Onwards and upwards...

[At The Border Guy]

Anyone know the GMT time of the World Cup draw on Sunday??

[Sonoftherock]

The European Zone of the 2010 FIFA World Cup qualification will see 53 teams competing for 13 places.

 

Eight groups of six teams and one group of five will contest the European qualifying competition for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. The nine group-winners will qualify directly, while the highest ranked eight of the nine second-placed teams will contest home and away play-off matches for the remaining four places. In determining the rank of second-placed teams, only results against those finishing 1st, 3rd, 4th and 5th will be counted.

 

Oh dear. That's not exactly ideal. Looks like we'll most likely have to negociate another play-off if we want to make it to South Africa! I was hoping it'd be another straight 2-go throught situation.....

 

Bring on the draw and lets hope we get a decent one! It looks like we are a stick on for the 2nd pot, hopefully our loses to Georgia and Italy won't hit us too hard! Anyone have a projected pot listing?

[Tord31]

http://www.afc-chat.co.uk/forums/index.php...&hl=finland

 

half way down the page.

 

Most likely we will be targeting a play off place but you never know have to see what the group looks like first

[Sonoftherock]

http://www.afc-chat.co.uk/forums/index.php...&hl=finland

 

half way down the page.

 

Most likely we will be targeting a play off place but you never know have to see what the group looks like first

 

Pot 2 looks like absolute murder.... I'm glad we don't have to face any of that lot!

 

Croatia

Scotland

Hungary

Albania

Liechtenstein

Andorra

 

That would be perfect!

 

Worst case scenario....

 

Italy

Scotland

Turkey

Belgium

Lithuania

Montenegro

 

.... however, even that's nothing compared to our Euro 2008 group!

[bland_flabbis]

Hopefully we get Croatia out of the top seeds, they're the sort of team (a bit like Ukraine) who could follow up a really good campaign with a poor one. England are gash but I can see them getting a new manager and putting some form together after Euro 2008. I'd really like to avoid Germany, France and Italy this time around as they're just too consistent at picking up points to realistically challenge again. At least with the likes of Spain and Portugal there's always the potential for them to slip up and get a poor result now and then. The likes of France just steamroller all the diddy teams we tend to struggle with (Georgia, Lithuania etc) and we only managed to keep up with them this time because of two fantastic results.

[E-P-K]

Hopefully we get Croatia out of the top seeds, they're the sort of team (a bit like Ukraine) who could follow up a really good campaign with a poor one. England are gash but I can see them getting a new manager and putting some form together after Euro 2008. I'd really like to avoid Germany, France and Italy this time around as they're just too consistent at picking up points to realistically challenge again. At least with the likes of Spain and Portugal there's always the potential for them to slip up and get a poor result now and then. The likes of France just steamroller all the diddy teams we tend to struggle with (Georgia, Lithuania etc) and we only managed to keep up with them this time because of two fantastic results.

 

 

Croatia are still undefeated in all competitive matches they played on home soil since 1994.

[bland_flabbis]

Nobody's saying they're pish, but in comparison to teams who've won/made the final of major tournaments in that period (France, Italy, Germany, Czech Republic, Portugal) being unbeaten at home pales into insignificance somewhat.

[Sonoftherock]

Nobody's saying they're pish, but in comparison to teams who've won/made the final of major tournaments in that period (France, Italy, Germany, Czech Republic, Portugal) being unbeaten at home pales into insignificance somewhat.

 

Exactly. Croatia are one the best teams in Europe, but compared with the likes of Italy, France and Germany there is no contest. However, the Czech Repblic may be a good team to draw... their all conquering team of the past decade appear to be breaking up.... guys like Poborsky, Koller and Nedved are all approaching the end of their careers. It might be a good time to catch them - I think their aging team would find it difficult at Hampden.

 

If McLaren remains in charge then I'd take England.

[tom_widdows]

I just hope we dont go the way wales did after their euro 2004 campaign. They threw away top spot by ***king up their last 2 home games ( a defeat and a draw when 2 wins would have put them top) and then chucked it away in the playoffs

Anyway suddenly mark hughes left for the permiership and suddenly they went back to being complete sh*te.

 

All this optimism about how good we are is getting to me. Im expecting a big fall

[E-P-K]

Provisional Seeding Groups

 

Italy

France

Germany

Spain

Netherlands

Portugal

Czech Republic

Croatia

England

 

 

Romania

Scotland

Greece

Russia

Poland

Norway

Ukraine

Sweden

Serbia

 

 

Turkey

Denmark

Republic of Ireland

Bulgaria

Northern Ireland

Israel

Switzerland

Finland

Hungary

 

 

Bosnia-Herzegovina

Slovakia

Belgium

Cyprus

Wales

Moldova

Albania

Georgia

FYR Macedonia

 

 

Slovenia

Iceland

Armenia

Latvia

Austria

Lithuania

Belarus

Azerbaijan

Liechtenstein

 

 

Kazakhstan

Estonia

Malta

Luxembourg

Montenegro

Andorra

Faroe Islands

San Marino

[Guest LondonScottish]

I don't like the look of the third group of seeds. Being in the second seeded pot won't do us too many favours.

[ZeroTolerance]

Bring on the English

[TheChimp]

I'm utterly baffled as to how far down the list Belgium and Austria have slipped.

[vanderark14]

I'm utterly baffled as to how far down the list Belgium and Austria have slipped.

 

 

not sure about Belguim but Austria are mince

[BobbyBiscuit]

not sure about Belguim but Austria are mince

 

Belgium are mince as well. Think Scotland would beat them rather easily.

[Guest LondonScottish]

Belgium are mince as well. Think Scotland would beat them rather easily.

 

 

Feet on the ground please lads.

[BobbyBiscuit]

Feet on the ground please lads.

 

I don't give a ***k about Scotland, so that's an unbiased viewpoint.

[At The Border Guy]

Is the draw going to be on tv? Fancy another pub breakfast.

[ninja-lewis]

Austria (and Switzerland) haven't played any qualifiers so they've slipped down the rankings while even the pish teams have picked up a point here or there.

[paulkaneatemyhamster]

Considering the group we've just had why should we be afraid of playing anyone in Europe, especially at Hampden.

 

worst case scenario is Italy, Turkey, Bosnia, Slovenia & Kazakhstan would be tough but no reason why again we can't get 15 - 20 points out of that .

 

and also i agree ... i think if we played Belgium we'd beat them fairly easily right now. As long as we're professional about the build up

[Madbad]

TBH I'd rather have Turkey than ROI.

[Guest LondonScottish]

TBH I'd rather have Turkey than ROI.

 

 

[TheChimp]

Ideal group would be this.

 

England

Scotland

Hungary

Albania

Liechtenstein

San Marino

[vanderark14]

Ideal group would be this.

 

England

Scotland

Hungary

Albania

Liechtenstein

San Marino

 

 

with us and Hungary going through

[Guest LondonScottish]

Ideal group would be this.

 

England

Scotland

Hungary

Albania

Liechtenstein

San Marino

 

 

That would be a dream; you know it'll never be close to that, knowing our luck.

[Sonoftherock]

Drawing Hungary from the 3rd pot would be a huge result! For some reason i think we're going to be stuck with one of the Irish team - not sure which I'd rather take on these days to be honest. Windsor park has become like Hampden for N.Ireland.

[tom_widdows]

Drawing Hungary from the 3rd pot would be a huge result! For some reason i think we're going to be stuck with one of the Irish team - not sure which I'd rather take on these days to be honest. Windsor park has become like Hampden for N.Ireland.

 

 

yes but northern ireland will more than likely be playing their home games elsewhere because windsor parks capacity will have to be cut to 8000 for safety reasons.

Not sure where they will play though since there are no other stadiums in northern ireland with more than 5000 seats

[uni_don]

Not sure where they will play though since there are no other stadiums in northern ireland with more than 5000 seats

How about Ibrox?

 

Oh god.

[E-P-K]

yes but northern ireland will more than likely be playing their home games elsewhere because windsor parks capacity will have to be cut to 8000 for safety reasons.

Not sure where they will play though since there are no other stadiums in northern ireland with more than 5000 seats

 

 

They NIFA (along with the rugby and GAA ) want to build a multi stadium on the grounds of the Maze prison, However 85% of the football fans do not want this and want a smaller stadium / redevelopment in Belfast.

 

Could be good to draw them with no real big stadium for them to play in.

[Dandyjam]

Belgium are mince as well. Think Scotland would beat them rather easily.

 

Hope we get Belgium in our group so we can get revenge for the 2002 World Cup campaign when they came back from 2-0 down to get a 2-2 draw in the last minute which basically ended our hopes of qualifying then rubbed salt in the wounds by beating us 2-0 over there.