Euro 2008 non-qualification thread...

[Dave A]

Oh I know, but the entire world cup setup technically already has that, you have the 6 qualifying tornaments for the coninental cups then you have the continental cup 9ie Euro 2008) then you have the world cup. The Euro 2008 is technically already the pre-qualifying for the world cup, so we don't need yet another tier. It's just complicating things, especially with the problems Famine pointed out, you won't fix the matter by adding more matches and another tier to the world cup format.

 

[daan]

Euro 2008 has nothing to do with the World Cup The World Cup has it's own qualifying groups. This qualifying gets you into Euro 2008. A team can qualify for the Euro championships, and even win it, but may not qualify for the World Cup, as Greece did.

 

[Dave A]

It's all part of the same format, the games in Euro 2008 will have an effect on the world cup 2010 and is viewd as a part of the qualification process. According to Wikipedia atleast it is anyway.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA_World_Cup
As for winning the continantal tournament, Greece did win it, and that qualified them for the World cup knockout stage.

 

[daan]

Every team in Europe is welcome to try and qualify for the world cup. The first 2 in each qualifying group get to the finals in whichever country they are in. Greece would have been eligble to qualify whether they had won Euro 2004, got to the 2nd round, or never even qualified for the tournament. They failed to get into the top 2 places in their group, so they failed to qualify for WC 2006.

Euro 2000 and whatever means nothing when it comes to the next world cup. The only difference is a team may move up or down the rankings depending on how they do at the Euro championships. But they move up and down rankings with every game played anyway.

 

[Dave A]

No your right, it's just the rankings with them. I'm a tired and confused Manc lad, can you forgive me. I was reading the articles wrong .

 

[daan]

I did think that you should know that, and I was beginning to doubt myself!

 

[Dave A]

I just looked at the wiki pages and read them wrong confusing myself and all around me .

 

[Famine]

Not only that, but the winners of the World Cup and European Championships are no longer guaranteed a place at the next one - they must now qualify like everyone else (except the hosts), which will probably see Greece fail to reach Euro 2008.

 

[daan]

We beat France!!!11!!!

 

[<_Spike_>]

Well done.

Ah "Dear Steve McLaren.. you're already becoming Sven Mk 2...stop it"

Geezus...diamond midfield = WRONG...Rooney and Crouch up front together = WRONG...

Someone please tell Steve to ditch Rooney we've done fine without him, he's not needed...heck we've done better without Mr 2 goals in his last 17 internationals

 

[ExigeEvan]

*Jumps off Severn Bridge*

 

[OZZYGT]

Italy is playing Ukraine right now, and I just wonder










WHEN ARE WE GONNA SCORE THE FIRST GOAL!!!





Ciao!

 

[Dave A]

What a pathetic match, that's the worst I've seen England play for a lon, long time.

 

[OZZYGT]

GOL ITALIA!!!

Grazie a Dio!

EDIT: Another Gooaal!!!

ITALIA 2 - ukraine - 0






Ciao!

 

[Flerbizky]

Denmark - N. Ireland : 0-0 (Yearh - So we suck - so what.. Nothing new there...)

Sweden - Spain : 2-0 (The goal to 2-0 was scored by Marcus Allb&#228;ck who plays for "my" team - FCK !....)

That's 2 x 2-0 to Spain... Now what ?...

 

[RouWa]

"My team" (Germany) played a friendly this evening and won 2:0 against Georgia (Georgian Republic? ). That´s not bad, because it was a C team with many debuts of young players. In today´s eleven only Ballack, Podolski, A. Friedrich, Odonkor and Schweinsteiger played at the WC. Podolski was sent off at the beginning of the second half. That makes 4 wins and 19:0 goals in four games for our coach Joachim Löw.

My biggest disappointment is Spain. Why are they so bad? They have the best (maybe second best behind England) league in the world with many players from spain. Should be no problem to make up a good team.

 

[OZZYGT]

"
My biggest disappointment is Spain. Why are they so bad? They have the best (maybe second best behind England) league in the world with many players from spain. Should be no problem to make up a good team.

Most of the great players from the spanish league are actually not Spanish. Raul and Casillas are among the few ones that stand out the most.




Ciao!

 

[daan]

The French coach blamed his team's defeat on the fact that the ball boys were slow in giving the ball back to them after it went out!

The words straws, at and clutching come into mind...

 

[Dave A]

That's probably the worst excuse to lose a professional game of football I've ever heared.

 

[Famine]

Scores/tables updated.

Scotland 3 from 3. Crikey. Who'd ever thought they'd see THIS day?

That's probably the worst excuse to lose a professional game of football I've ever heared.

Yeah - not like "Our players couldn't see each other in the grey shirts", eh?

 

[daan]

Group B
1 Scotland W3 D0 L0 - 9pt - +8
2 France W2 D0 L1 - 6pt - +4
3 Italy W1 D1 L1 - 4pt - 0
4 Lithuania W1 D1 L1 - 4pt - 0
5 Georgia W1 D0 L2 - 3pt - +2
6 Ukraine W1 D0 L1 - 3pt - -1
7 Faroe Islands W0 D0 L3 - 0pt - -13

Results
16/8/06 Faroe Islands 0-6 Georgia
2/9/06 Scotland 6-0 Faroe Islands
2/9/06 Georgia 0-3 France
2/9/06 Italy 1-1 Lithuania
6/9/06 Ukraine 3-2 Georgia
6/9/06 Lithuania 1-2 Scotland
6/9/06 France 3-1 Italy
7/10/06 Faroe Islands 0-1 Lithuania
7/10/06 Scotland 1-0 France
7/10/06 Italy 2-0 Ukraine

I'm definitely saving that one for posterity!

 

[OZZYGT]

So who's next daan? my team against yours?




Ciao!

 

[daan]

No, we don't get to beat you.... sorry, play you, until well into next year.

 

[daan]

Who is going to post tonight's results then?

No-one?

EDIT: Ozzy? Evan?

 

[ExigeEvan]

Who is going to post tonight's results then?

No-one?

EDIT: Ozzy? Evan?

Results
Croatia 2-0 England
Northern Ireland 1-0 Latvia
Republic of Ireland 1-1 Czech Republic
Ukraine 2-0 Scotland
Wales 3-1 Cyprus




A completely unbias use of highlighting there....


[EDIT]
Forgot the rest of Europe... *cough* payback *splutter*
Andorra 0-3 FYR Macedonia
Belarus 4-2 Slovenia
Belgium 3-0 Azerbaijan
Bosnia-Herzegovina 0-4 Greece
France 5-0 Faroe Islands
Georgia 1-3 Italy
Holland 2-1 Albania
Iceland 1-2 Sweden
Kazakhstan 0-2 Finland
Liechtenstein 0-4 Denmark
Luxembourg 0-1 Bulgaria
Malta 2-1 Hungary
Poland 2-1 Portugal
Russia 2-0 Estonia
Serbia 3-0 Armenia
Slovakia 1-4 Germany
Turkey 5-0 Moldova

 

[El Gigante]

My God England are crap....I just don't understand why we suck so hard.

 

[OZZYGT]

Seriously, I don't understand that either. People who are not related to football at all [cough]americans[/cough] would think England is one of the football powers in the world...It's just too sad that they can't come up as a strong contender as they should be.





Ciao!

 

[DDMv2]

I think they need better teamwork...

They have ENOUGH talent on the team they should just focus on the game and focus on getting goals...

 

[daan]

Just seen the 2nd Croatia goal. Neville passes the ball back to Robinson. The ball bobbles over a divot just as Robinson goes to kick it, and he misses. The ball then trundles over the line for a goal. I'm glad it goes down as a Neville own goal. Surely, rule 1 of the pass back is to "not aim for your own goal". You're passing it back to a guy who is in goal because he can't kick a ball!

 

[Dave A]

I didn't watch it, Scotland lost as well, I think that's the first points they've dropped so far.

England arn't crap in terms of what we've got, basically on paper we're a good side. We just arn't being managed well, we haven't for a long time. We have good enough players, but also the players being picked for the squad are wrong. Take Downing for example, why is he in the squad and not David Beckham. David Beckham has never played as badly as Downing did on Saturday, the ammount of times he's bailed England out of dropping points is stupid to ignore. McLaren isn't managing England to be the best team they can be, he's managing them to be his team, that's not in mine or your best interests, dropping Beckham was a prime example of the whole "this is my team now, not Sven's" attitude, sure Sven didd hold Beckham in perhaps too high a regard but that doesn't defeat the fact that Beckham is still one of the best English palyers still playing football.

Watching England play on Saturday was like watching Middlesbrough play, this is worrying, Steve McLaren is not the man to take England far and wide, and we haven't even played any good teams yet. If we can draw on Saturday then get beat by Croatia god help us when we play a good team.