League of Nations

[Super_horns]

Still not sure how the qualifiers are organised after this. Are the final four directly through to the Euros? What kind of advantage do they have by playing these 2 added games in June? Still at a loss on this?

It's semi finals then final with the winner certain of a play off spot I think if they don't win their usual qualifying group which starts next year and drawn quite soon .

Same with the 4 teams who win each section in B , C and D.

Handy Belgium going out to the Swiss .

Typical Martinez result !

 

[Laker]

Love the fact that no matter what tournament you create, San Marino still lose all their games and score no goals.....

 

[epic73]

they once scored against england after 7 seconds

 

[Stevencc]

We were very wasteful today, Kane in particular.

Finished it when he had too, though.

Home coming it's.

 

[Krazy8]

Still not sure how the qualifiers are organised after this. Are the final four directly through to the Euros? What kind of advantage do they have by playing these 2 added games in June? Still at a loss on this?

The semi-finalists in the nations league are guaranteed to be drawn into groups of five for euro qualifying so that they don’t end up playing more matches.

 

[TerryD]

Kazakhstan to win at 5/1 or draw 5/2

 

[Dirk]

Home coming it's.

 

[Super_horns]

Blimey - the Netherlands have just come back from 2 down in injury time and will now go through at the expense of France!

 

[Gassy]

So my first England home game... That was friggin' amazing! The atmosphere at the end of the game was just insane, my voice is completely f*cked. Thought we deserved the win overall, but Croatia were just as wasteful as us at times - the amount of times they had a 1 on 1 or 3 strikers vs 2 defenders and they slowed the ball down and didn't end up shooting was outrageous. We definitely have some work to do because a top team would have taken those chances, or at least had a shot on goal.

Modric is a funny player - he completely controls the game, but without doing anything spectacular. He just does the basics right & works his ass off all the time.

Always been a bit of a kids dream to be at Wembley when fans are signing 'its coming home' - that dream was unexpectedly fulfilled.

Now I've had a taste of competitive international football, i'll definitely be back. Cheers Southgate for bringing our England back

 

[AFCB_Mark]

Not only are Germany relegated, but more importantly they will now drop into seed pot two of Euro 2020 qualification.

Low hasn't won a competitive game since that late extraordinary free kick v Sweden.

 

[Dirk]

Not only are Germany relegated, but more importantly they will now drop into seed pot two of Euro 2020 qualification.

Not yet. We have to wait until the Portugal vs Poland game today. If Poland draws or wins we'll drop to Pot 2 otherwise we're still in Pot 1.

Anyway, the result yesterday was disappointing with two late goals in the final 5 minutes but our match was encouraging nonetheless. The youngsters upfront with their speed looked a bit like the Confederations Cup Winner team of 2017. We should have been scored 3 or 4 but in the 2nd half Löw substituted without need all 3 and brought again the useless Thomas Müller (100th cap btw) and Goretzka who made the stupid mistake in the 85th minute that brought the Dutch back in the game.

So my first England home game...

Congrats, Gassy. Must be a great experience to see it. Have seen the match live on tv and I was also impressed. Bit hard on Croatia, though, to go from reaching the final four to relegation in a few minutes

 

[Gassy]

Congrats, Gassy. Must be a great experience to see it. Have seen the match live on tv and I was also impressed. Bit hard on Croatia, though, to go from reaching the final four to relegation in a few minutes

I agree, but now I have some closure at least after the World Cup

Although they won the better of the 3 games, it still felt like a bit of revenge - I've made my peace now

So what's going on at Germany? New players not good enough? Old players past it? Low past it?

 

[Dirk]

So what's going on at Germany? New players not good enough? Old players past it? Low past it?

Löw is past it, that's for sure. But the old bugger won't leave (as well as team manager Oliver Bierhoff) and some of the older players, too (like the aforementioned Thomas Müller) but as I wrote the match showed some really encouraging moments, a bit like the fresh air we produced when we won the Confederations Cup in 2017 with a "B-Team" of youngsters (which we know now was way better than the so-called A-team of aging World Champs who get a rest for it). And the 1st half of the Russia friendly (where we were up 3-0 at half time) showed the same. So both matches have seen the youngsters take their chances and we must go this way further.

And, the choreo in yesterdays match from the fans:
"Wir kommen wieder - Keine Frage! " (We will come back, no question (no doubt about it)

 

[Gassy]

Löw is past it, that's for sure. But the old bugger won't leave (as well as team manager Oliver Bierhoff) and some of the older players, too (like the aforementioned Thomas Müller) but as I wrote the match showed some really encouraging moments, a bit like the fresh air we produced when we won the Confederations Cup in 2017 with a "B-Team" of youngsters (which we know now was way better than the so-called A-team of aging World Champs who get a rest for it). And the 1st half of the Russia friendly (where we were up 3-0 at half time) showed the same. So both matches have seen the youngsters take their chances and we must go this way further.

And, the choreo in yesterdays match from the fans:
"Wir kommen wieder - Keine Frage! " (We will come back, no question (no doubt about it)

Fair enough, seems a bit like us 4 years ago then. I guess you need a manager who has the balls & confidence in the young players to play them & bring them through - a bit like Southgate is doing for us now.

Tbh, it was about time Germany had a bad tournament - it has to happen to everyone eventually. Look at NL - they've gone through some pretty crap years & fair play to them for riding that through & now they're finally coming back to the standard we're used to seeing

 

[Dirk]

Tbh, it was about time Germany had a bad tournament - it has to happen to everyone eventually. Look at NL - they've gone through some pretty crap years & fair play to them for riding that through & now they're finally coming back to the standard we're used to seeing

It's not that we hadn't bad tournaments before , Euro 1984, 2000, 2004 and World Cups 1994/1998 come to my mind. You're right, every team has it downs some time after good periods, that's normal. We'll come back that's for sure (the above slogan from yesterday )

btw:
Yesterday after the match I wondered why the Romanian Referee Hategan had tears in his eyes after the match and was embraced by Virgil.



Now I've read that the referee got the horrible message that his mother died during half time.

 

[Gassy]

Thats terrible, poor bloke. Fair play to him for carrying on through the game - he's a stronger man than I am thats for sure

 

[mistermagic]

Well I was expecting a good game from start to finish last night but Deutschland were just better and Holland not good enough to take anything from it. I liked the 343 Löw played with the front 3 of Werner (great goal), Gnabry and Sané. Without Reus and Draxler, that side looked seriously good. Holland changed a couple of players compared to the France win and that changed quite a bit I felt. de Jong certainly didn't have as much an impact as he had last Friday.
So of course, I couldn't bring myself to watch the second half because the game was just too boring. I can't believe Germany didn't score a 3rd to put the game to bed. See, a couple of years ago, they would have scored that all-important 3rd goal and/or kept a clean sheet. Shows that Germany are still pretty fragile.

So we're not going to the final four then? Boo effin' hoo. Will give us a kick up the backside. Not bothered to watch our friendly against Uruguay this evening. I am very bored. This international break goes on forever I feel!

 

[AFCB_Mark]

Well done Scotland, they must have their best shot at qualification for bloody ages!

Poland draw with Portugal too.

 

[Super_horns]

Which means Germany drop into Pot 2 as Dirk explained.

Great few days for the Scots - James Forrest very impressive.

Just read on the BBC site Scotland's play-offs for the Nations Cup (against Finland) won't be till 2020 so they could still qualifying first through the group.

 

[snortingfrogs]

2-0 Win of Russia last night so we won our group, feels good.

 

[Stevencc]

This isn't the right place for this but...

In 2018, Germany only won 31% of their international games. Meanwhile, Gibraltar won 43% of their games in the same time.

 

[Gassy]

I thought the lower league play offs were the same as ours - to be played in Portugal this summer & drawn randomly.

That's a shame - it would have been better if it was a few teams playing this mini tournament rather than just 4.

Lucky Scots to get Finland then - much rather them than Serbia

 

[Dirk]

This isn't the right place for this but...

In 2018, Germany only won 31% of their international games. Meanwhile, Gibraltar won 43% of their games in the same time.

"This isn't the right place for this but...." I can't resist. Right?

Mocking of Germany: You deserve it, your team had bad times often enough. So it's good to see others having a bad time,too, eh?

Gibraltar > Germany

We had an off year and we're happy to get out of this. After winning the Confederations Cup 2017 and months later qualifying for the World Cup with the best ever record (10 Wins in 10 Games with 43:4 Goals topping Spain's qualifiying record) something happened: It was like someone built a voodoo doll with a german shirt and sticked needles in it everytime we played a competition match (forgot it in the last minutes of the Sweden match, though).

Did we really won as much as 31% of our games? I really thought it would be less than that. At least it felt like that.

Wir kommen wieder - Keine Frage!


edit:
So with the Poland draw in Portugal yesterday, we dropped into pot2 for the Euro Qualifier draw in December. Just when you think it couldn't get any worse....

 

[Gassy]

Tbf, it doesn't really matter too much whether you're 1st or 2nd draw if you're teams like England, Germany, France etc

Its the Euros so it's fairly easy to qualify - with quite a few spaces due to its size since 2016. Not to mention you can also qualify in 3rd position as well.

I feel more for some of the teams (EG Slovakia) who are now considered as a 3rd pot team - for them now it's going to be much harder to qualify.

 

[AFCB_Mark]

Martin O'Neill and Roy Keane have left their roles with the Republic of Ireland, having failed to win a competitive match in 2018.

 

[DarkSithLord]

Martin O'Neill and Roy Keane have left their roles with the Republic of Ireland, having failed to win a competitive match in 2018.

About time.

 

[Redpelt]

The cup is only marginally less hideous than the association behind it.

 

[Leo]

The cup is only marginally less hideous than the association behind it.

......

 

[Leewilson]

About time.

Should have happened after the 5-1 loss to Denmark.

Fair play to them though. They took a very limited Irish side that had always been shunted into 3rd in qualifying groups and got them to the last 16 of the Euros, which is no mean feat.

Player for player they are no better than Scotland. In fact, I'd argue that Scotland possibly have the greater talent at their disposal.

 

[epic73]

In fact, I'd argue that Scotland possibly have the greater talent at their disposal.

Probably because the Irish FA is corrupt and no money is put into the domestic league. John Delaney, the head of the FAI, makes 360k per year while the club who wins the league gets 110k. Graham Burke recently became the first League of Ireland player to be called up to the NT in 40 years. O'Neill's tactics haven't helped either. It's the most stale, boring football I've ever seen and it seems like there's never a plan. The lineup will often consist of seven defenders, with two (Cyrus Christie and who knows who else) playing central midfield instead of the actual central midfielders, and three wingers up front. It's just hoofball, but there's nobody to hoof it to. Only got through to the Euro Round of 16 because of an 85th minute winner assisted by our only creative player (34 at the time, now retired internationally) against Italy's B team.