with the exception of the Ireland v Austria game, which has its own dedicated thread.
Some interesting games tonight:
France v Spain, Montenegro v England and Mexico v USA immediately catch my eye.
briantinnion will know more but the US are under quite a bit of pressure and a cabal of players have been criticising Jurgen Klinsmann anonymously in the press. Landon Donovan is still on an extended break from football.
France are already 2 points ahead of Spain after the latter’s draw with Finland on Friday night so the stakes are high in Paris.
Similarly, Montenegro are 2 points ahead of England ahead of their clash tonight. The Montenegran manager went off on one in his press conference yesterday calling out England for being a scared long ball team with rubbish centre backs among other things.
I see Australia came from 2-0 down at home to Oman to salvage a 2-2 draw in a game that finished an hour or so ago. Fitzy, are your chaps in danger of not qualifying? I think Japan were already winning that group.
France Spain will be available to stream on the Guardian’s site for anyone who doesn’t want to watch Conor Sammon running the channels and making a nuisance of himself this evening.
Balbec, that was a shocking result for Poland at home to Ukraine on Friday. What’s going on there? You’re already pretty much out of the reckoning for qualification.
We ae playing NI in Belfast later.
Unfortunatly Tomer Hemed is out after his brilliant performance and goal last week agaimst Portugal so ill guess he will go with Eliran Barda or eliran Atar to partner Eden Ben Bassat up front.
Thraw will be delighted to know Dudu Aoute retains his place in goal,
Rami Gershon and Beram kayal , both of Glasgow Celtic will no doubt get a wonderful reception from Jackie Fullerton and the knowledgable crowd of the Windsor Park kop.
id say we’ll start with
Dudu Aoute ( RDS Mallorca)
Rami Gershon (celtic)
Eitan Tibi ( Mac Tel Aviv)
Dekel Keinan ( mac haifa) or Tel ben haim ( QPR)
Yuval Spungin ( AEK Larnanca)
I see Craig Cathcart reckons Northern Ireland are on the verge of becoming a very good team. Michael O’Neill says they need to find the level of performance they showed when drawing 1-1 in Portugal. He says that’s their true level and not the level they have shown in all his other games in charge.
[quote=“Bandage, post: 752324, member: 9”]mickee, how highly do you rate Maor Melikson?
I see Craig Cathcart reckons Northern Ireland are on the verge of becoming a very good team. Michael O’Neill says they need to find the level of performance they showed when drawing 1-1 in Portugal. He says that’s their true level and not the level they have shown in all his other games in charge.[/quote]
he’s a very good player and usually plays on the RHS of midfield .
was MOTM vs Portugal, as i know he was player of the year in Poland a couple of times in the few seasosn he was there , he signed with Valenciennes in January in Ligue Une, no idea what type of contract he is on
Not sure what O"Neill is on about, i watched their whole game vs Portugal and aside from a great goal by McGinn they were haunted, their performanace in defense that night was both heroic and lucky, what they do have going for them is McGinn and Lafferty play very well together anytime ive watched them and do offer some threat going forward, they are a poor side tho, drawing at home to Luxembourg and Azerbaijan, some bloke from a scottish third division team leading the line up front…
israel’s problem here is that they are woeful away from home and also the conditions are not exactly what they are used to. Hemed is a huge loss, he is banging in goals from Mallorca in la liga and is a big physical man, israel tend to play very intricate football which may not be suited to the surface and the weather.
there was a decent program on israeli TV last night about football in NI, id throw it up but its in Hebrew with Arab subs so only rocko will be able to understand it.
they were interviewing Neil lennon ( obviously in english) and asking him what if felt like to stand for GSTQ, Neil is a pretty diplomatic fellow to be fair and just said it didnt feel right, In the studio afterwards they just could not get how NI use GSTQ as their national anthem and yet their fans claim to hate the English football team who stand to the same song,
Their has been some good stuff in the papers this week as well as many journalists are trying to find out why in ireland the conflict in NI is correlatd to the conflict in the west bank with Israel flags flying in east belfast and hamas icons in west belfast even tho historically there is no link that can possibly be drawn,
They went down some pub on the shankhill road and asked some bunch of UVF/rangers/israel supporters how would they react to rami gershon and baram kayal knowing they were celtic players…it was funny as they tried to put togther an answer.
they did the same then after a clifonville game asking the fans were they proud of Neill mcginn scoring against Portugal and what are their opinions of Kayal and Gershon who they support at celtic lining out for israel who they claim to hate…
not too good
Hapoel Tel Aviv have fallen apart this season and will struggle to pick up a UEFA cup spot and the malaise has spread thru their team, he chips in the odd goal or 2 allright but is by no means impressive
[quote=“mickee321, post: 752308, member: 367”]We ae playing NI in Belfast later.
Unfortunatly Tomer Hemed is out after his brilliant performance and goal last week agaimst Portugal so ill guess he will go with Eliran Barda or eliran Atar to partner Eden Ben Bassat up front.
Thraw will be delighted to know Dudu Aoute retains his place in goal,
Rami Gershon and Beram kayal , both of Glasgow Celtic will no doubt get a wonderful reception from Jackie Fullerton and the knowledgable crowd of the Windsor Park kop.
id say we’ll start with
Dudu Aoute ( RDS Mallorca)
Rami Gershon (celtic)
Eitan Tibi ( Mac Tel Aviv)
Dekel Keinan ( mac haifa) or Tel ben haim ( QPR)
Yuval Spungin ( AEK Larnanca)
Eden Ben Bassat ( Toulouse)
Eliran Barda ( Racing Genk)
bench:
benayoun (chelsea)
shecter (sawasea)
maharan radi (Mac Tel Aviv)
shlomi harush ( Beitar ) - GK
Lior Rafaelov ( Brugges)
Eliran Atar ( Mac Tel Aviv)
NOTE:
the 2 EPL players only make the bench and Ben Haim probably wont start either[/quote]
latest team newd
Shecter starts instead of Barda, and its one arab for another as Maharan Radi replaces Kayal who is on the bench
The anthems are just over with only Roy Carroll belting out GSTQ,
0-0 at the break
macginn and davis prominent for Ni
we have yet to do anything of note, very poor stuff really.
yer man Patterson for NI has some hun head up on him
in other news
montenegro 0 england 1
malta 0 italy 2
serbia 0 scotland 0
belgium 0 macedonia 0
serbia gone 1 up, the pitch in Belgrade resembles Ypes in WW1.
we are back underway in Belfast…
England gone in one up at HT, the Montenegran crowd a rightly or wrongly depending on your point of view aren’t holding back in letting Danny Welbeck know he is not welcome