Ireland vs Moldova & Wales v Ireland - World Cup Qualifiers 06/10/2017 & 09/10/2017

Was it the play offs for the 2010 World Cup that seeding was announced out of nowhere and we ended up getting France?

I bet Platini had a ‘say’ in that.

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Yes it was.

Eire soccer should really build their own stadium. That would put an end once and for all to the fretting about the condition of the rugby pitch they currently play on and speculation as to which outsized GAA pitch they could play on as an alternative.

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Ours is the only group that neither the first or second seeds came first or second.
Wales join Romania & Netherlands (most likely) as the three top seeds not to finish in the top two.
Austria, Czech & Bosnia (most likely) as the three second seeds not to finish in the top two.
Poland, Sweden, Northern Ireland, Greece, Serbia all third seeds. With Poland & Serbia topping their group.
Ireland the only 4th seed.
So 6/9 1st seeds
6/9 2nd seeds
5/9 3rd seeds
1/9 4th seeds

Interestingly out of 9 groups only two groups (Spain & England ones) look like they’ll finish with seeds 1 & 2 in position 1 & 2.

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Fianna Fáil wouldn’t let them.

Not seething. I was 100% confident we’d beat a Welsh team that, let’s face it, wouldn’t get out of the championship. They are a poor side, populated entirely with mediocre championship level hackers.
A Martin of neill team will always have a great chance against such opposition.
I remember when we nearly put the dutch, the best team in the world at that stage, with van Basten and gullit in their pomp, out of the European championships. Now that was a performance for the ages. Beating this Welsh team is akin to beating Huddersfield town. I expected a win. I felt we were a better team.
The Welsh are cunts. Lickspittles, without national pride. Wouldn’t vote for independence, they’d be too busy fumbling in the greasy dole office. Fuck them. I’m delighted, just not surprised. We shouldn’t be making beating that mediocre shower of cloggers akin to brian boru mark 2.
In my opinion.
We should expect to qualify relatively comfortably also over two legs.

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Watching it back and I just realised that the Welch (cc @Little_Lord_Fauntleroy) had launched into that really crap and cringey “Don’t Take Me Home” chant right as Hendrick dispossessed Williams and set about creating the goal. Lovely stuff.

Why were they booing James McClean all game?

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TBF that was a flaky Dutch team with great players, but far from a great “team”. The game against Russia was a performance for the ages, the Dutch game was a backs to the wall for the most part encounter, from a team out on the tits at that point.

And if you think our current players match up the likes of Moran, McGrath, Whelan, Houghton, Hughton, Galvin, Aldridge, Sheedy, Stapleton, well you’re not very familiar with the current side, who are game as fuck, but a sum of their parts more than anything else. We shouldn’t damn them by comparing them to former patriots.

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We had to go away to Wales in a win or bust game once again shorn of a number of important players (Coleman, Long, McCarthy, Walters). The pressure was on and once again MON’s Ireland delivered when they had to.

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Joe Allen going off really was the turning point. Both him and Ramsey were very much to the fore in the first half an hour and they was pressure building on us constantly. As soon as he went off and Ramsey had to drop deeper he went completely out of the game and we got a foothold and never looked to be under anywhere near as much sustained pressure

image

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They’ll be staying at home next summer it’s alright.

I would suspect this is FIFA Corporate Governance at work. They don’t want the appalling vista of one of their traditional big guns like Italy and Portugal getting drawn together and one of them missing out. @horriblecunt is well versed on FIFA Corporate Governance so he might have some insight on this one.

It’s definitely a ring fence job. Keep out the plebs

Are we moving from a "we fear no one " to a “seeding the play offs is wrong” ?

No we’ll qualify to spite the cunts mate.

I thought the game was called excellently by O’Neill.

He needed physicality in the team in the early stages, to be defensively strong in order to weather the Welsh storm and quieten the crowd.

Then open up a bit and nick a goal.

It worked perfectly.

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The Welch

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There’s a lot of discord with Italy at the minute with Ventura being the prime reason.

He’s making a lot of bizarre calls, he is persisting with a 4-2-4 tactic which has had little joy so far, he is making some bizarre selection calls - in form players like Zaza, Chiesa, Jorginho are continually overlooked for players who are not really impressing for their clubs.

The results have not been good and confidence is not high about qualification chances. Sweden look like the side to avoid from the second pot though.

Ireland never feared Italy.