The FC 100: Loves Talking Football.

16:46 Meanwhile hosts South Africa have drawn Nigeria in a tough group in the African section of the draw…

16:42 So there it is then. Scotland and Wales have the toughest groups. Northern Ireland and Ireland will be hopeful of getting second. England will be quietly confident. Who would have predicted that??

16:36 Pot 7: France, Romania, Serbia, Lithania, Austria and Faroe Islands. Not bad for France, not great though. Romania looked really strong in Euro 2008 qualifying and led the Netherlands the whole way. Serbia are generally tricky, though France will not be knocking their knees just yet. Austria are the biggest name in the 5th seeds but some fans have asked the government to pull them out of Euro2008 as they fear an embarassment. Blimey.

16:34 Pot 8: IRELAND. Yes they get capitals because they’re my team. It looked good for a while there. Italy threw a spanner in the works. Ireland have a great shot though, at least at a play-off place. Bulgaria are decent, yes, but revenge against Cyprus, a familiar foe in Georgia and the mighty Montenegro should all be beaten, leaving a fight with Bulgaria to secure second place. Italy won’t fancy their games against Ireland too much though. If Ireland can get them in Croke Park next year the atmosphere will be sensational and Ireland will at least be reminded of their glory day in 94 when they beat Italy 1-0. Unfortunately this does mean Ray Houghton will be providing the commentary for RTE….bugger.

16:32 Pot 9: It’s going to take a titanic effort again from Scotland. Netherlands haven’t looked great so far, but they will get stronger, no doubt, as Van Basten gets more time with them. However, Norway, Macedonia and Iceland are no push-overs. A runner up spot will be a tough ask, let alone even winning the group.

Continue reading ‘World Cup Draw - Live!’

Well, Israel did it. Russia crumbled and the draw that kept their hopes alive was dashed when straight after hitting Israel’s post, they conceded a last-minute equaliser.
England coach Steve McLaren reinforced his god-like status when he revealed how he was always sure it would come down to the final game against Croatia. Fair play Steve. Maybe England lost to Russia last time out on purpose.
The Sunday Times’ Joe Lovejoy reveals today that several sources in the FA have revealed McLaren is on borrowed time regardless of Wednesday’s result at home to Croatia.
Continue reading ‘Israel 2 Russia 1 (plus a round-up of Scotland, Wales, North+Rep of Ireland)’

Well, not quite, but you get my drift.

If you live anywhere remotely near England (Africa, for example) you will be looking at headlines everywhere talking about the Israel V Russia clash this Saturday.
If you live in London and are not English, god help you. Alex Ferguson could take a s*** on Arsene Wenger’s head and it probably wouldn’t matter in the sports pages.
Continue reading ‘ENGLAND VS RUSSIA VS ISRAEL VS ENGLAND’

Scotland….with a number of injuries and suspensions to deal with, Alex Mcleish is clearly delighted to be recalling captain Darren Fletcher to the starting eleven. Of potentially even greater significance is the decision of Georgia’s number 1 keeper Georgi Lomaia  to withdraw from the squad. Lomaia’s place is likely to be taken by Georgi Makaridze, who is just 17, and he is set to make his competitive international debut….James ‘hero’ McFadden claims it is not a ‘must-win’ game…he has a point, Italy is the big one. However, do us a favour James and bang one or two in yeah??

John Terry will more than likely miss England’s game against Russia tomorrow. Terry suffered a locked knee in training today and Sol Cambell should deputise….Poor old Terry seems like he’s breaking down: buggered toe, buggered face and buggered knee. Plus his father-figure has buggered off from Chelsea. He’s odds-on in thefc100’s ‘most likely to become the next Paul McGrath’ bet (one of Paul McGrath’s three sons is second favourite at 5/2)……

Ireland are missing Dunne, Carr, Potter, Reid (X2), Duff, Long, Carsley, Ireland and possibly John O’Shea to name but ten players. Good news is McShane and Hunt are back in contention after suspension. Staunton may well decide to throw an inexperienced team out. However following a positive performance against Germany we have a sneaking suspicion Ireland will do the busness against the mighty Cyprus. A 5-2 defeat way back when needs to be forgotten about sooner rather than later. Were Cyprus to do the double over Ireland the State may decide to prosecute Staunton and the FAI would have legal right to dismiss him with prejudice, seconds after the final whistle*.
* Or so one of the lads says…..

Wales?  San Marino away? 20/1 on the part-timers? No, no. We’re not kidding. Ok, chances are Wales will beat them let’s be honest. However with internal strife and John Toshack coming to the fore this week (and most others), now is as good a time as any for San Marino. Bellamy should get a hat-trick though at the same time. Who knows. God speed.

Northern Ireland face table-toppers Sweden, away from the ‘comfort’ of Windsor Park. A win would set up a hell of a finale for Northern Ireland. Defeat would send them packing from a memorable campaign, but an ultimately disappointing one having promised so much in the earlier days under Lawrie Sanchez. We wonder if he’d prefer to be back in the Northern Ireland job….?

Scotland have beaten Ukraine by three goals to one. Shevchenko won’t be at Euro 2008, however James McFadden might be, another great performance from the Everton man capped with a quality third goal. Kenny Miller and Lee McCulloch scored the two opening goals for Scotland within ten minutes before Sheva hit back for Ukraine. A trip to Georgia beckons next before the vital clash with Italy….
England won 3-0, Crouch didn’t play but we did predict the correct scoreline. Fair play to us. SWP, Wayne Rooney’s first goal for England since his Everton days and a cracking o.g. did the business for Steve McLaren.
Wales, at the time of writing, are 3-1 down away to Cyprus. Mrs Toshack is getting another beating tonight….

 VS                           

         VS

 Scotland’s group was always going to be a tough ask for any team to qualify from, especially a team that lost their manager half way through the campaign. Walter Smith left his post to join Rangers, and Alex McLeish is his replacement and after a 2-0 win over the Faroes, McLeish faces a much bigger challenge to prove he has what it takes to bring Scotland back to a major tournament for the first time in years.

Saturday sees Italy and France square off while Scotland play a must-win game at home to Lithuania.With Ukraine facing a potential banana skin in Georgia away, Scotland could rule the fourth-placed team out of the equation with a win of their own. McLeish knows Italy or France will drop points and come the end of Saturday, Scotland could be in second place in the group.

Assuming Scotland win, McLeish may well prefer a French win in Italy as Scotland could hope to catch the French team in ‘hungover’ mode, believing that qualification is right around the corner. Scotland would then hope to take a point away from France, and were that to be the case, would be looking extremely good, with a potential showdown with Italy as their final, and possibly most important, group game in November. Meanwhile, on Wednesday, Italy travel to Ukraine, and with the national team in decidedly average form, Ukraine may hope to spring another surprise.

This group is perfectly poised, and thefc100 will be rooting on Scotland all the way……here’s the group table as it currently stands:

                                     Pld          Pts

• France                  7            18
• Italy                      7            16
• Scotland               7            15
• Ukraine                 6            12
• Lithuania              7             7
• Georgia                8             6
• Faroe Islands        8             0

Saturday, 08 September 2007

European Championship Qualifying

(McLaren’s cheek implants get the dreaded ‘vote of confidence’)

Fixture, Group, Time:

Belarus v Romania, G, 17:00
Croatia v Estonia, E, 19:30
England v Israel, E, 17:00
Georgia v Ukraine, B, 16:00
Hungary v Bosnia-Herzegovina, C, 15:00
Iceland v Spain, F, 21:00
Italy v France, B, 19:50
Latvia v Northern Ireland, F, 17:15
Luxembourg v Slovenia, G, 16:00
Malta v Turkey, C, 18:30
Moldova v Norway, C, 19:00
Netherlands v Bulgaria, G, 19:30
Portugal v Poland, A, 21:00
Russia v FYR Macedonia, E, 16:00
San Marino v Czech Republic, D, 19:15
Scotland v Lithuania, B, 15:00
Serbia v Finland, A, 19:15
Slovakia v Rep of Ireland, D, 19:30
Sweden v Denmark, F, 19:30
Wales v Germany, D, 19:30

There’s something wrong with me. I actually nervously anticipate international football weeks when I can no longer find a decent game four or five days a week. It’s not like I watch football all the time. But I like to have the option in case something tickles my fancy. I don’t like to have to go through pages and pages of Steve McLaren’s dillemas about midfielders; whether Northern Ireland and Scotland have what it takes to qualify; how bad Wales are and whether the Republic of Ireland can complete a miracuolous recovery to save Steve Staunton’s reputation as manager. The problem is, they’re the same stories every time the clubs say goodbye to their best players for a week or ten days. With the club scene we get to see games with players who play together all the time, take pride in their performance (mostly) and have some sense of team morale and rhythm to their game. International teams are strange to watch as they should really be the best eleven players (fitness permitting) the country has to offer. And yet watching Ireland struggle to a win over San Marino or England playing….anyone, you realise that these teams will always be bound by differences. It must be hard playing alongside players you can’t stand. Should we really believe that Gerrard and Gary Neville relish each other’s company? Do the Chelsea and Liverpool lads suddenly realise that they could potentially be best friends if only they weren’t training every single day to beat them on the football pitch?

Still, being thankful for small mercies, at least we’ve got to the important stages of the groups, where results really matter and we can see who the potential Euro 2008 competitors will be. Of the British and Irish teams, only Wales can rule themselves out of the running for qualification, and this is another reason to be cheerful. While England have qualified for all the recent major tournaments, the others have been struggling of late, with the Republic of Ireland having failed to qualify for the last two major tournaments following a promising campaign in 2002.

Group B: Scotland: Scotland are in a decent position given that they have World Cup 2006 Final participants France and Italy in their group. Having pulled off a shock 1-0 win over France earlier in qualifying, Scotland know that they have to repeat that performance against one of the two footballing giants in order to at least gain a play-off spot. While the chances of qualifying are slim, victory over Lithuania on Saturday will help as Italy and France square off this Saturday, while Italy travel to Ukraine in another tricky trip on the same Wednesday that Scotland travel to France. Four points from the two games will leave the Scotland camp hoping that they can get back onto Europe’s biggest stage.

Group D: Ireland: The Republic of Ireland face two tricky trips to Eastern Europe, starting with Slovakia on Saturday. After some poor performances in the earlier stages of qualifying, the Irish media were calling for Steve Staunton’s head. Now, on the back of a 4-0 win over Denmark in a friendly last month, plus wins in tricky games against Slovakia and Wales in their last two group games, Ireland are beginning to show signs of pulling together at the right time. Slovakia have left out some experienced players for the Ireland game and Ireland will know they need to take the maximum points from that game before a harder test in the shape of the Czech Republic on Wednesday. The Czechs aren’t the team they were though, and were indeed fortunate to salvage a point from their trip to Ireland earlier in the group. That night, the Czechs were second best to an Ireland team under new management. Next Wednesday, Ireland will hope to take a major step towards Euro 2008, six points from the two games will have to be the aim with Germany six points ahead and the other three teams battling for the play-off place.

Skysports.com is already hailing England’s 3-0 win over lowly Estonia as putting them right back in the qualification mix.

http://home.skysports.com/matchreport.aspxfxid=296585&CPID=3&channel=football_home

Unfortunately for England, this simply isn’t the case. Victory over point-less Estonia was a given, it had to be, and Joe Cole, Peter Crouch and Michael Owen made sure that England still have a qualification campaign to speak of. More importantly, Croatia and Russia finished level at 0-0 and this gives England more of a chance with some tough games to come. Israel’s 2-0 win over Andorra means that all four teams at the top are battling it out for qualification and England cannot afford any slip-ups if they are to qualify from what had seemed a reasonably easy group when first announced. The problems of travel were perhaps tricky but of the teams in the top four, none can put out a team that comes near England on paper, making the campaign an unmitigated disaster so far. Mclaren lives to fight another day, but this campaign doesn’t have the feel of a happy ending…..

Scotland have a far tougher group and a 2-0 win over the Faroe Islands means they remain in with a chance of qualification despite France and Italy recording back to back wins in the last four days. Scotland sit a point behind Italy and three points behind leaders France but know that qualification rests on massive games against the big two still to come.

Sweden’s 5-0 win over Iceland moves them top of Northern Ireland’s league with Spain 2-0 winners over lowly Liechtenstein, lifting them into second place. Northern Ireland didn’t play but remain in a good position just two points behind the joint leaders with a game in hand over Spain. If, as expected, Fifa award the three points of Saturday’s abandoned game with Denmark to Sweden, Northern Ireland will feel hard done by as they would have profited most from a 3-3 draw with Denmark. Tough games to come but Nigel Worthington’s team are in with a fighting chance.

Wales’ hopes of qualification are virtually over after their draw with the Czech Republic on Saturday. The Republic of Ireland are still in with a chance although Germany’s narrow win over Slovakia will have disapointed the Irish fans. Thomas Hitzlsperger’s 43rd minute strike was enough to decide the game leaving Germany 8 points clear of the Czechs and 9 clear of Ireland having played a game more than both. Ireland and Czech Republic will now battle it out for second place, with the teams having drawn 1-1 earlier in the campaign.