Official Football Thread

The Flash said:
Hope Scotland advances today. Would love to see them in the World Cup. UK & Ireland teams always bring excitement to the tournaments they appear in.

Also, South America is criminally underrepresented in the World Cup. They get to send four teams directly and an extra one through the Playoffs. Yeah, it's a small group of countries in the continent but pretty much all teams besides Bolivia and Venezuela are World Cup material. It's very unfair to a team like Paraguay to have to overtake Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Colombia and Chile to qualify for a spot.
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So, Scotland go out but Northern Ireland will be in the playoff. Wales or Ireland will be in the play-off too (or may qualify directly in the unlikely case that Serbia fail to beat Georgia).

Also, Norway won a game against an actual opponent (i.e. Northern Ireland)! Maybe in the next World Cup qualification, we can be back to our normal level of almost qualifying!
 
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Who is Gareth Bale?
 
Ireland makes the play offs. Incredible defending at the end. McLean, Duffy, Meyler, heros all. We dont play much football at times but we deserved that. Theres not many teams that will fancy Ireland in the playoffs
 
We could get a play-off game between Republic of Ireland ... and Northern Ireland. Another possible derby play-off would be Sweden vs Denmark.
 
Dr. Eddies Wingman said:
We could get a play-off game between Republic of Ireland ... and Northern Ireland.
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Won't happen, UEFA will cheat the draw to make sure it doesn't happen.

Night Prowler said:
Who is Gareth Bale?
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Feel bad for him. If he didn't miss as many games as he did due to injuries, Wales probably would've topped the group. Sucks that they don't get to appear in the World Cup after reaching semis in the Euros.
 
In the U21s Euro qualifiers, Norway beat Germany 3-1! A great consolation after a poor start to their campaign, which started with a solid 5-0 win over Kosovo, that turned into a 0-3 defeat due to the use of a player who was ineligible due to yellow cards!

Now watching Netherlands vs Sweden. So far the Dutch don't look likely to get the 7 goals they need to get past Sweden ...
 
Sadly Bulgaria equalized, but I think that point for Luxembourg was enough to finish ahead of Belarus.

@Forostar Holland failed to qualify along with Scotland, so what do we do next summer? Go to Iron Maiden concerts?
 
So the Swiss win 9 in a row and will still go to a play off. Tough break.
Also, tough beak for Syria, beaten 2-1 by Australia after extra time. Both goals came from 37 year old Tim Cahill. What a stallion. Hope he gets another World Cup.
 
Why do you think we’re called oranges? At the 2008 euros, we were still a bit young, almost ripe, but at the 2010 World Cup, we were ripe as fuck, making it all the way to the final. Then we started to rot, EURO 2012 was a disaster, but then LvG came with his magic juice presser, managing to squeeze the last bit of juice out of us. Now we’re just fucking dry and shit and don’t achieve anything. EURO 2016? Nope, rotten. World Cup 2018? Nope, almost digested.
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I knew it would be impossible. Not 100% impossible though. The first half was so strong. A bit more luck with a few chances and things could have looked differently with 3 or 4 nil in the first half. We had to win with 7(!) goals difference. That was too much. Normally this was an excellent game. Some great football, I have seen a good new player, Aké, who also could have chosen for Ivory Coast. I'm glad he chose for us. We played crap during some earlier games, but two other results also nailed us. Sweden's victory vs France and that ridiculous SWE-LUX 8(!)-0 victory. And now Luxembourg almost wins their game. Fuckers.

1. Frankrijk * 10-23 (18- 6)
2. Zweden + 10-19 (26- 9)
3. NEDERLAND 10-19 (21-12)
4. Bulgarije 10-13 (14-19)
5. Luxemburg 10- 6 ( 8-26)
6. Wit-Rusland 10- 5 ( 6-21)

Farewell and thank you Arjen Robben. :notworthy:
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Luxembourg pretty much destroyed their fellow low country by losing 8-0 against Sweden. How do you keep France goalless and then concede eight from Sweden?
 
Luxembourg are shit and Holland only have themselves to blame for not beating them handsomely :p They also lost only 0-1 at home to Sweden, so obviously they varied in their performances - as would be expected. Finally - even if they had only lost 4-0 to Sweden in the last game, Holland would've had to beat Sweden by a big margin (not by 7, that's true, but on the top level even three and four is a big win that you can't count on doing whenever you need it).

Bottom line is, Holland lost a game they would normally be expected to win (Bulgaria away) and it cost them the playoff.

Later tonight we could be in for an even bigger shock than Holland missing out: Twice world champions Argentina must win to qualify directly. A draw will possibly give them 5th and playoff, but it is not guaranteed. And they are playing Equador away, at 2800 metres above sea level ... so even a draw is not a given. And only Bolivia have scored fewer goals than Argentina in this qualification ...
 
South American qualifiers are absolutely bonkers going into the last matchday. Only four points seperate Uruguay, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Argentina and Paraguay. Two will miss out.

Chile plays Brazil away. Brazil have already qualified, but it's still a pretty bad matchup in this situation. Wouldn't be as crazy as Argentina missing out maybe, but the two time defending champion of Copa America missing out on the World Cup is also major.
 
Dr. Eddies Wingman said:
Luxembourg are shit and Holland only have themselves to blame for not beating them handsomely :p They also lost only 0-1 at home to Sweden, so obviously they varied in their performances - as would be expected. Finally - even if they had only lost 4-0 to Sweden in the last game, Holland would've had to beat Sweden by a big margin (not by 7, that's true, but on the top level even three and four is a big win that you can't count on doing whenever you need it).

Bottom line is, Holland lost a game they would normally be expected to win (Bulgaria away) and it cost them the playoff.

Later tonight we could be in for an even bigger shock than Holland missing out: Twice world champions Argentina must win to qualify directly. A draw will possibly give them 5th and playoff, but it is not guaranteed. And they are playing Equador away, at 2800 metres above sea level ... so even a draw is not a given. And only Bolivia have scored fewer goals than Argentina in this qualification ...
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Well said. Still, the 8-0 is extra sore (and it stinks a bit).
 
It is perfectly understandable that you feel that way. However, I doubt Luxembourg, being shit, see Holland as a rival and thus care less about losing badly when it hurts Holland's chances. They're just too far away from that level. Just like Bury FC would probably not state Man Utd and Man City as their main rivals.
 
Messi single handedly carries Argentina to the World Cup. Scored a hattrick.

Chile is out. Alexis Sánchez on suicide watch.
 
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