wc qualifyers european zone GROUP 8

Is anyboby watching the group with italy bulgaria and ireland.????
what do you think for 2 from those 3 teams making it through into the WC or PLAYOFFS.
italy is a point ahead of ireland and a match less. bulgaria is five points behind ireland but still a game more to play and ireland must play against cuprys away from home .

My question is which 2 teams you think will advance ? thank you

Italy and Ireland. I however am not sure if Italy will get past the round of 16 in 2010, remember they really lucked out in 2006 with referees.

Ireland are somehow going to make it. I still don't know how they've done it, because they haven't played a full match of impressive soccer all season. But anything they haven't won, they've drawn, so they've been steadily racking up the points. Giovanni Trappatoni and defensive soccer and so forth. It works, apparently.

Italian style, Loppernicus. You can apply your exact words to Italy. I was going to say France and Portugal as well but they haven't been just drawing, they lose and also play ugly .

however if you take a closer look you ll see that Bulgaria is 5 points behind ireland but with a game less (against montenegro at home)
then ireland are going to cyprus and it s going to be a thought game, for sure....
and after that a home game against italy....
so bulgaria has a game more and only a difficult away game against italy
also cyprus , butthe bulgarians did a really solid performance at home so i think cyprus are not the team that can stop them , so easy.
What really sucks is that if ireland wins all its games (only two apart the game against italy) and make a draw against italy, then both teams ( without Bulgaria) will advance and befcause rapattoni , althought a very good coach , is an italaian and maybe there can be a set up match in ireland against italy.
apart from that i am a bulgarian and really hope that after 12 years without being part of WC finals (last time was 1998 ) we can still do it
keep your fingers crossed

You need a new reincarnation of Stoichkov, Balakov, .... :P.

:p
we have ...........
like we dont have anyone even clos to their talent ... not even berbatov, an overrated fuul for me personaly. Had 2 great chances against ireland , didnt score them, and in crusial games his display has also been frustrating.
But balakow , you're wright, the kind of player we need indeed. There's no one to feed the strikers with good passes .
But hey, there's always hope , like schumacher said many years ago

Meh, Berbatov... can't believe Man U wasted so much money on him

neither do i .
but hey, if you look back in the past... a long time ago in 1994 when Bulgaria was 4 th best teams in the world , we won against germany (the active world champion then) with 2:1 and that prooved to be our last victoy on world cup finals. If you would have told that to a bulgarian then he would laugh at your face..... but that's just the way it is...... 16 years without a win on WC ......
as sad as it can be

I remember that game. Wasn't it 3x1 with the German goal coming from a Matthaus penalty kick? It was the downfall of Germany, both Matthaus and Klinsmann weren't enough to make up for the rest of the average team with players aging fast. Basically every other WC has a similar story! Croatia in 98, Turkey in 2002, Germany in 2006 was a big surprise to many...

Obviously I hope we get through, but if I'm honest I don't give a toss. Soccer is only about the 4th biggest sport in this country anyway, and this team completely fails to evoke the kind of passion we had in the Jack Charlton/Mick McCarthy era.

Well, I'd not mind both Bulgaria and Ireland making it together to the WC, if only Argentina could have its spot taken away .

Wot? No Argentina?!

Argentina and Italy generally command my token support in WCs, seeing as we generally don't make it, although all my fave players from the Italian side of the last decade or so are a bit over the hill now.

The Lopper Wrote:
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>Argentina and Italy generally command my token
> support in WCs


WHAT?! Are you insane? Only Argentines and 50% of Uruguayans cheer for Argentina, everyone else pretty much dislikes them because they know how arrogant the people are :P. On a side note, another lovely loss by Maradona's team, now to Ecuador! They're in 4th place and if they drop one more they have to play a CONCACAF team to qualify to the WC.

Guimengo Wrote:
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> Italy and Ireland. I however am not sure if Italy
> will get past the round of 16 in 2010, remember
> they really lucked out in 2006 with referees.


That's crap Gui!!!!!
How can you say Italy lucked out with referees? They did get one debatable penalty against Australia (not more so though, than the one given against them in the final) but remember earlier in that match Materazzi was really harshly sent off. And if they had still been playing now Australia wouldn't have scored.
Also, the only goal they conceded from open play in seven games was a comical own goal from Zaccardo. Yet they didn't play catenaccio, if you care to remember the semi-final against Germany and the intricate, end-to-end football that served up a modern classic.

There's no way Argentina can fail to qualify for South Africa, even if they went into a CONCACAF playoff.
Rather than Argentina missing out, a Brazil-less World Cup would be nice if I'm honest



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/12/2009 12:31PM by salvasirignano.

Guimengo Wrote:
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> The Lopper Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> >Argentina and Italy generally command my token
> > support in WCs
>
>
> WHAT?! Are you insane? Only Argentines and 50%
> of Uruguayans cheer for Argentina, everyone else
> pretty much dislikes them because they know how
> arrogant the people are :P.

And you're from where again? Brazil? Oh right.

Who DO Brazilians really hate anyway, the Argentines I presume from what you're saying?

Salva, you only say that because of 1994 .

Loppernicus, that's the opinion of all but one (and a half) country(ies) from Latin America. You'll understand it if you ever end up hanging out/meeting ARRRGentines. To give you a brief summary, think of them as narcisistic italians who were kicked out of Europe but still think they rule the world .

Ouch! They probably got the bad attitude from all the Irish exiles that headed out there round the 1900s.

I'll end up meeting them one day for sure. It's all a part of the world I'd really love to visit. Rio de Janeiro, Patagonia in Argentina and the Atacama in Chile, all very high up on my wishlist of destinations!

Go to Patagonia in the middle of the year, it's the winter time and people go ski and stuff :P.