Qualifiers watch

[saints19]

Results from last week:

Belgium 2-1 Bulgaria
South Africa 1-1 Bulgaria

Montenegro 0-1 Albania
Norway 2-1 Montenegro

Not exactly inspiring, but then I guess they'll look at our defeat to Croatia and think the same.

In other news, Cape Verde Islands drew 0-0 with Portugal

[flynnfan]

also, Switzerlands last 3 results: a 3-1 loss to Uruguay, a 1-0 loss to Norway and a 0-0 draw with Israel. All at home. Going there in October really shouldn‘t hold too much fear for us. I have been saying for a while that this group gives us a real shot at a play off spot, but very few other Wales fans seem to agree (i guess the Rambo injury has really dented eveyones enthusiasm..)

[thedon]

It's the fact that toshack and his negative tactics will take away any chance we would have had of qualifying,We are far to negaitive and insular to get enough goals to qualify,We will struggle badly until toshack goes,Regardless of the group.

[saints19]

I think we should look to finish 3rd. England are clearly going to win the group unless something outrageous happens. Our goal should be to be competitive with the other teams.

Bulgaria without Berbatov will be nowhere near as dangerous as with him. After him, their next highest scorer is Martin Petrov, with 19 goals and 77 caps. The rest of their team is quite inexperienced too (they seem to have tried out lots of new players in their recent friendlies, particularly in defence) and most of them play in smaller European leagues. If we've our best team on the pitch we could reasonably expect to take at least 4 points off them. Montenegro may actually be a tougher proposition. Vucinic and Jovetic are good players and we will need to be at our best to beat them.

Switzerland I feel will be too strong for us over the course of the group. We shouldn't read too much into their friendly results; looking at their results in their last competitive campaign, aside from their bizzare home defeat by Luxembourg, they were extremely consistent albeit in not the strongest group. But I would not be too unhappy if we failed to finish ahead of them after the eight games.

[flynnfan]

Switzerland had a very weak qualifying group. And they've just lost another world cup warm up to Costa Rica (again, at home) They've scored 1 goal in their last 4 games. All at home. I'm going to keep banging on about this till more Wales fans believe me- WE HAVE A REAL SHOT AT A PLAY OFF SPOT!!!!!

[saints19]

See how they get on in the actual tournament. Can't read anything into friendlies (as the above result between Portugal and the Cape Verdes proves), even if Costa Rica are indescribably bad.

Edit: as further evidence to support that statement, I notice China have just beaten France.

[flynnfan]

Ok, lets see how they get on in the world cup. Their first 2 games are against Spain and Chile. I'm going to predict they'll be out by the time they play their 3rd.

[Tim P]

i agree we have a chance at the playoff. if we went balls out, with flynn as Leader, i think we could be home and dry. the concern is that tosh will be too cautious. shame really.

[saints19]

Going 'balls out' was what we did against Finland at home (0-2 defeat) in the last campaign, and home against Poland (2-3 defeat) during the failed 2005 campaign. We lost both games. I can't remember us going 'balls out' in any other games in recent memory - perhaps the 2-2 draw against the Republic in 2007 which we almost lost, and the 1-3 home defeat to Russia in the last campaign are the closest examples, but in both cases we adopted a balanced mentality for most of the game. Ironically our best result, the away 5-2 win in Slovakia, came as the result of mainly counter-attacking football.

I do think sometimes Toshack is too cautious, but generally I have less of a problem with his basic mentality than his formation and tactics.

[saints19]

Jun 5, 2010 10:02:53 GMT flynnfan said:

Ok, lets see how they get on in the world cup. Their first 2 games are against Spain and Chile. I'm going to predict they'll be out by the time they play their 3rd.

They'll probably lose to Spain but I give them a good chance of beating Chile. That game is live on BBC, as well as the Spanish one. Looking forward to seeing our rivals in action.

[flynnfan]

Toshack admitted that he sent the team out against Finland at home with no-one up front. How exactly is that going 'balls out'?

[Deleted]

It's ironic now thinking back to the Serbia v Wales qualifer for euro 2004 - tosh was really laying into Mark Hughes for being too cautious.

[marsvolta]

its even more ironic that people have forgetten that hughes was just as cautious as toshack. we havent 'gone balls out' for years.

[Tim P]

all true.

when i said 'balls out', i was referring to how flynn has the u21s playing. perhaps a better description would be:

high tempo, attacking.

apologies to any egg-haters for this analogy, but what the team needs to do is what the Welsh rygbi squad did in the 2003 world cup - decide amongst themselves to ditch the coach's gameplan and just go for it in a style that suited them.

[llannerch]

Oh, you're talking tactics. When you said 'balls out' I thought you meant we should wear tighter shorts

www.winningiseverything.co.uk/classic-football-pictures-number-1-peter-beardsleys-tackle-hangs-out-259.html

[saints19]

flynnfan, your prediction has fallen flat on its face somewhat. It looks now as though the Swiss could well qualify for the second round. They must surely get enough points from their games against Chile and Honduras. (draws against each should do it)

What did we learn about them today? They will be difficult to score against, certainly.

[flynnfan]

..think I'm going to stop making predictions!! Spain had only lost 1 of their previous 44 games, Switzerland had only won 1 in their last 6 (and that was against Luxembourg). Spain warmed up for the world cup with a 6-0 thrashing of Poland, Switzerland lost at home to Norway and Costa Rica. Switzerland lost at home to Luxembourg in qualifying, Spain got through easily and are European champions. I think it's fair to say that not many of us saw that one coming!! Still, Chile were quite impressive yesterday and I would still expect Spain to find a way through, so the Swiss haven't got out of the group yet. Their next game against Chile should be very interesting, especially as the best players on either side (imo Inler and Sanchez) play club football together for Udinese.

Does anyone else on here have a fantasy world cup team in a league? I was invited to join private one by a mate and a mutual friend of ours who's Swiss, but with a Mexican father, goaded me into joining by saying 'I'm sorry there are no Welsh players to choose from but there are plenty of Swiss and Mexicans!' Anayway, my response was that Switzerland had 5 games at home in the build up to the world cup- they hadn't won any of them and had only scored 2 goals, so I certainly wasn't going to pick any Swiss strikers! He replied that he wasn't worried because Switzerland are always better away from home. Interesting, I thought, with us having a qualifier there in October. Well done to the Swiss yesterday, but I still didn't see anything in them that should scare our players. Yes, they will be tough to break down, but I think we knew that already.

Just to go back to predictions, I would like to say in my defence that I told any English mates who were willing to listen that thought it would be a 1-1 draw against USA. Unfortunately, I also think they'll win easily tomorrow (please let me fall flat on my face again! please!!)

[flynnfan]

wrong again ;D

[saints19]

Switzerland beaten 1-0 by Chile, but were down to 10 men for most of the game. Defended very well and set a record of 557 minutes of World Cup football without conceding, before Gonzalez scored late on. They are a defending machine. It is difficult to say anything about their attack, because frankly they haven't done any attacking in the tournament so far. But they look very solid. We will do well to take points off them in our group.

[Tim P]

yeah, it is difficult, especially under our current Leader, to see us doing much against them. i think we'd be more likely to get something away from home against them, when they have to attack us.

anyone know whether there are any likely retirements in their squad, post WC?

[saints19]

Almost all their players are under 32, according to their wikipedia page. The exceptions are Nkufo, who is 35. He'll probably retire after the World Cup. And Hakan Yakin is 33, but he should should carry on for a bit.

Looking at their squad, all play for clubs in the top flight in their respective league systems. The one we'd really have to watch out for is Frei who has 40 goals for the Swiss. If he's unavailable they look solid but I could see us getting a 0-0 draw perhaps.

[tai33stashon]

How many players have swizerland got in the Premiership? Proof that there not world class, we should be able to beat them, but not with Toshack.

[squatter1]

Two nil-nils between us and the Swiss ahoy.

Actually, watching them thus far in the tournament, I'm reasonably happy with our chances against them. Considering they had such a great record in qualifying, they don't look all that in action.

If we have players like Bale, Bellers and Ramsey on the pitch when we play them, who knows, we might even nick goals.

Swiss are our likely yardstick to have to beat to get second place in our group. It's doable. All depends on how we start. Those first three games in the group later this year are unbelievably huge.

On that note, how many points you reckon we should settle for from the three games?

As a reminder we're talking Montenegro v Wales, Bulgaria v Wales, Switzerland v Wales.


I'd say 5 points would do us nicely, 7 points would give us a fantastic start, 3 points or less would be a disastrous start (unless that's three draws, which would keep us in it)

[saints19]

Five points would be a terrific start. I'd settle for four, or three (if all draws). In order to get seven we would have to win away to either Montenegro or Switzerland, as well as at home to Bulgaria, and draw the other game. Possible but optimistic.

I see the group as being a four-way contest for second. Switzerland would still be my favourites to finish second in the end but I hope we're in contention going into the last match. If we can do that, it will have been a good campaign.

[squatter1]

Agree with you there Saints, if we're still in it with a game to go, then it's been a good campaign. Can't ask for any more from a nation our size, really.

[flynnfan]

We'll have to wait and see what happens with Ingurland, but maybe there will be a 5-way scrap for top spot!!

It's still more likely to be a 4 way scrap for 2nd though. I'd be fairly happy with 4 points from our first 3 games. I know I'll get shouted down for this, but its possible we could get all 9. If we beat Montenegro first up (and we have to fancy our chances against the only team in the group seeded below us, despite them having some quality players) then confidence will come flooding back amongst the players, fans etc. There will be a full house at the CCS for the match against Berbatov-less Bulgaria, another winnnable game. Switzerland away will obviously be tough but they're not the same team at home when they are expected to attack and beat teams. Luxembourg and Costa Rica have won there recently. Surely we have to fancy our chances of getting the same results as those teams?

[saints19]

Jun 23, 2010 12:39:53 GMT flynnfan said:

I'd be fairly happy with 4 points from our first 3 games. I know I'll get shouted down for this, but its possible we could get all 9.

I'm not going to shout you down. It's entirely possible we could get 9 points from the three games, which would be a dream start. But in terms of what I'd be happy with, and in terms of what is much more likely to happen, 4 or 5 points would be a very positive start.

[flynnfan]

saints19 - 'they must surely get enough points' it seems your predi... nah, I'm not gonna be that childish!

The Swiss shocked me by beating Spain in the first game, but it went exactly as I thought after that. They have problem scoring goals- they got 1 in this world cup, and even that was a bit lucky. They only conceeded 1 though, so they'll obviously be tough to beat. They're resilient and well organised, but there's really nothing to fear. I'm looking forward to Basle in October -should be quite a few of us over there for that one I imagine.

[saints19]

Had they not had the man sent off against Chile they would probably have done it. However, the fact they didn't score against Honduras (not a top team defensively) shows that we could realistically hope to get a point in Zurich. You're right - nothing to fear.

[flynnfan]

The 5- way scrap for top spot is ON!