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World Cup 2018: Russia


VILLAMARV

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18 hours ago, VillaChris said:

I agree with the qualifying bit but most of those are bang average, Cameron is a squad player at Stoke, same for Yedlin at Newcastle. Bundesliga players are o.k but they must've been injured as none of them were in the squad.

U.S.A squad isn't much better than Costa Rica who have Real Madrid's starting keeper and also likes of Bryan Ovideo,Borges, Bryan Ruiz and Joel Campbell who have all had solid careers in europe.

U.S.A had a better squad in 2010 imo. Likes of Howard, Bradley, Dempsey were all at their peaks then and Landon Donovan was still around. They underachieved in that world cup.

Think they have a similar problem to Holland, not enough of those players in the 23-27 range has stepped up. What happened to Julian Green? Scored v Belgium and was at Bayern Munich but don't have a clue who he plays for now.

Yup no denying they underachieved a while back. Dempsey at one point was one of the best attacking mids/forwards in the premier league. Howard was considered an elite keeper, and I believe that was when Bradley was actually playing in Europe pretty well. Plus throw in Donovan who always was a good players, and the likes of Bocanegra and Onyewu who were starting for pretty good clubs in Europe. USA definitely should've done better. 

Still USA has enough talent even with their bang average premier league players to qualify. Costa Rica does have some talented players for sure, but even their squad is largely poor players. 7 of Costa Rica's 23 players actually play in Costa Rica. Then you some players playing in India, Thailand, switzerland, Scotland, and a lot in MLS. Basically only navas plays for a quality club. It's actually quite amazing how well Costa Rica has done looking at their squad. It's pretty awful talent wise. 

USA's squad is mostly guys at least playing for some clubs in top european leagues with a few MLS players sprinkled in. USA has a big problem with trying to promote their league, but they are stunting the growth of their own players with their league. I'd say the MLS is comparable to the Scottish league, and look at scotland. Their squad is pretty similar to US' terms of talent. 

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ok, so double checking myself the UEFA co-efficients are worked out differently to the FIFA rankings. The updated FIFA rankings are to be released a day before the UEFA draw. Still, might be a good indicator.

Not entirely sure the UEFA ones involve friendlies and I think there is more weighting given to recent results in the FIFA one.

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So Denmark take the 4th seeded spot for the draw by moving ahead of N.Ireland then.

1. Switzerland (11)
2. Italy (15)
3. Croatia (18)
4. Denmark (19)

5. Northern Ireland (23)
6. Sweden (25)
7. Republic of Ireland (26)
8. Greece (47)

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Probably the best draw that Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland could've had?!

 

Edit:  Some terrible luck for Sweden, really.  Get placed in a group containing France and Netherlands, come 2nd... and get Italy in the playoffs.

Edited by bobzy
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21 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

I am happy with the Croatia tie, the Swiss are a lot better. Good draw for ROI. See no reason why they wont qualify now 

:huh:? There are plenty of reasons why we won't qualify, we have no good players and we can't score goals being two of the most obvious ones. It's a good draw for us though, although being at home in the first leg would have been better. I expect we'll be playing for 0-0 away and then play the home game like we are the away team too. Expect 65% + possession for the Danes in both legs.

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6 hours ago, bobzy said:

Probably the best draw that Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland could've had?!

 

Edit:  Some terrible luck for Sweden, really.  Get placed in a group containing France and Netherlands, come 2nd... and get Italy in the playoffs.

If Sweden can perform at the same level they did in the two games v France, they've got a very good chance of knocking Italy out.

They were poor v Holland but think that was more the case they knew 1st wasn't possible.

Republic and Norn should both be happy, both ties are very winnable if they can defend well.

Hopefully Croatia actually wake up and start playing football, much rather see them in a world cup than Greece.

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12 minutes ago, VillaChris said:

Republic and Norn should both be happy, both ties are very winnable if they can defend well.

Definitely happy.  Even getting the 2nd leg at home worked in our favour.  But we need to remember that this is a seeded team.  They are favourites and on paper they should win.  So we can't go into it thinking 'phew we avoided the others' as if this should be easy.  It won't be.  But I know the management team will get that across to them.  It's the fans who will have the expectation, as is natural.

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6 hours ago, villa89 said:

:huh:? There are plenty of reasons why we won't qualify, we have no good players and we can't score goals being two of the most obvious ones. It's a good draw for us though, although being at home in the first leg would have been better. I expect we'll be playing for 0-0 away and then play the home game like we are the away team too. Expect 65% + possession for the Danes in both legs.

Worked v Bosnia innit.

Denmark is my favourite Scandinavian though. Always disappointed when they don't make a major finals.

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14 minutes ago, BOF said:

Definitely happy.  Even getting the 2nd leg at home worked in our favour.  But we need to remember that this is a seeded team.  They are favourites and on paper they should win.  So we can't go into it thinking 'phew we avoided the others' as if this should be easy.  It won't be.  But I know the management team will get that across to them.  It's the fans who will have the expectation, as is natural.

Didn't realise second leg was at the Avivva. I assume all the seeded teams got home leg second aswell not that it means guaranteed progression of course as it can work both ways to teams.

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1 minute ago, VillaChris said:

Didn't realise second leg was at the Avivva. I assume all the seeded teams got home leg second aswell not that it means guaranteed progression of course as it can work both ways to teams.

Yeah I was surprised.  After all, they give the seeds f**king everything else!  The flip side of course being that the tie can be already done and dusted by the time the 2nd leg rolls around.

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