Republic of Ireland Team Talk/News/Rumours 2020/2021 - see Mod Note in OP [18/11/20]

ArmaniJeanss

sugarman wrote: »

I know I sound like a broken reckon on here about the 48 team World Cup, but the confederation allocations are an absolute farce.

UEFA are only set to get an additional 3 spots to bring the total up to 16 with 55 teams competing.

Where as CONMEBOL are set to get 2 more to bring their total up to 6, where 10 teams compete!

Then there's CONCACAF set to get 2 more to bring their total also up to 6. While there are 35 teams, the standard of teams outside of USA and Mexico are dirt.

If I was to guess, the only benefit for us in UEFA will be the return of a traditional 2 leg playoff as opposed to the new 1 leg semi final and final malarkey.

Whilst I agree with the overall point re UEFAs allocation, I think labelling Costa Rica as dirt is unfair.

Dr. Bre

A 48 team World Cup will still be hard to qualify for Ireland .

sugarman

sugarman wrote: »

I know I sound like a broken reckon on here about the 48 team World Cup, but the confederation allocations are an absolute farce.

UEFA are only set to get an additional 3 spots to bring the total up to 16 with 55 teams competing.

Where as CONMEBOL are set to get 2 more to bring their total up to 6, where 10 teams compete!

Then there's CONCACAF set to get 2 more to bring their total also up to 6. While there are 35 teams, the standard of teams outside of USA and Mexico are dirt.

If I was to guess, the only benefit for us in UEFA will be the return of a traditional 2 leg playoff as opposed to the new 1 leg semi final and final malarkey.

I completely agree with the allotments being wrong in terms of quality.

But the political upheaval in Europe has increased those competitors, not UEFA.

If you go back to the 80s, there was far less countries to compete against.

loyatemu

the whole point of going to 48 teams is to spread the places more evenly, so it's not surprising UEFA haven't got many of the extra places. Africa has the same number of countries but less than half the places for 2022. You could argue the European countries are better quality but TBH that's dubious when your talking about the 15th, 16th, 17th best countries in Europe. How much extra are Ireland or Scotland adding to a World Cup compared to Zambia or Mali.

The White Feather

I am wondering what good thing he will say about Ireland when we come out!

Mr.Nice Guy

We're fecked.

The White Feather

It could have been better but could have been worse too. Always going to be hard no matter what.

Nerdlingr

we're probably better off in a five team group no? luxembourg!! nice!!

get another rubbish/lesser team and its basically a straight shootout between ourselves and serbia for a play off spot.
would have to be happy with that!

Dr. Bre

Lux is a great draw fir us! Glad to avoid George’s a

Mr.Nice Guy

Luxembourg is one of the best options we could have had in this pot.

Zeek12

We'll take Luxembourg for sure. Not so bad that.

Avoiding Georgia and Wales a bonus!!

Agent Coulson

When did Macedonia become two Countries?

RikkFlair

A long old trek to Baku!

Mr.Nice Guy

I'd rather Azerbaijan than Kosovo.

Oat23

Agent Coulson wrote: »

When did Macedonia become two Countries?

They changed their name to satisfy the Greeks and help with their EU membership application. It's still the same country.

Nerdlingr

Some trip to Baku !!

kksaints

Agent Coulson wrote: »

When did Macedonia become two Countries?

It didn't. It was renamed after a referendum a few years ago. Dispute with Greece was blocking EU and NATO memberships.

Dillonb3

Decent chance to get second in the group, really pulled off some luck drawing Luxembourg

Agent Coulson

Oat23 wrote: »

They changed their name to satisfy the Greeks and help with their EU membership application. It's still the same country.

Interesting off to Wikipedia I go.

Oat23

Agent Coulson wrote: »

Interesting off to Wikipedia I go.

Prespa Agreement

Bridge93

You can play out the 0-0 draw in Baku in your head already

Nerdlingr

Thats nearly as good as draw as we could have hoped for tbh.
Gotta be happy with that!

Mr.Nice Guy

The pot 4 and 5 teams are good for us but it's beyond us imo. Portugal will win the group handily, and Serbia will be too strong. We should take third.

Zico !

That's a great draw for us normally. Only problem is that we are complete sh1t with an awful group of players worst in years and the manager who ain't great either other than that not bad. Have to say the way we are playing at the moment Luxembourg will give us problems

Pawwed Rig

sugarman wrote: »

Portugal
Serbia
Ireland
Luxembourg
Azerbaijan

Happy enough with that.

Some nice trips there. Was gutted that I missed Belgrade last time out so looking forward to that one. Lux is an easy trip as Frankfurt is within striking distance if flights to Lux itself get too expensive.

Baku - can't wait.

Hopefully the vaccine gets sorted before these games.

Zico !

Bruno Fernández running at Duffy sweet jesus

Kermit.de.frog

Looks like it's going to be an intense battle between ourselves, Luxembourg and Azerbaijan for 3rd place.

Fromvert

That's not a bad group, we're poor right now but Serbia are a very similar level team to us (actually both ranked 29th). Hopefully we can get a Luxembourg and home to Azerbaijan early in the group to get a bit of momentum/belief into the squad.

Portugal - 7th
Serbia - 29th
Ireland - 29th
Luxembourg - 88th
Azerbaijan - 108th

It could have been a lot worst. We can give Serbia two very tough games and need to be picking up maximum against Luxembourg and Azerbaijan. Anything bar getting humiliated by Portugal would be nice.

BonnieSituation

BonnieSituation wrote: »

No.

No.

Please god no. I can't face Denmark and Wales again.

Portugal
Serbia
IRELAND
Luxembourg
Azerbaijan

Thank Christ!

I'll have a birra that tbh.

Nerdlingr

Zico ! wrote: »

Bruno Fernández running at Duffy sweet jesus

and Ronaldo, Joao Felix, Diogo Jota, Trincao, Neto etc

semedo , perreria and guerrerio bombing down the wings from full back

fernandes, caravalho, pulling the strings in midfield
(ruben neves cant even get in the team)

dias, pepe and rui patricio rock solid in defence


be grand, nothing to worry about!

Tchaikovsky

Anyone know how Luxembourg got into pot 4? Was it primarily off the back of their Nations League results or did they beat some decent teams?

CantGetNoSleep

Bridge93 wrote: »

You can play out the 0-0 draw in Baku in your head already

You can just imagine on 80 minutes having had 80% possession and we're still 4-3-3 in Kennyball with some 5 foot 5 striker on his own up front and he won't make a change in formation too

Mr.Nice Guy

Serbia have miles better players than us tbh. Milinkovic-Savic, Jovic, Mitrovic, Tadic, Matic, Kostic, Kolarov spring to mind. They will be looking at giving Portugal a run for their money. We were outplayed home and away by Bulgaria, who were in Pot 4 today. I'd be amazed if we took any points off the top two seeds. Realistically, it shouldn't be close.

Nerdlingr

Luxembourg had Portugal and Serbia in their group for the EURO 2020 qualifying as well.
Serbia only beat them 3-2 at home.

Tchaikovsky

Nerdlingr wrote: »

Luxembourg had Portugal and Serbia in their group for the EURO 2020 qualifying as well.
Serbia only beat them 3-2 at home.

And Serbia lost 5-0 away to Ukraine but drew on Portugal

Ferris_Bueller

Portugal will probably hockey us but not a bad draw. Serbia will be favourites for second but they aren't exactly serial qualifiers and they have always been hit and miss over the years. Definitely could have been much worse for us out of that pot. Have to be happy with Luxembourg and Azerbaijan then. Hopefully the fixture list is kind and we get a nice home game against Azerbaijan or Luxembourg to start with.

Tchaikovsky

Ferris_Bueller wrote: »

Portugal will probably hockey us but not a bad draw. Serbia will be favourites for second but they aren't exactly serial qualifiers and they have always been hit and miss over the years. Definitely could have been much worse for us out of that pot. Have to be happy with Luxembourg and Azerbaijan then. Hopefully the fixture list is kind and we get a nice home game against Azerbaijan or Luxembourg to start with.

Those 2 away would probably be better. The further on we go the possibility of fans in the stadium will increase. March is around the corner so best case scenario would be a couple of thousand fans.

statesaver

I'll be happy if they can score a goal, not much to ask is it

VillaMad

Tchaikovsky wrote: »

Anyone know how Luxembourg got into pot 4? Was it primarily off the back of their Nations League results or did they beat some decent teams?

They have been much improved over the past few years with a influx of some very good youngsters and they play a nice brand of football too. Quite a number of the squad are playing in and around the top leagues in Europe. They are much more competitive now and rarely get hammered.

They will be an awkward challenge for us, particularly when we find it so hard to score.

FLOOPER

Don’t think playing easiest games first is profitable for us. It just skews the impression of our success and maybe somehow translates down to player and complacency. Who knows.

But it would be nice to have a full stadium when we play them over here.

So get the 2 away games out of the way. In the first half of fixtures.

BTW when are fixtures eh... fixed.

And presume first matches are from March?

PTH2009

Could of been worse and thank feck we didn't get Georgia, Wales or Denmark again

Still a very hard group with Portugal with Ronaldo will be a very tough nut to crack, Serbia troubled us in the past and will be very hard esp away from home. Luxembourg and Azerbaijan a bit of a unknown quantity but were not world beaters either.

Fixture list will be important and lets hope we don't have early games against Portugal and Serbia

We need to bloody goal a score and thats are main worry now

pjohnson

PTH2009 wrote: »

Could of been worse and thank feck we didn't get Georgia, Wales or Denmark again

Still a very hard group with Portugal with Ronaldo will be a very tough nut to crack, Serbia troubled us in the past and will be very hard esp away from home. Luxembourg and Azerbaijan a bit of a unknown quantity but were not world beaters either.

Fixture list will be important and lets hope we don't have early games against Portugal and Serbia

We need to bloody goal a score and thats are main worry now

I know its been a while since its happened but jaysus :pac:

Five Eighth

Might be time to borrow the following ditty one time chanted by the Scots:

"All we are saying is give us a goal."

Reality is we just don't have the quality of player to play total football.

No chance against Portugal. Underdogs against Serbia.

~Rebel~

Any slim hope we have of nicking 2nd will come down to the timing of the games I think. We need a few easier ones up front to get the team a bit more settled and finally break the pressure of not scoring.

Any extra development time we can buy for lads like Parrott, Molumby and Connolly is a good thing too, an extra 6 months or a year for them could be quite noticeable.

ebbsy

sugarman wrote: »

I know I sound like a broken reckon on here about the 48 team World Cup, but the confederation allocations are an absolute farce.

UEFA are only set to get an additional 3 spots to bring the total up to 16 with 55 teams competing.

Where as CONMEBOL are set to get 2 more to bring their total up to 6, where 10 teams compete!

Then there's CONCACAF set to get 2 more to bring their total also up to 6. While there are 35 teams, the standard of teams outside of USA and Mexico are dirt.

If I was to guess, the only benefit for us in UEFA will be the return of a traditional 2 leg playoff as opposed to the new 1 leg semi final and final malarkey.

or the top 2 go through ? Wont happen though

atilladehun

Think I heard fixtures will be out tonight or tomorrow.

Don't think there's a chance of the current Irish crop being complacent. Get the easy games in first to get ourselves off the floor.

Few more friendlies or nations league before getting the big ones. Don't fancy Portugal first or second

Collie D

I see the FAI released their accounts during the draw

TheadoreT

Fond memories of the last time we were in a world cup group with Portugal, got two draws against Figo, Rui Costa ect... Oh to be back to those days.

Jimbob1977

12 points out of 12 is required from Luxembourg and Azerbaijan.

Serbia and Portugal are unlikely to drop those points.

Could we upset Serbia once? Maybe.

Realistically 3rd place is our likely outcome.

johnnyryan89

Nerdlingr wrote: »

we're probably better off in a five team group no? luxembourg!! nice!!

get another rubbish/lesser team and its basically a straight shootout between ourselves and serbia for a play off spot.
would have to be happy with that!

Yeah pretty sure we avoid having to play the extra fixture in March and September now given we've only 8 match days rather than 10, unless Uefa make us play friendlies to make up the extra dates.

If we only have to play the two in March and September then I'll take not drawing one of the pot six teams given we'll have games against teams looking to warm up for the Euros. If the Euros still go ahead in all the different countries then Sweden, Slovakia and Poland are three of the four teams who'll be playing matches in Dublin.