interlull Euro qualifiers

[Top Londoner]

Some great trouble possibilities in France next year.

Getting the Eurostar home you mean?



WENGER OUT

[greengooner]

Flappy in goal for Poland, not schezzer, is he injured?

No.....he's shit

We all thought flapppy was shit too, in fact more shit then schezzer.

Flappy also resides in the shit zone and yet Ireland's super strikers still could not bother him bar the "penalty"

[casgooner]

Good goal for Ox

[casgooner]

It's a shame some of these minion England players can't make a better effort to try to secure a place next year. It's gone as dull as dish water since half time. I know we qualified early on, but these players are fighting for a place.

[Sean]

There's a match on tonight?

I gave up on internationals five years ago. Pointless friendlies and dead-rubber qualifiers with pubbers, followed by a good fucking by the first decent side we come up against.

(Shit, sounds like Arsenal in the Be All and End All CL...)

They should ban friendlies and shorten the qualifying stages so we can get back to the club games. 'Interlull' is so right.

[TyPeek80]

There's a match on tonight?

I gave up on internationals five years ago. Pointless friendlies and dead-rubber qualifiers with pubbers, followed by a good fucking by the first decent side we come up against.

(Shit, sounds like Arsenal in the Be All and End All CL...)

They should ban friendlies and shorten the qualifying stages so we can get back to the club games. 'Interlull' is so right.

I agree. Way too many friendlies.

[northbank123]

I'd revamp the qualifying system before scrapping friendlies. The latter are frustrating but the only chance England get to play any decent countries other than major tournament defeats.

Why on earth should San Marino have the right to enter a qualifying competition just so that they can waste everybody's time and ship in 40 goals. Likewise why do Germany have to bother playing Gibraltar twice? Sheer idiocy.

[northbank123]

In fact fuck the friendlies. Scrap this ludicrous 24-team Euros idea, back to 16. Pull the bottom 12-15 countries out of main UEFA qualifying and let them do some pre-qualifying competition that with the top few earning the right to do proper qualifying for the next major tournament in place of the worst few sides from the last qualifiers.

Major tournament qualification can then run over one year instead of two. Run a Davis Cup-style European (or even World) League with divisions in the alternate years - then the top countries actually spend their time playing meaningful competitive games rather than the likes of Rooney pilfering goals and shite players racking up caps for fun against minnows and then being completely unprepared come major tournament when they have to play a decent side in a proper game for the first time in 2 years.

[Gunner Rob]

my thoughts on the international matches - its all quite sad really.
England matches used to be must watched events - even not that long ago.

but we have now got to the point where England are playing a dead rubber in Lithuania on a plastic pitch on a Monday night
how the hell did we reach this stage?

I feel a bit sorry for Wales and N Ireland tbh - under the old rules when only 16 teams qualified they would still have qualified.
the thing is you kind of expect them to qualify when 24 countries can make it.
the group stages next year are going to be farcical. so England could be in a group with Iceland, Albania and N Ireland with 3 qualifying spots up for grabs

the thing that annoys me most about all the international matches these days is that it makes the domestic season ridiculously long. We won the FA Cup on May 30th this year and then played the Community Shield just 2 months later on August 1st.
Just stupidity.

If all the little teams really have to take part then I would make all qualifying groups no more than 5 countries. That would reduce the qualifying matches and you could probably get rid of one of the international breaks each year so that the domestic season would be wrapped up by mid May. I guess that is probably just too logical though....

[augie]

I'm not standing up for international football here or anything, but some of you are very blinkered in what you are suggesting -

1. Play all international qualifiers over 1 year - can you imagine the amount of disruption that would cause in a domestic season ? Yes there would be fewer games, but they would be a lot more condensed and we would have international breaks every month or 6 weeks.

2. Make all the "weaker" countries play pre qualifiers - that is slightly arrogant but very much narrow minded. For example lets use ramsey's situation - up until this campaign wales would have been one of the weaker countries, so in theory we would be losing ramsey for a lot more games and for longer periods. Now I know most of you wouldn't mind that happening this season, but can you imagine the uproar it would have caused if ramsey had of missed a chunk of games a few seasons and would have required a lot more rest ? It is easy for fans of the English national team to suggest this plan, but I look at some of the players in our history that played for some of the so called weaker countries, and missing great chunks of games would have hit our club hard.

I understand the complaints about too many weaker countries and I totally agree that extending the finals to 24 teams is ludicrous and cheapens the competition, but finding a solution requires much more thought than just going with the obvious freezing weaker countries out. I also think that weaker countries AND their players, can only improve by playing against better opposition and better players and that in turn improves the standard all round

[northbank123]

Augie I think you have misread (although my post wasn't tremendously articulate!)

The 'pre qualifying' (misleading) would mean that those teams would be playing for the right to enter the qualifiers proper for the NEXT major tournament and wouldn't be able to qualify for the existing one. Therefore fewer teams in each qualifying group and only 6 games, 8 max - no increase on current schedules. Likewise with the lesser nations in the pre qualifying rather than the main qualifying.

Might seem unfair to deprive nations of the right to qualify but honestly why should The likes of Spain and Germany have to bother with Gibraltar, SAn Marino etc and what do those teams learn from getting bumholed every game? When Wales were toiling about and finishing 5th under Toshack I wouldn't have argued against them having to earn the right to enter the qualifiers proper and it certainly didn't do them much good playing dispiriting dead rubbers after their campaign was over inside two games.

Not perfect by any means and a complete pipe dream that would never get Fifa approval but at the end of a day it's a system designed to ensure that nearly every match is competitive without increasing the number of games.

[augie]

It's all those smaller countries that have kept corrupt blatter in his job for years

[arseofacrow]

It's all those smaller countries that have kept corrupt blatter in his job for years

Yes, you have.

[northbank123]

It's all those smaller countries that have kept corrupt blatter in his job for years

Absolutely. To be fair redistributing some of the wealth to the poorest nations is one of the only decent things that Fifa does (albeit taking half of it en route!) but it can't position itself solely in the interests of the minnows.

I can just about understand why as a UN recognised country San Marino can argue a right to enter a team in official competitions by why Gibraltar? They're just a bunch of part-time booze-soaked Scottish ex-pats on a jolly - pissing off all of the big teams and countries in Europe along the way.

[Gunner Rob]

I would just like to get rid of one of the international breaks - this current one if possible because you are just getting into the season and then you have to stop

so qualifying groups of 5 = 4 matches each season

2 can be played in the September break, 2 in a March break.
Play a friendly match in November and then another couple end of the season

scrap the play off matches - 10 groups of 5 will mean top 2 teams qualifying.

problem is there are 54 teams in Europe - make the really crap ones have their own mini league when the World Cup is taking place and the winner qualifies for one of the 10 groups.

This would also reduce the length of the domestic season so that the players actually get a decent break before a European Championship starts...