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Post by CrackityJones on Sept 9, 2022 11:41:04 GMT
Bosnia at home in the first play off game. Second game away to Swiss if we win
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Post by iot on Sept 9, 2022 12:13:07 GMT
Bosnia at home in the first play off game. Second game away to Swiss if we win Decent draw then, would have taken it beforehand. Strong favourites to go through to the final now, but Switzerland away will require a top performance |
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Post by insertname on Sept 9, 2022 12:17:25 GMT
Bosnia at home in the first play off game. Second game away to Swiss if we win Decent draw then, would have taken it beforehand. Strong favourites to go through to the final now, but Switzerland away will require a top performance Why is it definitely Switzerland? Is the Bosnia Wales game basically a pre-qualifier for a final against best second place? Also is it known yet whether beating Bosnia and Switzerland guarantees a final place? This qualifying format makes my head spin and that’s saying something after trying to figure out the best 3rd place round of 16 schedule for the euros! |
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Post by morg on Sept 9, 2022 12:26:06 GMT
Decent draw then, would have taken it beforehand. Strong favourites to go through to the final now, but Switzerland away will require a top performance Why is it definitely Switzerland? Is the Bosnia Wales game basically a pre-qualifier for a final against best second place? Also is it known yet whether beating Bosnia and Switzerland guarantees a final place? This qualifying format makes my head spin and that’s saying something after trying to figure out the best 3rd place round of 16 schedule for the euros! Switzerland one of 3 teams thru to European section play off finals. First round and second round draw made now. Even if we beat them, still probable that we'd need to go to the inter continental playoffs in NZ. If we got there, we'd be top seeds I think. |
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Post by iot on Sept 9, 2022 12:30:22 GMT
Decent draw then, would have taken it beforehand. Strong favourites to go through to the final now, but Switzerland away will require a top performance Why is it definitely Switzerland? Is the Bosnia Wales game basically a pre-qualifier for a final against best second place? Also is it known yet whether beating Bosnia and Switzerland guarantees a final place? This qualifying format makes my head spin and that’s saying something after trying to figure out the best 3rd place round of 16 schedule for the euros! Yeah, Switzerland have a bye through to the final because they were one of the three best-placed 2nd teams. The winner of our game will play them in the final. Essentially, it's about getting 2.5 of 9 second placed teams through to the finals. So the three highest-placed ones go through to the play-off finals, the other six play against each other to determine their opponents. Then, within the three play-off finals, the two highest-placed winners go through to the world cup, whilst the other winner has to go through the inter-continental tournament. So in answer to your second question, as the lowest-ranked side apart from Bosnia (who we need to knock out anyway), we will almost definitely need to qualify from the inter-continental tournament too provided that we beat Switzerland. As for the inter-continental tournament itself, I haven't fully understood it, but believe it could be anything from one to three games that we would need to win, again depending on rankings (I think). That will be against various African, South-American, and some other sides. I presume they will be the equivalent runners up in those respective confederations, so you would think we would be one of the favourites in that tournament. |
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Post by insertname on Sept 9, 2022 12:44:16 GMT
Thanks for the explanations.
What an absolute joke of a system. I could just about stomach a one off intercontinental game after the play off but this pre-tournament crap (presumably a replacement for the intercontinental cup that acted as a test of the infrastructure in the host country) in the host nation needs to be scrapped. It feels like the sporting equivalent of squid game- the worst off playing games in constant repetition for the amusement of the rest until they deign to announce that someone has won. The players get to experience a Mickey Mouse tournament without most getting near the actual finals.
It’s complete nonsense and really harsh on the players. Imagine travelling to the other side of the world only to get knocked out and miss out on the World Cup.
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Post by texan on Sept 9, 2022 13:12:20 GMT
As for the inter-continental tournament itself, I haven't fully understood it, but believe it could be anything from one to three games that we would need to win, again depending on rankings (I think). That will be against various African, South-American, and some other sides. I presume they will be the equivalent runners up in those respective confederations, so you would think we would be one of the favourites in that tournament. It would be one game. The sides there seem to be: Chinese Taipei Thailand Cameroon Senegal Haiti Panama Paraguay Chile Papua New Guinea UEFA side TBC (hopefully us!) If I've understood it right, basically 4 sides will be seeded & 6 unseeded, The highest seed goes into Group A with two unseeded teams, second highest goes into Group B with another two unseeded teams, the remaining sides (2 seeded & two unseeded) go into Group C. The unseeded teams in Groups A then play against each other in a semi, before facing the seeded side in the final...winner goes to the WC, the same also happens in Group B. In Group C however the seeded sides play a semi v the unseeded sides (determined by a draw) then both winners then play each other in a final with the winner going to the WC. BUT WAIT...THERE'S MORE!!! To ensure all teams play 2 games each, the seeded sides in group A & B will also have to play a friendly against NZ (the nation hosting the tournament) & another guest nation on the days the unseeded teams play their semis. At present we're above all of the other 9 in the rankings, so should we progress we're pretty nailed on to be the seeded team in Group A. If so, this is what qualification would look like: 06/10/22 - Semi v Bosnia
11/10/22 - Final v Switzerland
---Travel to NZ---
18/02/23 - Friendly v NZ or someone else
22/02/23 - Final v whichever unseeded side won their Semi...then we've qualified!! Basically it's the biggest load of convoluted bollocks I've seen to date! |
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Post by iot on Sept 9, 2022 13:12:26 GMT
Thanks for the explanations. What an absolute joke of a system. I could just about stomach a one off intercontinental game after the play off but this pre-tournament crap (presumably a replacement for the intercontinental cup that acted as a test of the infrastructure in the host country) in the host nation needs to be scrapped. It feels like the sporting equivalent of squid game- the worst off playing games in constant repetition for the amusement of the rest until they deign to announce that someone has won. The players get to experience a Mickey Mouse tournament without most getting near the actual finals. It’s complete nonsense and really harsh on the players. Imagine travelling to the other side of the world only to get knocked out and miss out on the World Cup. Think it's just down to the numbers, although I agree they probably could have worked out a better system. Don't take my word for it as gospel though, as I had no idea until a few days ago! But reading a bit more about it just now, the suggestion seems to be we will need to beat Bosnia, and Switzerland, and then probably win just the one game in this inter-continental thing in New Zealand where we will probably be the highest ranked side, and the worst-case scenario would be having to beat Thailand (41st) or Paraguay (51st). So all in all, this means we have to win two games that we should be winning anyway, and then just that one away game in Switzerland where we will be the underdogs. |
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Post by allezlesrouges on Sept 9, 2022 13:24:55 GMT
As for the inter-continental tournament itself, I haven't fully understood it, but believe it could be anything from one to three games that we would need to win, again depending on rankings (I think). That will be against various African, South-American, and some other sides. I presume they will be the equivalent runners up in those respective confederations, so you would think we would be one of the favourites in that tournament. It would be one game. The sides there seem to be: Chinese Taipei Thailand Cameroon Senegal Haiti Panama Paraguay Chile Papua New Guinea UEFA side TBC (hopefully us!) If I've understood it right, basically 4 sides will be seeded & 6 unseeded, The highest seed goes into Group A with two unseeded teams, second highest goes into Group B with another two unseeded teams, the remaining sides (2 seeded & two unseeded) go into Group C. The unseeded teams in Groups A then play against each other in a semi, before facing the seeded side in the final...winner goes to the WC, the same also happens in Group B. In Group C however the seeded sides play a semi v the unseeded sides (determined by a draw) then both winners then play each other in a final with the winner going to the WC. BUT WAIT...THERE'S MORE!!! To ensure all teams play 2 games each, the seeded sides in group A & B will also have to play a friendly against NZ (the nation hosting the tournament) & another guest nation on the days the unseeded teams play their semis. At present we're above all of the other 9 in the rankings, so should we progress we're pretty nailed on to be the seeded team in Group A. If so, this is what qualification would look like: 06/10/22 - Semi v Bosnia
11/10/22 - Final v Switzerland
---Travel to NZ---
18/02/23 - Friendly v NZ or someone else
22/02/23 - Final v whichever unseeded side won their Semi...then we've qualified!! Basically it's the biggest load of convoluted bollocks I've seen to date! Unreal! How did anyone come up with this and think it was a good idea??? |
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Post by insertname on Sept 9, 2022 14:22:20 GMT
Thanks for all the info everyone….
….but it’s just bollocks really isn’t it.
I get it’s the usual problem of trying to shoehorn lots of teams in a small finals but there has to be better solutions than travelling all that way for two games one of which is a friendly.
Although saying that the euro team would argue they need a warm up game to make it fair so a friendly against NZ makes some sense. But why not a friendly against a nearby team and then the final at a neutral venue somewhere nearer than Oceania? So yeah, convoluted and hard to justify
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Post by insertname on Sept 9, 2022 14:24:15 GMT
It would be one game. The sides there seem to be: Chinese Taipei Thailand Cameroon Senegal Haiti Panama Paraguay Chile Papua New Guinea UEFA side TBC (hopefully us!) If I've understood it right, basically 4 sides will be seeded & 6 unseeded, The highest seed goes into Group A with two unseeded teams, second highest goes into Group B with another two unseeded teams, the remaining sides (2 seeded & two unseeded) go into Group C. The unseeded teams in Groups A then play against each other in a semi, before facing the seeded side in the final...winner goes to the WC, the same also happens in Group B. In Group C however the seeded sides play a semi v the unseeded sides (determined by a draw) then both winners then play each other in a final with the winner going to the WC. BUT WAIT...THERE'S MORE!!! To ensure all teams play 2 games each, the seeded sides in group A & B will also have to play a friendly against NZ (the nation hosting the tournament) & another guest nation on the days the unseeded teams play their semis. At present we're above all of the other 9 in the rankings, so should we progress we're pretty nailed on to be the seeded team in Group A. If so, this is what qualification would look like: 06/10/22 - Semi v Bosnia
11/10/22 - Final v Switzerland
---Travel to NZ---
18/02/23 - Friendly v NZ or someone else
22/02/23 - Final v whichever unseeded side won their Semi...then we've qualified!! Basically it's the biggest load of convoluted bollocks I've seen to date! Unreal! How did anyone come up with this and think it was a good idea??? They want the warm up tournament in the host nation- just like with the SA/Oceania play offs in Qatar. I expect they started at that premise and worked backwards from there |
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Post by iot on Sept 9, 2022 15:02:47 GMT
Thanks for all the info everyone…. ….but it’s just bollocks really isn’t it. I get it’s the usual problem of trying to shoehorn lots of teams in a small finals but there has to be better solutions than travelling all that way for two games one of which is a friendly. Although saying that the euro team would argue they need a warm up game to make it fair so a friendly against NZ makes some sense. But why not a friendly against a nearby team and then the final at a neutral venue somewhere nearer than Oceania? So yeah, convoluted and hard to justify To be fair, it's what nations from other confederations have had to put up with for a while in the men's game isn't it? To have these inter-continental playoffs. And if it's between sides from different continents, it's hardly surprising that the games need to be held far away (i.e. outside of those continents) in the interest of fairness? |
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Post by morg on Sept 9, 2022 15:24:23 GMT
If I'm reading it right there's a slim chance we could qualify without going to NZ if e.g. we beat Switz by 2 goals and Scotland won their final on penalties  but looks unlikely. At least playing in NZ would be good prep for the World Cup. Good that it's Bosnia at home anyway. Should be another record breaking crowd and hopefully Jess Fishlock fit. |
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Post by insertname on Sept 9, 2022 15:25:19 GMT
Thanks for all the info everyone…. ….but it’s just bollocks really isn’t it. I get it’s the usual problem of trying to shoehorn lots of teams in a small finals but there has to be better solutions than travelling all that way for two games one of which is a friendly. Although saying that the euro team would argue they need a warm up game to make it fair so a friendly against NZ makes some sense. But why not a friendly against a nearby team and then the final at a neutral venue somewhere nearer than Oceania? So yeah, convoluted and hard to justify To be fair, it's what nations from other confederations have had to put up with for a while in the men's game isn't it? To have these inter-continental playoffs. And if it's between sides from different continents, it's hardly surprising that the games need to be held far away (i.e. outside of those continents) in the interest of fairness? I guess, it just has a feel as I said above of a squid game type of deal where it’s turned into more than it should be. Not to mention the timing. This “tournament” is in February isn’t it? With the finals in the summer. Not much prep time considering the main teams have qualified now and the best runners up qualify in a few months. It’s all a load of rubbish. I can’t believe they couldn’t have figured out something more reasonable. |
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Post by evans1282 on Sept 9, 2022 15:40:42 GMT
Off topic slightly, but the last two games reminded me of many qualifications when we had important games at the very beginning of the English season.On the whole we seemed to struggle to be at our best at this time of year,might be worth thinking about next time we attend a fixtures meeting.
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Post by texan on Sept 9, 2022 15:54:51 GMT
If I'm reading it right there's a slim chance we could qualify without going to NZ if e.g. we beat Switz by 2 goals and Scotland won their final on penalties but looks unlikely. At least playing in NZ would be good prep for the World Cup. Good that it's Bosnia at home anyway. Should be another record breaking crowd and hopefully Jess Fishlock fit. I don't think so because of this: "To rank the three play-off winners, their results in their respective groups and the second round of the play-offs are combined. Because some groups had five teams and others had six, any group matches against teams who finish sixth in their groups are discounted. As a result, 9 matches played by each team (8 in the group stage and 1 in the second round of the play-offs) are counted for the purposes of determining the ranking. The two highest-placed winners qualify for the Women's World Cup and the lowest-placed winner will advance to the inter-confederation play-offs."Scotland are in a 5 team group and have ended on 16pts, we're in a 6 team group with 20pts but our results against Kazakhstan (6th) would be voided so we'd technically be on 14 points. Assuming we both win our playoff finals by whatever margin, Scotland would be on 19 whilst we can only get 17. I think we're knackered whatever permutation I try, its not possible to overhaul the potential lowest points totals of the others in these playoffs. ...unless my interpretation/math is off...which is admittedly very possible! |
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Post by morg on Sept 9, 2022 16:18:30 GMT
If I'm reading it right there's a slim chance we could qualify without going to NZ if e.g. we beat Switz by 2 goals and Scotland won their final on penalties but looks unlikely. At least playing in NZ would be good prep for the World Cup. Good that it's Bosnia at home anyway. Should be another record breaking crowd and hopefully Jess Fishlock fit. I don't think so because of this: "To rank the three play-off winners, their results in their respective groups and the second round of the play-offs are combined. Because some groups had five teams and others had six, any group matches against teams who finish sixth in their groups are discounted. As a result, 9 matches played by each team (8 in the group stage and 1 in the second round of the play-offs) are counted for the purposes of determining the ranking. The two highest-placed winners qualify for the Women's World Cup and the lowest-placed winner will advance to the inter-confederation play-offs."Scotland are in a 5 team group and have ended on 16pts, we're in a 6 team group with 20pts but our results against Kazakhstan (6th) would be voided so we'd technically be on 14 points. Assuming we both win our playoff finals by whatever margin, Scotland would be on 19 whilst we can only get 17. I think we're knackered whatever permutation I try, its not possible to overhaul the potential lowest points totals of the others in these playoffs. ...unless my interpretation/math is off...which is admittedly very possible! If Scotland draw their final and win on penalties they'd be on 17 points. Would then come down to goal difference. We're currently 1 goal behind them. So win by 2 goal margin would do. Think we could catch Portugal on that basis too but nobody else. www.uefa.com/womensworldcup/news/0268-1215b5f47763-e5f6d59d5df2-1000--play-off-draw-friday/ |
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Post by welshrover on Sept 9, 2022 16:57:58 GMT
And I thought the male qualification process was difficult to follow.
I can see why people take drugs!
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Post by texan on Sept 9, 2022 18:44:16 GMT
Ah, I was going on the theory they'd be awarded 3 points for getting the win (albeit via penalties), but if they're only awarded the 1 point for the result over the 120 mins then yes, there's a tiny window of opportunity. |
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Post by insertname on Sept 9, 2022 19:18:46 GMT
And I thought the male qualification process was difficult to follow. I can see why people take drugs! 😂😂😂 brilliant Although now I worry I’ll read a report in the next few months that a crack epidemic has broken out in Cardiff after people tried to work out the women’s UeFA World Cup qualifying process 😳 |
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Post by insertname on Sept 9, 2022 19:24:31 GMT
Ah, I was going on the theory they'd be awarded 3 points for getting the win (albeit via penalties), but if they're only awarded the 1 point for the result over the 120 mins then yes, there's a tiny window of opportunity. People always go on about winning on penalties, AET etc but I was always under the impression that the official result in those instances is a draw- this would confirm it it seems. So technically possible but needs Scotland to win on pens (presumably AET is also valid?) and Wales to have a better goal difference? I wouldn’t like to put money on that outcome… |
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tarik
steve evans
Posts: 13
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Post by tarik on Sept 10, 2022 21:21:17 GMT
Hi everyone, thank you for welcoming me on your forum. As you can maybe tell by my name, I'm from Bosnia-Herzegovina.
I'll admit I'm way more familiar with Wales men's national team than I am familiar with the female one. The men's team has played 4 times against Wales and never lost (2 wins, 2 draws) whereas the female team has played twice against Wales and never won (two 1-0 losses back in the World Cup 2019 qualifiers). Wales go into this game as favorites especially playing at home and given Bosnia's woeful form since 2020. Ironically enough, we had our best ever qualifying campaign in the Euro 2022 qualifiers in terms of wins and number of points collected overall despite the pandemic hampering the last 3 games. Since than, we lost heavily to Denmark, failed to beat Montenegro at home, failed to beat Malta and Azerbaijan away from home, struggled to beat Malta at home and needed a 94th minute to beat Azerbaijan at home. Our captain and main striker Milena Nikolic is likely to be out for this game and has been in and out of games in the past 2 years or so because of recurrent injuries. She's the one that scored that last minute goal against Azerbaijan at home after coming on as a substitute. It's a huge loss because the team tends to struggle to score without her. I don't expect too many fans to make the trip to Cardiff although personally if I could, I would definitely go. It was nice to see over 12,000 fans gather for the Slovenia game. In Bosnia, we can barely manage more than a couple of hundred fans at women football games, if even that much. I recall qualifying games and games against opponents like Chelsea in the Women's Champions League where barely 80-90 fans showed up in a stadium that holds 36,000 places... The fan interest and media coverage of women's football is almost nonexistent despite repeated excellent results by SFK 2000 Sarajevo in the Women's Champions League and the national team now reaching the playoffs for the first time ever.
I look forward to the game! If you have any questions about Bosnia or the Bosnian team, feel free to ask.
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Post by allezlesrouges on Sept 11, 2022 10:01:37 GMT
Hi everyone, thank you for welcoming me on your forum. As you can maybe tell by my name, I'm from Bosnia-Herzegovina. I'll admit I'm way more familiar with Wales men's national team than I am familiar with the female one. The men's team has played 4 times against Wales and never lost (2 wins, 2 draws) whereas the female team has played twice against Wales and never won (two 1-0 losses back in the World Cup 2019 qualifiers). Wales go into this game as favorites especially playing at home and given Bosnia's woeful form since 2020. Ironically enough, we had our best ever qualifying campaign in the Euro 2022 qualifiers in terms of wins and number of points collected overall despite the pandemic hampering the last 3 games. Since than, we lost heavily to Denmark, failed to beat Montenegro at home, failed to beat Malta and Azerbaijan away from home, struggled to beat Malta at home and needed a 94th minute to beat Azerbaijan at home. Our captain and main striker Milena Nikolic is likely to be out for this game and has been in and out of games in the past 2 years or so because of recurrent injuries. She's the one that scored that last minute goal against Azerbaijan at home after coming on as a substitute. It's a huge loss because the team tends to struggle to score without her. I don't expect too many fans to make the trip to Cardiff although personally if I could, I would definitely go. It was nice to see over 12,000 fans gather for the Slovenia game. In Bosnia, we can barely manage more than a couple of hundred fans at women football games, if even that much. I recall qualifying games and games against opponents like Chelsea in the Women's Champions League where barely 80-90 fans showed up in a stadium that holds 36,000 places... The fan interest and media coverage of women's football is almost nonexistent despite repeated excellent results by SFK 2000 Sarajevo in the Women's Champions League and the national team now reaching the playoffs for the first time ever. I look forward to the game! If you have any questions about Bosnia or the Bosnian team, feel free to ask. Croeso! / Welcome! Being honest it's a similar story with interest in the women's game over here. I will say my interest has only started in the last few years, and the Slovenia game was the first women's game I attended in person. That being said the success of the recent tournament in England seems to have spiked interest in the overall women's game, which is a great thing and has helped us achieve a record attendance. Hopefully this can have a lasting impact moving forwards, there's definitely momentum behind us and I think that will push us close to qualifying. Our collective spirit seems to be really good, and that may be more of a weapon than our actual quality Would you say you expect to win against us, and is there an expectation that you will qualify? |
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Post by welshrover on Sept 11, 2022 11:49:53 GMT
Hi everyone, thank you for welcoming me on your forum. As you can maybe tell by my name, I'm from Bosnia-Herzegovina. I'll admit I'm way more familiar with Wales men's national team than I am familiar with the female one. The men's team has played 4 times against Wales and never lost (2 wins, 2 draws) whereas the female team has played twice against Wales and never won (two 1-0 losses back in the World Cup 2019 qualifiers). Wales go into this game as favorites especially playing at home and given Bosnia's woeful form since 2020. Ironically enough, we had our best ever qualifying campaign in the Euro 2022 qualifiers in terms of wins and number of points collected overall despite the pandemic hampering the last 3 games. Since than, we lost heavily to Denmark, failed to beat Montenegro at home, failed to beat Malta and Azerbaijan away from home, struggled to beat Malta at home and needed a 94th minute to beat Azerbaijan at home. Our captain and main striker Milena Nikolic is likely to be out for this game and has been in and out of games in the past 2 years or so because of recurrent injuries. She's the one that scored that last minute goal against Azerbaijan at home after coming on as a substitute. It's a huge loss because the team tends to struggle to score without her. I don't expect too many fans to make the trip to Cardiff although personally if I could, I would definitely go. It was nice to see over 12,000 fans gather for the Slovenia game. In Bosnia, we can barely manage more than a couple of hundred fans at women football games, if even that much. I recall qualifying games and games against opponents like Chelsea in the Women's Champions League where barely 80-90 fans showed up in a stadium that holds 36,000 places... The fan interest and media coverage of women's football is almost nonexistent despite repeated excellent results by SFK 2000 Sarajevo in the Women's Champions League and the national team now reaching the playoffs for the first time ever. I look forward to the game! If you have any questions about Bosnia or the Bosnian team, feel free to ask. Welcome tarik. Always had a soft spot for Bosnia. Think Sarajevo is one of the most interesting places I have ever been. |
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Post by hooky on Sept 11, 2022 12:06:44 GMT
As has been noted, our women's football team is not exactly sprinkled with top talent / stardust, with our best player, Fishlock, at 36 well into the twighlight of her career. You can see how we have struggled to score goals under pressure in our last 2 games. I checked the stats of Harding and Green for their clubs and they are really poor for forwards / while we lack creativity other than what 19 year old Jones can preoduce! This means we are beatable, especially if we are off our game. Lets be honest, Slovenia looked far more threatening in attack than we did.
However, the Gods have been kind to Wales this year after so much heartbreak in the past!
- The men's team not only squeeze into a home play off draw (and avoid Italy / Portugal) but also get a home draw for the play off final
- The women's team fail to get enough points to get straight into a play off final but draw the weakest ranking team at home for their first play off. Switzerland away is tough if we get through but it could have been worse - their results have not been great. So at least we have an 'outside' chance, assuming the next play off (if we make it) will be against a team we are substantially better than.
If both men and women get through it will truly be a minor miracle!
Always wish Bosnia the best. I know we should avoid politics, but that massacre of boys and men at Srebrenica was one of the most upsetting events in my life and showed us why we should never stand idly by when evil is let loose on our continent.
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tarik
steve evans
Posts: 13
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Post by tarik on Sept 11, 2022 12:36:41 GMT
Hi everyone, thank you for welcoming me on your forum. As you can maybe tell by my name, I'm from Bosnia-Herzegovina. I'll admit I'm way more familiar with Wales men's national team than I am familiar with the female one. The men's team has played 4 times against Wales and never lost (2 wins, 2 draws) whereas the female team has played twice against Wales and never won (two 1-0 losses back in the World Cup 2019 qualifiers). Wales go into this game as favorites especially playing at home and given Bosnia's woeful form since 2020. Ironically enough, we had our best ever qualifying campaign in the Euro 2022 qualifiers in terms of wins and number of points collected overall despite the pandemic hampering the last 3 games. Since than, we lost heavily to Denmark, failed to beat Montenegro at home, failed to beat Malta and Azerbaijan away from home, struggled to beat Malta at home and needed a 94th minute to beat Azerbaijan at home. Our captain and main striker Milena Nikolic is likely to be out for this game and has been in and out of games in the past 2 years or so because of recurrent injuries. She's the one that scored that last minute goal against Azerbaijan at home after coming on as a substitute. It's a huge loss because the team tends to struggle to score without her. I don't expect too many fans to make the trip to Cardiff although personally if I could, I would definitely go. It was nice to see over 12,000 fans gather for the Slovenia game. In Bosnia, we can barely manage more than a couple of hundred fans at women football games, if even that much. I recall qualifying games and games against opponents like Chelsea in the Women's Champions League where barely 80-90 fans showed up in a stadium that holds 36,000 places... The fan interest and media coverage of women's football is almost nonexistent despite repeated excellent results by SFK 2000 Sarajevo in the Women's Champions League and the national team now reaching the playoffs for the first time ever. I look forward to the game! If you have any questions about Bosnia or the Bosnian team, feel free to ask. Croeso! / Welcome! Being honest it's a similar story with interest in the women's game over here. I will say my interest has only started in the last few years, and the Slovenia game was the first women's game I attended in person. That being said the success of the recent tournament in England seems to have spiked interest in the overall women's game, which is a great thing and has helped us achieve a record attendance. Hopefully this can have a lasting impact moving forwards, there's definitely momentum behind us and I think that will push us close to qualifying. Our collective spirit seems to be really good, and that may be more of a weapon than our actual quality Would you say you expect to win against us, and is there an expectation that you will qualify? Thanks for the warm welcome! I think in terms of interest for the women's game, Wales is obviously far ahead. I don't think we'll be seeing 12,000 fooball fans attending a women's game in Bosnia anytime soon unfortunately. That's also why the women's national team plays most of its games at the FA Training Centre stadium which has a capacity of only 1,500 places rather than at a proper football stadium with 4 stands. Even than, there are rarely more than 200-300 fans in attendance at the Training Centre for qualifying games and usually at least half of them are family members and close friends of the players. In the Euro 2022 qualifiers, the largest attendance was against Israel when 230 people attended the game a few weeks before the pandemic hit. I will say though, I can't really complain, it was a good year for women's football in Bosnia. We hosted the U-17 European Championship in May where 1,237 fans watched our opener against the Netherlands at Grbavica stadium which has a capacity of about 13,000 places. If I'm not mistaken, that was a new attendance record for a women's football game in Bosnia. Then the national team qualified for the playoffs, albeit largely thanks to results going our way and Russia getting suspended so there is a sense of improvement somewhat. I wouldn't say anyone expects us to win against Wales, not even the coach. The goal seems to be to gain experience and avoid a humiliating defeat come October. Anything above that like managing to take the game to extra-time would be a huge plus. If we go into this game thinking too much that we can win, we will likely lose 6-0, that's usually how it goes. However, assuming we get to Pot 2 for the Euro 2025 qualifiers then the goal should definitely be to qualify for our first ever major tournament because we would then avoid a lot of tricky teams from Pot 2 like Austria, Denmark, Iceland, Wales which are usually there. Even if by some miracle we get past Wales AND Switzerland, we can only at best qualify for the inter-confederation (intercontinental) playoffs due to our horrendous -8 goal difference. I'm not sure I want the team traveling on the other side of the world in a mini-tournament where they can be sent home packing after just one game. |
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tarik
steve evans
Posts: 13
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Post by tarik on Sept 11, 2022 12:38:50 GMT
Hi everyone, thank you for welcoming me on your forum. As you can maybe tell by my name, I'm from Bosnia-Herzegovina. I'll admit I'm way more familiar with Wales men's national team than I am familiar with the female one. The men's team has played 4 times against Wales and never lost (2 wins, 2 draws) whereas the female team has played twice against Wales and never won (two 1-0 losses back in the World Cup 2019 qualifiers). Wales go into this game as favorites especially playing at home and given Bosnia's woeful form since 2020. Ironically enough, we had our best ever qualifying campaign in the Euro 2022 qualifiers in terms of wins and number of points collected overall despite the pandemic hampering the last 3 games. Since than, we lost heavily to Denmark, failed to beat Montenegro at home, failed to beat Malta and Azerbaijan away from home, struggled to beat Malta at home and needed a 94th minute to beat Azerbaijan at home. Our captain and main striker Milena Nikolic is likely to be out for this game and has been in and out of games in the past 2 years or so because of recurrent injuries. She's the one that scored that last minute goal against Azerbaijan at home after coming on as a substitute. It's a huge loss because the team tends to struggle to score without her. I don't expect too many fans to make the trip to Cardiff although personally if I could, I would definitely go. It was nice to see over 12,000 fans gather for the Slovenia game. In Bosnia, we can barely manage more than a couple of hundred fans at women football games, if even that much. I recall qualifying games and games against opponents like Chelsea in the Women's Champions League where barely 80-90 fans showed up in a stadium that holds 36,000 places... The fan interest and media coverage of women's football is almost nonexistent despite repeated excellent results by SFK 2000 Sarajevo in the Women's Champions League and the national team now reaching the playoffs for the first time ever. I look forward to the game! If you have any questions about Bosnia or the Bosnian team, feel free to ask. Welcome tarik. Always had a soft spot for Bosnia. Think Sarajevo is one of the most interesting places I have ever been. Cheers and thank you for visiting our country. Did you go in 2015 when Wales played Bosnia in the Euro 2016 qualifiers? As I recall, about 800 Welsh fans made the trip and Wales qualified directly despite losing 2-0. |
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tarik
steve evans
Posts: 13
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Post by tarik on Sept 11, 2022 12:53:58 GMT
As has been noted, our women's football team is not exactly sprinkled with top talent / stardust, with our best player, Fishlock, at 36 well into the twighlight of her career. You can see how we have struggled to score goals under pressure in our last 2 games. I checked the stats of Harding and Green for their clubs and they are really poor for forwards / while we lack creativity other than what 19 year old Jones can preoduce! This means we are beatable, especially if we are off our game. Lets be honest, Slovenia looked far more threatening in attack than we did.However, the Gods have been kind to Wales this year after so much heartbreak in the past! - The men's team not only squeeze into a home play off draw (and avoid Italy / Portugal) but also get a home draw for the play off final - The women's team fail to get enough points to get straight into a play off final but draw the weakest ranking team at home for their first play off. Switzerland away is tough if we get through but it could have been worse - their results have not been great. So at least we have an 'outside' chance, assuming the next play off (if we make it) will be against a team we are substantially better than. If both men and women get through it will truly be a minor miracle! Always wish Bosnia the best. I know we should avoid politics, but that massacre of boys and men at Srebrenica was one of the most upsetting events in my life and showed us why we should never stand idly by when evil is let loose on our continent.
While yes you are beatable as every national team is, Wales would really have to screw up massively not to win against Bosnia playing at home against our leaky defense (17 goals conceeded in 9 games) and with our main striker Nikolic very likely out. At best, we can maybe take the game to extra-time though I doubt that will happen. Genocide, not massacre. It was traumatizing for sure for a lot of people, you have plenty of women that lost 3 or 4 sons and their husband and who almost 30 years later still haven't located their remains. My parents who are not from Srebrenica but not far away from there either had to flee out of the blue at 30 years old at the start of the war with nothing. That's really all I'll say about this, I too want to avoid politics. |
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Post by welshrover on Sept 11, 2022 15:21:14 GMT
Welcome tarik. Always had a soft spot for Bosnia. Think Sarajevo is one of the most interesting places I have ever been. Cheers and thank you for visiting our country. Did you go in 2015 when Wales played Bosnia in the Euro 2016 qualifiers? As I recall, about 800 Welsh fans made the trip and Wales qualified directly despite losing 2-0. Yes tarik, went to that but more memorable was a trip to watch Wales Under 21 play Bosnia Under 21 back in 2008 at what I think was the 1984 Jugoslavia Winter Olympics Stadium. There was only a handful of people at the game (13 from Wales I think) in a massive stadium! From memory we walked to the stadium so couldn't have been that far from the city centre. |
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tarik
steve evans
Posts: 13
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Post by tarik on Sept 11, 2022 17:43:28 GMT
I remember that game and there been a handful of fans from Wales, yes. It was in March 2008 and Wales won 2-1 at the Olympic stadium. It must have been one of the only times I saw away fans for a U-21 game, top notch stuff. www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_uwYf2wbkU&ab_channel=titosarajevo This was the Bosnia goal, couldn't find any clips of the two Welsh goals unfortunately. I just remember they happened in the last 5 minutes of the game. One of the reasons we and some other nations have training center stadiums now is because of U-21 and women's football games where you would play in big stadiums with only a handful of fans showing up. |
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but looks unlikely. At least playing in NZ would be good prep for the World Cup. Good that it's Bosnia at home anyway. Should be another record breaking crowd and hopefully Jess Fishlock fit.
