|
|
Post by jackanapes on Mar 31, 2021 21:21:29 GMT
This has been the most remarkable round of qualifiers in a long time. So many upsets and near misses (I was gutted for Georgia losing to Spain late on). It seems the Nations League has been a stroke of genius and given smaller teams some belief they can compete.
Kazakhstan got a point against a very good Ukraine side, Bosnia pushed France all the way, Italy only killed off Lithuania in injury time.
Denmark look fantastic. Our performance against them doesn’t look too bad in light of the thrashings they’ve given teams recently.
I just don’t understand people who hate international football. I can only assume that they don’t actually watch it.
|
|
|
|
Post by allezlesrouges on Mar 31, 2021 22:21:33 GMT
This has been the most remarkable round of qualifiers in a long time. So many upsets and near misses (I was gutted for Georgia losing to Spain late on). It seems the Nations League has been a stroke of genius and given smaller teams some belief they can compete. Kazakhstan got a point against a very good Ukraine side, Bosnia pushed France all the way, Italy only killed off Lithuania in injury time. Denmark look fantastic. Our performance against them doesn’t look too bad in light of the thrashings they’ve given teams recently. I just don’t understand people who hate international football. I can only assume that they don’t actually watch it. Nations League is the best thing to happen to international football in my lifetime The people who don't like international football are the same types that just spend their time on twitter stirring up club rivalries. A lot of English people don't like it because they already have arguably the best league in the world to watch week in week out, and all their players play in these leagues often in the same few teams. Therefore internationals don't feel as fresh to them Compare to Brazil and it's a homecoming for players who play across the other side of the world in different leagues, it's a different vibe. I think one of the ex-golden generation players talked about this, possibly Gerrard or Lampard Also if you compare to us, we have at tops 3 Welsh players playing in a club if we are lucky. Our only time we get to see all our players playing together is for internationals. And we have players coming in from different levels of the pyramid so there is more natural interest created in that. Rather than all our players coming from just the top flight |
|
|
|
Post by allezlesrouges on Apr 1, 2021 0:12:40 GMT
|
|
|
|
Post by insertname on Apr 1, 2021 0:57:31 GMT
This has been the most remarkable round of qualifiers in a long time. So many upsets and near misses (I was gutted for Georgia losing to Spain late on). It seems the Nations League has been a stroke of genius and given smaller teams some belief they can compete. Kazakhstan got a point against a very good Ukraine side, Bosnia pushed France all the way, Italy only killed off Lithuania in injury time. Denmark look fantastic. Our performance against them doesn’t look too bad in light of the thrashings they’ve given teams recently. I just don’t understand people who hate international football. I can only assume that they don’t actually watch it. I’d contend that the vast majority love the big bi-annual euro-centric tournaments (WC, Euros) because summer and tournament football Interleave very well together. I get the impression that fans of the premier league clubs resent international football qualifying windows because it disrupts the rhythm of club football and probably seems unnecessary and spurious that England have to go and play dead rubber fixtures against the likes of San Marino, risking injury to players for games where the outcome isn’t even in doubt. That’s the part of international football people hate. Maybe the nations league will address those concerns in time. For everyone else it’s good that lower ranked teams are competitive as it’s been a problem for a long time that big teams have to play minnows and put the obligatory cricket score on them. But it’s hard not to feel that when it comes to the crunch Wales will be the main losers because we’ll end up going out of a play off to a team we should have beaten that is high on their nations league success. Historically we’ve always been the side where, whilst everyone else has close shaves against the likes of Georgia Wales are the ones who actually drop points against them! |
|
|
|
Post by underwood on Apr 1, 2021 7:44:46 GMT
This has been the most remarkable round of qualifiers in a long time. So many upsets and near misses (I was gutted for Georgia losing to Spain late on). It seems the Nations League has been a stroke of genius and given smaller teams some belief they can compete. Kazakhstan got a point against a very good Ukraine side, Bosnia pushed France all the way, Italy only killed off Lithuania in injury time. Denmark look fantastic. Our performance against them doesn’t look too bad in light of the thrashings they’ve given teams recently. I just don’t understand people who hate international football. I can only assume that they don’t actually watch it. I’d contend that the vast majority love the big bi-annual euro-centric tournaments (WC, Euros) because summer and tournament football Interleave very well together. I get the impression that fans of the premier league clubs resent international football qualifying windows because it disrupts the rhythm of club football and probably seems unnecessary and spurious that England have to go and play dead rubber fixtures against the likes of San Marino, risking injury to players for games where the outcome isn’t even in doubt. That’s the part of international football people hate. Maybe the nations league will address those concerns in time. For everyone else it’s good that lower ranked teams are competitive as it’s been a problem for a long time that big teams have to play minnows and put the obligatory cricket score on them. But it’s hard not to feel that when it comes to the crunch Wales will be the main losers because we’ll end up going out of a play off to a team we should have beaten that is high on their nations league success. Historically we’ve always been the side where, whilst everyone else has close shaves against the likes of Georgia Wales are the ones who actually drop points against them! With the elite clubs becoming ever more powerful, there will be a drive towards less International Football. To that end I am convinced that qualification for major tournaments will be via the Nations League, with a convoluted play-off system off the back of it to essentially ensure that all the major countries qualify. |
|
|
|
Post by rangers15 on Apr 1, 2021 7:46:33 GMT
remind me... we need the tops seeds to qualify automatically to get a back up of the play off from the nations league?
as much as i'm loving the smaller nations take some scalps do we actually need the big boys to walk their groups?
|
|
|
|
Post by underwood on Apr 1, 2021 7:49:26 GMT
remind me... we need the tops seeds to qualify automatically to get a back up of the play off from the nations league? as much as i'm loving the smaller nations take some scalps do we actually need the big boys to walk their groups? Pretty much. We wouldn’t really want to play Germany or the Netherlands in a Play-Off. |
|
|
|
Post by rangers15 on Apr 1, 2021 7:52:20 GMT
remind me... we need the tops seeds to qualify automatically to get a back up of the play off from the nations league? as much as i'm loving the smaller nations take some scalps do we actually need the big boys to walk their groups? Pretty much. We wouldn’t really want to play Germany or the Netherlands in a Play-Off. or armenia the way they are playing! is there a chance we'll lose our place off spot if a few of the top teams don't qualify automatically? |
|
|
|
Post by underwood on Apr 1, 2021 8:00:03 GMT
Pretty much. We wouldn’t really want to play Germany or the Netherlands in a Play-Off. or armenia the way they are playing! is there a chance we'll lose our place off spot if a few of the top teams don't qualify automatically? Again, I believe that’s the case, but ultimately over the course of qualification I would expect the top teams to come good in the end. Germany’s loss last night was a massive shock, but I would put money on them winning every single game from now on. I think this round of games has been unique in lots of ways, particularly in its timing & the effect of the pandemic on domestic leagues leaving players jaded. The very fact that a lot of countries played three competitive matches in a week would have been a real factor behind some of the results. I do think that the Nations League has given the lower-ranked teams a bit of belief & confidence & that has been borne out to a certain extent in this window. |
|
|
|
Post by iot on Apr 1, 2021 8:39:28 GMT
or armenia the way they are playing! is there a chance we'll lose our place off spot if a few of the top teams don't qualify automatically? Again, I believe that’s the case, but ultimately over the course of qualification I would expect the top teams to come good in the end. Germany’s loss last night was a massive shock, but I would put money on them winning every single game from now on. I think this round of games has been unique in lots of ways, particularly in its timing & the effect of the pandemic on domestic leagues leaving players jaded. The very fact that a lot of countries played three competitive matches in a week would have been a real factor behind some of the results. I do think that the Nations League has given the lower-ranked teams a bit of belief & confidence & that has been borne out to a certain extent in this window. No I think the situation is actually a lot safer than that. I believe after the winners of the League A groups, we get the next nations league playoffs spot. So the likes of Germany don't come into it because they didn't win their group. It's only if two of belgium, Spain Italy and France fail to finish in the top two that we lose our playoff spot |
|
|
|
Post by iot on Apr 1, 2021 9:05:03 GMT
Also, going back to squatter's earlier question on the importance of getting seeded, recent results make it all the more important. We're now not talking about the difference between playing Poland away or Hungary at home, it could be the difference between Germany away and Hungary at home. So, for me, there certainly is a lot riding on it.
|
|
|
|
Post by allezlesrouges on Apr 1, 2021 11:26:51 GMT
This has been the most remarkable round of qualifiers in a long time. So many upsets and near misses (I was gutted for Georgia losing to Spain late on). It seems the Nations League has been a stroke of genius and given smaller teams some belief they can compete. Kazakhstan got a point against a very good Ukraine side, Bosnia pushed France all the way, Italy only killed off Lithuania in injury time. Denmark look fantastic. Our performance against them doesn’t look too bad in light of the thrashings they’ve given teams recently. I just don’t understand people who hate international football. I can only assume that they don’t actually watch it. I’d contend that the vast majority love the big bi-annual euro-centric tournaments (WC, Euros) because summer and tournament football Interleave very well together. I get the impression that fans of the premier league clubs resent international football qualifying windows because it disrupts the rhythm of club football and probably seems unnecessary and spurious that England have to go and play dead rubber fixtures against the likes of San Marino, risking injury to players for games where the outcome isn’t even in doubt. That’s the part of international football people hate. Maybe the nations league will address those concerns in time. For everyone else it’s good that lower ranked teams are competitive as it’s been a problem for a long time that big teams have to play minnows and put the obligatory cricket score on them. But it’s hard not to feel that when it comes to the crunch Wales will be the main losers because we’ll end up going out of a play off to a team we should have beaten that is high on their nations league success. Historically we’ve always been the side where, whilst everyone else has close shaves against the likes of Georgia Wales are the ones who actually drop points against them! But I think the Nations League has improved us, which is what you're missing. Historically we've also got lots of draws & losses against teams on our level, but since the Nations League we've started to learn how to win games against teams at our level Over the past two years we've beaten; Ireland, Slovakia, Hungary, Finland, Bulgaria, Mexico & the Czech Republic. Looking at that list also.makes.me feel that we have somewhat banished our eastern European hoo-doo as well |
|
|
|
Post by underwood on Apr 1, 2021 12:25:45 GMT
The Eastern Europe hoodoo was a very real thing & fingers crossed we have put it to bed.
We’ve only lost to Croatia (who were a year on from being World Cup finalists), Hungary & Bosnia (when ultimately it didn’t matter) in the last 7 years.
Compare that to the 20 years previous when we would be regularly slipping up against Montenegro, Bulgaria, Belarus et al & it’s a marked improvement & I think a lot of it is down to the set-up being so much more professional & the preparation for the away trips in particular seems to be spot on.
|
|
|
|
Post by quetzal on Apr 1, 2021 15:29:41 GMT
The Eastern Europe hoodoo was a very real thing & fingers crossed we have put it to bed. We’ve only lost to Croatia (who were a year on from being World Cup finalists), Hungary & Bosnia (when ultimately it didn’t matter) in the last 7 years. Compare that to the 20 years previous when we would be regularly slipping up against Montenegro, Bulgaria, Belarus et al & it’s a marked improvement & I think a lot of it is down to the set-up being so much more professional & the preparation for the away trips in particular seems to be spot on. The Yugoslavia big guns is still the real hoodoo. We need a win against Serbia or Croatia. |
|
|
|
Post by underwood on Apr 1, 2021 15:50:30 GMT
Granted it is the former USSR states that we have had our recent successes against.
Traditionally we’ve always done ok against the Czechs & Slovaks, but wins over the former Yugoslav nations have been few & far between.
|
|
|
|
Post by insertname on Apr 1, 2021 15:57:11 GMT
I’d contend that the vast majority love the big bi-annual euro-centric tournaments (WC, Euros) because summer and tournament football Interleave very well together. I get the impression that fans of the premier league clubs resent international football qualifying windows because it disrupts the rhythm of club football and probably seems unnecessary and spurious that England have to go and play dead rubber fixtures against the likes of San Marino, risking injury to players for games where the outcome isn’t even in doubt. That’s the part of international football people hate. Maybe the nations league will address those concerns in time. For everyone else it’s good that lower ranked teams are competitive as it’s been a problem for a long time that big teams have to play minnows and put the obligatory cricket score on them. But it’s hard not to feel that when it comes to the crunch Wales will be the main losers because we’ll end up going out of a play off to a team we should have beaten that is high on their nations league success. Historically we’ve always been the side where, whilst everyone else has close shaves against the likes of Georgia Wales are the ones who actually drop points against them! But I think the Nations League has improved us, which is what you're missing. Historically we've also got lots of draws & losses against teams on our level, but since the Nations League we've started to learn how to win games against teams at our level Over the past two years we've beaten; Ireland, Slovakia, Hungary, Finland, Bulgaria, Mexico & the Czech Republic. Looking at that list also.makes.me feel that we have somewhat banished our eastern European hoo-doo as well Yeah that’s a good observation that it counts as much for us. Certainly against the Czechs that was the sort of game we would have drawn or lost in the past after missing a decent chance (Bale’s) to take the lead and sneak a win. We seem to be good at edging games we should really be losing and that in itself is something you develop a knack for. That’s why I’m not so concerned with poor performances that everyone else is complaining about. Since beating Finland away the demise has been predicted every game but the team keeps winning, it’s not coincidence in my view, it’s belief that we can win games late on if we can keep the opponents out. I guess it could be argued that that sort of belief can be generated from increased competition against those of a similar stature. With that in mind it will be interesting to see how we handle stepping up a league. It seems a massive gulf to me, depending on the group. |
|
|
|
Post by insertname on Apr 1, 2021 15:59:35 GMT
Granted it is the former USSR states that we have had our recent successes against. Traditionally we’ve always done ok against the Czechs & Slovaks, but wins over the former Yugoslav nations have been few & far between. Yeah the hoodoo for me is Bosnia, Serbia and Montenegro. We have a recent(ish) history of playing all of those sides and I don’t think we have beaten any of them. Edit: just saw quetzal’s post and I forgot Croatia. We always struggle against teams from that region. |
|
|
|
Post by quetzal on Apr 1, 2021 16:17:00 GMT
Granted it is the former USSR states that we have had our recent successes against. Traditionally we’ve always done ok against the Czechs & Slovaks, but wins over the former Yugoslav nations have been few & far between. Yeah the hoodoo for me is Bosnia, Serbia and Montenegro. We have a recent(ish) history of playing all of those sides and I don’t think we have beaten any of them. Edit: just saw quetzal’s post and I forgot Croatia. We always struggle against teams from that region. Half of our problems used to be that we were hoofball. Technically they used to rip us apart. In the first half we were direct and the Czechs were the better team. Our formation didn’t help. |
|
|
|
Post by allezlesrouges on Apr 1, 2021 18:25:37 GMT
To be fair Bosnia, Croatia & Serbia have all be quality over the last 10ish years when we've played them. Not many teams of our size were chalking up wins against them
|
|
|
|
Post by underwood on Apr 3, 2021 11:34:06 GMT
To be fair Bosnia, Croatia & Serbia have all be quality over the last 10ish years when we've played them. Not many teams of our size were chalking up wins against them The thing is a country of our size is also a country of their size in an International Football sense. Serbia’s population is the largest at just under 7 million, whilst Croatia is 4 million & Bosnia 3.5, so we should be matching them all really. |
|
|
|
Post by allezlesrouges on Apr 3, 2021 12:02:11 GMT
To be fair Bosnia, Croatia & Serbia have all be quality over the last 10ish years when we've played them. Not many teams of our size were chalking up wins against them The thing is a country of our size is also a country of their size in an International Football sense. Serbia’s population is the largest at just under 7 million, whilst Croatia is 4 million & Bosnia 3.5, so we should be matching them all really. Yes but historically that region of the world has always produced world class players & world class teams for whatever reason. I was just noting that travelling there to get a result as a non-Giant nation is hard By the same measure we could also say teams like Wales, Serbia, Croatia should be aspiring to perform like Uruguay given the similarities of our population sizes. In reality Uruguay are the most decorated international football nation with more titles than anyone else. So it's hard to say purely based on population how well we should be doing In my mind I always think we should be aspiring to regularly qualify for tournaments, and have reaching the knockout stages as our golden ticket where anything can happen from there |
|
|
|
Post by saints19 on Apr 5, 2021 18:22:37 GMT
Always baffles me how China/India with roughly 1 billion people each and massive financial resources can't do better at football.
The Indians have cricket as their excuse but I have no idea what the Chinese excuse is. Communism didn't stop the USSR from producing amazing teams so I'm at a loss.
|
|
|
|
Post by allezlesrouges on Apr 5, 2021 19:19:41 GMT
Always baffles me how China/India with roughly 1 billion people each and massive financial resources can't do better at football. The Indians have cricket as their excuse but I have no idea what the Chinese excuse is. Communism didn't stop the USSR from producing amazing teams so I'm at a loss. Culture. Culture plays a massive role. At the end of the day if kids are playing the sport a lot at school age then they're playing catch up on that loss time in later life. Chances are there is less of a footballing culture in places like China, compared to over here for example. Not sure what their national sport is though tbh? |
|
|
|
Post by texan on Apr 5, 2021 20:28:37 GMT
Always baffles me how China/India with roughly 1 billion people each and massive financial resources can't do better at football. The Indians have cricket as their excuse but I have no idea what the Chinese excuse is. Communism didn't stop the USSR from producing amazing teams so I'm at a loss. Culture. Culture plays a massive role. At the end of the day if kids are playing the sport a lot at school age then they're playing catch up on that loss time in later life. Chances are there is less of a footballing culture in places like China, compared to over here for example. Not sure what their national sport is though tbh? Isn’t it table tennis? I think all the racquet sports have huge followings over there. |
|
|
|
Post by saints19 on Apr 5, 2021 21:25:02 GMT
Yeah I think table tennis is big, also snooker has quite a big and growing following. Still though there should be 11 Chinese players capable of at least challenging the world's best players and being a regular World Cup qualifying team. I was surprised how poor they were when we played them, reckon they'd be a pot 5 team or thereabouts within UEFA.
I mean there's a big enough domestic league there, they should be getting kids interested in the game, maybe the coaching's not up to scratch or something but it definitely seems to me given the obvious interest in the game they could be doing better.
|
|
|
|
Post by walesgolfmadrid on Apr 6, 2021 7:09:25 GMT
Yeah I think table tennis is big, also snooker has quite a big and growing following. Still though there should be 11 Chinese players capable of at least challenging the world's best players and being a regular World Cup qualifying team. I was surprised how poor they were when we played them, reckon they'd be a pot 5 team or thereabouts within UEFA. I mean there's a big enough domestic league there, they should be getting kids interested in the game, maybe the coaching's not up to scratch or something but it definitely seems to me given the obvious interest in the game they could be doing better. Should there be? Yes, there's a growing domestic league now, but it wasn't established until 2004 where as football has been an established part of every European nation for at least a century. Every aspect of it is obviously underdeveloped, from the interest, to coaching and facilities in the vast majority of China. |
|
|
|
Post by richierich333 on Apr 9, 2021 9:42:11 GMT
Always baffles me how China/India with roughly 1 billion people each and massive financial resources can't do better at football. The Indians have cricket as their excuse but I have no idea what the Chinese excuse is. Communism didn't stop the USSR from producing amazing teams so I'm at a loss. Why do they need to come up with excuses for being poor at a sport they probably don't care much about? They don't have to justify themselves. |
|
|
|
Post by richierich333 on Apr 9, 2021 9:44:42 GMT
The Belarus away game i would say is the key match in qualifiers now. Someone is going to slip up there and I hope it's not us (a dire 0-0, 1-1 etc). Of course I am banking on us to win at home and against Estonia twice as they seem to be getting worse and worse.
|
|
|
|
Post by allezlesrouges on Apr 9, 2021 13:22:43 GMT
The Belarus away game i would say is the key match in qualifiers now. Someone is going to slip up there and I hope it's not us (a dire 0-0, 1-1 etc). Of course I am banking on us to win at home and against Estonia twice as they seem to be getting worse and worse. In our friendly against them at home we were very comfortable I thought, and should have won by a few more. That was with Morrell & Moore being debutants, and no Bale or Ramsey. I expect us to be relatively comfortable against them, probably a 2-0 win if I was betting. The key is a 1st half goal, if we get that I think there wont' be any stresses |
|
|
|
Post by cadno on Jun 27, 2021 11:33:44 GMT
We have 6 games to go!
It's time to get a core squad together, plan a way of playing and go with that.
1. I don't care what you think about the quality of HRK, Vokes, Doidge, Mark Harris etc. We simply MUST have more than 1 striker in our squad from now on.
2. Decide on a back 4 or back 5 now and stick to that defence and keeper as much as injuries allow. Maybe consider bringing some experienced a quality defenders like Gunter and Chester back into the fold.
A back 5 would be my choice.
Gunter Chester Rodon Davies RND.
3. Try other midfielders out, I'm not taking Belarus and Estonia for granted but we should give some players more minutes to see what they can offer;
We're simply not good enough to write off the likes of of Huws, Lee Evans, Vaulks, Andy King just yet. I have faith that Huws can turn his career around whatever others might think.
Ward
Chester Rodon Davies
Gunter Allen Ampadu RND
Bale Moore Ramsey
Solid platform. Strong defensively. Characters. Soldiers. Team.
|
|
