Quote:
Originally Posted by Junkmale
Hey Srbski
Good to have you back and posting again. You were missed.
The world cup is going to very interesting methinks.
Having had a good to chance to watch some of the teams who qualified from Northern Irelands group (Slovakia and Slovenia) i don't think either have any chance of progressing beyond the qualifying rounds. Slovakia in particular were very poor and how they managed to win the group is any ones guess. They didn't impress me at all.
Northern Ireland played Serbia in a friendly a few weeks ago and i was VERY impressed with the Serbs. I can definetly see Serbia as the 'dark horses' in the finals.
I'll have to go for England as the only home team to qualify from the UK. I don't think they have a chance of winning but you have to follow 'your own' at the finals i suppose.
As for the whole French 'incident'. Haven't laughed as much in years  but please remember France were not playing 'Ireland'. They were playing the Republic of Ireland. 'Ireland' is not a country, it is an Island that contains 2 countries (Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland).
Really looking forward to the finals should be interesting.
BTW Northern Ireland have just announced a friendly against the USA in March next year in Belfast. I'll be at the game, obviously.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/foot...ls/8397952.stm |
I shan't be at the match. Costs a little too much to travel from here to [place that isn't here]. Looking forward to it though. How similar is Northern Ireland to England? Obviously less talented, but in terms of organization, player type, and play style.
Slovenia worries me a little bit. I think we're a more talented team, but they play a lot like Slovakia, whom we played a friendly with and lost 0-1. The USA has an issue with that disciplined defending play style. We don't have the prowess to reliably break down defenses like that. However, and no disrespect to Slovenia as winning a playoff v Russia is no small feat, the US should not lose and hopefully not draw that match, but they will give us a fight.
I think those 2 advanced due to poor opponents as much as anything. The Czech Republic and Poland severely underperformed, and Russia dominated the first leg of the playoff against Slovenia until they gave up that late goal, and apparently some Russian players partied a little too hard before the 2nd leg, and if anybody watched that game Russia played horribly. I think they had 2 players sent off.
In spite of them qualifying ahead of these teams, I'd still rather have Slovenia in my group than Russia or Czech Republic. They're simply less dangerous.