personally don't care whether Ireland play nice football or not. I watch to see them compete and (hopefully) win. It should be the same for football fans all over Europe, get behind your country on International weekends. The entertainment payoff will come with the month long tournament itself.

everdead.ie

The FIFA world rankings have Ireland ranked 18th out of europe(26th in the world) So if you where cutting it down to 35 we'd qualify automatically and not need to go to those extra rounds. But the reason why these nations are seeded is because the best teams tend to have the biggest audiences.

There was talk about this after england failed to get to the euros they wanted to change it to give these country's a greater chance of getting there cause it's about money and england has one of the most developed markets for football.

Fromvert

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

I disagree with this. Remember the 1992 qualifiers when we hammered Turkey twice and they were considered absolute whipping boys? Look at the strides Cyprus have made over the past 10 years. Consider how the likes of The Faroe Islands or Andorra become a little more competitive every time they play.

If there was absolutely no upward mobility or improvement amongst the lessor teams I would be fine with splitting things into A and B divisions. But instead what the last twenty years have shown is that teams do have the ability to learn from their mistakes, improve and climb up the rankings. Let them play.

The qualification campaigns aren't about entertainment anyway. I personally don't care whether Ireland play nice football or not. I watch to see them compete and (hopefully) win. It should be the same for football fans all over Europe, get behind your country on International weekends. The entertainment payoff will come with the month long tournament itself.

But I doubt their improvement is because of the internationals they have played over the last 17 years. Id say its more to do with the infrastructure they have put in place in Turkey. They supposedly have the best young talent in Europe.
Id be in favour of the cut.

Quint

therecklessone wrote: »

Wonderful stuff chaps, but very little to do with the thread topic.

You fecken asked me:rolleyes:

joe123

Iang87 wrote: »

dude comparing ireland v bulgaria or ireland v anyone to everton v stoke is lousy to stoke and everton.

Prob more along the lines of greys athletic v forest green

You musnt watch that much outside the top 4 if you think the standard of international football is that poor.

ArmaniJeanss

everdead.ie wrote: »

The FIFA world rankings have Ireland ranked 18th out of europe(26th in the world) So if you where cutting it down to 35 we'd qualify automatically and not need to go to those extra rounds. But the reason why these nations are seeded is because the best teams tend to have the biggest audiences.

If you are referring to therecklessones plan for 7x5 groups then Ireland wouldn't qualify automatically under that plan.
His plan is top 17 qualify automatically, remaining 36 teams play-off for the 18 places in the groups leaving 35 for the main stage.

ArmaniJeanss

By the way the football calendar is going to still have as many international match dates on it even if UEFA cut the amount of qualifiers.

Conmebol will still have an 18 game qualifying tournament, and ConCacaf will still use 16 match dates in their tiered group stages (and thats just counting from the time Mexico and USA come in, theres more tiers before that).

So you can do away with the boring qualifiers but all you'll get in their place is even more boring friendlies.

There were some cracking qualifiers over the weekend. Admittedly Irelands was poor though I don't think the design/size of the ground is helping (argument for a different thread I suppose).

therecklessone

Quint wrote: »

You fecken asked me:rolleyes:

I did, because I thought you may have been making a different point which might have been related to the question the OP asks.

Quint

therecklessone wrote: »

I did, because I thought you may have been making a different point which might have been related to the question the OP asks.

In future I'll run things past you to see if it's close enough to the topic.