World Cup Qualifiers

[JoB]

It wasn't the best weekend for any of the home nations in Group 6, with Northern Ireland going down 3-0 to Poland, and both England and Wales having to settle for disappointing draws when both would have hoped for better.

Tonight England play Poland, while Wales entertain our Northern Irish neighbours. Cardiff is already full of Irishmen (and women) so I'm hoping for a fantastic atmosphere tonight. Little'Un has been looking forward to this since I booked the tickets.

Fingers crossed for good results!

Except for Northern Ireland, of course, because my neighbourly spirit doesn't extend that far - I can only cheer for them when they aren't playing us! :tong:

[Bastin]

I don't know which team I'd rather see qualify in second place (via the play-off): Wales or Northern Ireland. I guess that Northern Ireland stand next to nil chance of making it, to I'll throw my weight behind Wales.

[JoB]

Why thank you, sir.

Tell you what, you cheer for Wales, I'll cheer for England - except when we're playing each other, of course. :grin2:

[rezag]

Does anybody actually believe that Eriksson is only one defeat away from the sack? Can they even afford the payout if it gets to that?

[Jun-Lei]

Yup. My English colleague can't stand Eriksson and thinks he's doing really poorly with the national team. I wonder who will replace Eriksson when he eventually gets the sack.

[JoB]

I think the general feeling is that Eriksson is only still in post because they don't want to pay him off and he won't resign. :rolleye:

Congrats to England, btw, for the win over Poland last night.

As for the Wales-Northern Ireland game, well what excitement. And no, I don't mean the game. When it was all over, 63,000 people poured out of the stadium, around the corner, and ran slap into fire engines, ambulance, special rescue unit, with the police helicopter hovering over head. The rumour that rippled through the crowd was that some idiot had jumped off the bridge into the river, and there certainly were men in uniform combing the riverbank. :reaper:

The game wasn't that bad, honest!
It was, though, one of the strangest games I've been to. Three sendings off, three goals, and that was just the first half. I've no idea what the ref was on, he was unbelievably fussy - I don't think any of the sendings off should have been, and they had a big impact on the game.

N.I. went 2-0 up. It was crazy. Our defence were, frankly, crap, but the second goal wouldn't have gone in if the keeper hadn't slipped and fallen over at the crucial moment. It was that kind of night. We pulled it back to 2-2 thanks to Hartson and Earnshaw, but for a long while it felt like a return to the bad old days. Wales did manage to regain a little of their equilibrium and push the tempo up at the end of the first half and for much of the second half, putting N.I. under heavy pressure, but couldn't manage a win.

A disappointing result.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/internationals/3637104.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/internationals/3631194.stm

[Bastin]

Since the England match overlapped, I only saw the final 30 minutes of the Wales/Northern Ireland match, but I have to say that it was one of the best Northern Ireland performances and one of the worst Wales performances, that I've ever seen. Although I vowed to support Wales, I couldn't help but take heart from the dogged determination of the nine-man underdogs. Sorry, Jo. :notsure:

As for Eriksson, I have to disagree with the talk of his imminent depature. This is a man whose team has lost one twice in competitive games in almost four years. So what if we draw an away game every now and then? England more than compensated for the draw in Vienna with the victory in Katowice; four points was the expectation from the first two games, and yet accomplishing the task (very unfortunately) is deemed to be criterion for sacking the manager! Madness. At least wait until he's lost a game of his one doing before sharpening the knifes.

[JoB]

Since the England match overlapped, I only saw the final 30 minutes of the Wales/Northern Ireland match, but I have to say that it was one of the best Northern Ireland performances and one of the worst Wales performances, that I've ever seen. Although I vowed to support Wales, I couldn't help but take heart from the dogged determination of the nine-man underdogs. Sorry, Jo. :notsure:

Like I said, it was like time-warping back to the bad old days. We played really badly, and can't even claim to have been missing that many key players. I've no idea what went wrong. Savage being sent off shouldn't have had that big an impact, especially since N.I. had two players sent off, and we were already playing badly before that.

The N.Irish fans loved it. They'd adopted Sam's Bar in town for two days prior to the game and are still there now!

And the guy who jumped into the river and caused such mayhem was, apparently, a N.Irish visitor, over-excited perhaps.

I think I shall cheer for Poland from now on. :popup: