It reminds me a bit of that Belgium/Bulgaria/Scotland qualifying group for the 1988 European Nations Cup.
Wide open.
As an aside, it’s sad to see Eastern European international football at such a low ebb. Gone are the days of great Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, Hungary and Soviet Union teams, and even individual players for that matter.
The rise of Eastern Europe in the Eurovision Song Contest has been a mirror of its decline in association football.
Eastern European football has fallen along with communism.
Commentators broadcasting from Eastern Europe in perfect stereo sound rather than over a grainy telephone line really takes away the intimidation factor for visiting teams.
Too many tattooed funboys these days, they need skinny wiry lads with curly black perms and moustaches in their ranks.
That stadium was where the great 90/91 Red Star Belgrade team played out of , pancev , prosinecki , etc . Remember they made mince meat of Souness’’ Rangers team home and away . Bomber Brown trying to break up Prosinecki was mad .
As do Liverpool.
100%
the fall of communism was a disaster in this regard
the 1991 european cup was the end of football as i knew and loved it,
it was the second last proper european cup before the onset of the horrendous champions league in 92/93 and it also saw the breakup of the brilliant Steau team of 89 and Red Star team of 91 as their players left for western europe post events in Moscow
i remember watching Yugoslavia beat england i think 2-1 in a friendly at wembley in december 1989, it was when Dragan Stoijkovic was unleased on the bbc, his sticker in WC90 was of him celebrating that goal i think
Football has lost something allright… the state of the Marakana tonight also, i see they still have the letters “delije” or warrriors painted into the seats, members of the delije were enlisted to give Arkan a dig out in eastern bosnia in 1993 and featured in the Dinamo zagreb - red star riot in 1991 when Boban attacked a police officer that caused the breakup of the yugoslav FA
you dont get this stuff anymore
I see Lorik Cana has retired also, the last of a dying breed
[quote=“mickee321, post:527, topic:22912, full:true”]I see Lorik Cana has retired also, the last of a dying breed
[/quote]
I see the taffs are playing in City of Cardiff stadium . Not cashing in by playing in Millenium ?
England actually won that game 2-1 but Yugoslavia played them off the pitch.
The break up of Yugoslavia and to a lesser extent Czechoslovakia and the USSR was a terrible pity in football terms.
Yugoslavia were the next great international team in waiting - the Spain 2008-2012 of their day except more exciting. They could easily have won the '94 and '98 World Cups. Unbelieveable talent. The basketball team they had mirrored what was happening in the football at the same time.
1991/92 was actually the first Champions League, it just wasn’t branded as that, but was the same format as 92/93 with the round robin last 8.
The Prosinecki incident was May 1990.
Edit: Boban not Prosinecki, duh.
Watching highlights package on Rte tonight the grounds in Eastern Europe are empty .
And they’re all playing with poncy London or French clubs. They need lads from those ‘crack’ Eastern European sides to bolster them.
Agreed with all of that apart from the Wes and Brady bits. Brady is a bit of a luxury in midfield, but one we can get away with. Wes is an indulgence too far and he isn’t good enough at keeping the ball. Plus Ward was probably our best defender last night.
On the more general points, it was a good draw. We could have shown better energy when we were leading and could have been better on the break but we were never going to dominate the ball, especially when they needed to score.
Long is becoming a real issue for us. Murphy isn’t really able to play the full 90 and Long’s contribution for the first goal was good. But he’s so brainless it’s unbelievable and it’s really hard to build through him. That’s why Walters becomes so important so let’s hope that was just an off night from him because he needs to be the clever centre forward (albeit out wide) when Long is playing up front.
Soccer ball is fucked as a sport. Those lads are all watching Gaa now.
I wouldn’t fancy the Austrians getting 3 points in Belgrade. Old colonial oppressors and all that.
Uefa made ukraine and croatia play in empty stadiums
Is that because soccerball fans are scumbags?
I believe Eire were utter dogshit again last night which begs the question why did martin O’neill treat the Oman match a few days ago as a testimonial for Robbir keane who was fucking off back to LA on the next plane?
Apart from us, we’re great and everyone loves us.