Round ball code talk

[RussellEbertHandball]

Socceroos played a good first half. The pitch is like Flemington after a couple of horse races, divots of turf everywhere. The Socceroos continue to do what they have done all this campaign and like the last 40 years of watching them - fail to nail opportunities. That Urich miss was rubbish. Some excuse the ball bobbled. Andy Harper said this WC qualifying campaign it's been 10 shots on goal for every conversion. Just not good enough. The rest of our play has been pretty good.

But I will take a 0-0 draw if the second half continues the way of the first.

 

[Garibaldi Red]

Socceroos played a good first half. The pitch is like Flemington after a couple of horse races, divots of turf everywhere. The Socceroos continue to do what they have done all this campaign and like the last 40 years of watching them - fail to nail opportunities. That Urich miss was rubbish. Some excuse the ball bobbled. Andy Harper said this WC qualifying campaign it's been 10 shots on goal for every conversion. Just not good enough. The rest of our play has been pretty good.

But I will take a 0-0 draw if the second half continues the way of the first.

Flemington is in better nick. Some of those divots are bigger than the Adelaide Hills.

Mass Luongo had his best half for the Socceroos since the Asian Cup.

Yes Juric should’ve scored but WTF was going on with that penalty reversal?

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

Flemington is in better nick. Some of those divots are bigger than the Adelaide Hills.

Mass Luongo had his best half for the Socceroos since the Asian Cup.

Yes Juric should’ve scored but WTF was going on with that penalty reversal?

Dodgy offside bullshit from the touch referre. The sooner they bring video ref for all big games the better.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

Very good result to get a 0-0 result but we should have scored a goal in the first half.

Now have to win in Sydney. **** a 1-1 draw would be a cruel way to miss qualification.

 

[Grave Danger]

I wonder if Ange has got his Choco-like "Every former Socceroo - you were wrong!" ready for Wednesday night...

I see Sweden beat the Azzurri 1-0 in the first leg of their play-off. You'd expect Italy to still go through though.

 

[TeeKray]

Very good result to get a 0-0 result but we should have scored a goal in the first half.

Now have to win in Sydney. **** a 1-1 draw would be a cruel way to miss qualification.

Imagine if that happened, we'd have lost just 2 of our 22 qualifiers and still failed to qualify. Harsh.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

Road to Russia for 32 countries

1 Russia as Host auto qualified

4 Asian Confederation auto qualifiers Iran, S Korea, Japan and Saudi Arabia
3 Concacaf auto qualifiers Mexico, Cotsa Rica and Panama

1 Oz v Honduras 0-0 after first leg in Honduras

3 African Confederation auto qualifiers so far Nigeria, Senegal and Egypt. This weekend's final games
1 Group A Tunisia 13 pts play Libya 3pts and DR Congo 10 pts play Guniea 3pts
1 Group C Morocco 9 pts play Ivory Coast 8 pts away and win goes to the WC or draw for Morocco

4 South America auto qualifiers Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina and Colombia
1 5th team Peru v Oceania qualifier New Zealand. NZ play Peru this arvo in Wellington and then Peru Wed.

9 UEFA teams auto qualified topped their group France, Portugal, Germany, Serbia, Poland, England, Spain, Belgium , Iceland ( yes Iceland). The second team of the 9 that missed out on stage 2 was Slovakia

4 home and away match ups of the 8 second teams in UEFA
------
32

Northern Ireland v Switzerland 1st leg 0-1 in Belfast, 2nd leg in Basel Sunday night local time
Croatia v Greece... 1st leg 4-1 in Zagreb, 2nd leg in Athens Sunday night
Denmark v Ireland 1st leg Copenhagen tonight and Dublin Tuesday night
Sweden v Italy.... 1st leg 1-0 in Stockholm this morning and in Milan on Monday night

Big nations from different confederations that didn't make it, at this stage
Chile finished 6th in group and been top 10 ranked since last WC
Ghana finished 3rd in their group and been at last 3 WC's
Cameroon have been a top African team for 30 years. Between 1990-2014 only missed WC in 2006
USA had been to every WC between 1990-2014

Netherlands finished 3rd in Group A on goal difference to Sweden and France topped group by 4 pts
Czech republic in group C, Ukraine and Turkey in group I couldn't get past Iceland and Croatia.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

Imagine if that happened, we'd have lost just 2 of our 22 qualifiers and still failed to qualify. Harsh.

That is my fear. We just can't put the ball in the net enough despite our dominance in the last 5 or 6 games and we can get scored on against the counter attack. I don't know if Ange has developed the style he wants to play but his sides have created enough opportunities to win probably all of their games bar Japan in Tokyo. But apart from Cahill we don't have guys who can consistently convert.

Timmy will have to show his heroics again I think for us to go Russia.

So our record at the moment is 13 W 6 D and 2 L so far in this campaign with the only loses was 1-2 in Kyrgyzstan and 0-2 in Japan.

In the 18 games in stage 2 and 3 of Asian qualifiers we scored 45 goals v 15 against. The auto qulifiers
Iran 36 v 5, Japan 44 v 4, S Korea 38 v 10, Saudi 45 v 14.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

Leckie will be the key as well as Cahill. He was suspended so he has been training and resting up in Sydney.

Leckie reminds me of Viduka - so many nearly moments in his Socceroo career. Like Viduka he was an important player and played important roles despite not scoring but its all those moment where they both have had chances for whatever reason didn't result in goals, hit the cross bar or posts, great save by goalie, arsey flukey save by goalie or defender, just didn't hit the ball right, perfect position but the pass was poor etc.

 

[mic59]

One of the comments after Tim Cahill went down in the Sydney match was "If we as a nation need almost 38 year old Cahill to make the World Cup, we don't deserve to be there". Remember Roger Milla for Cameroon at the 1994 World Cup age 42? And Stanley Matthews who played in 1954 aged 39. The oldest so far is Faryd Mondragon who played against Japan in 2014 when he was 43. Pat Jennings was 41 when he played his last game in goal for Northern Ireland, Peter Shilton for England was 40 and Dino Zoff for Italy was 40.

 

[Grave Danger]

Road to Russia for 32 countries

1 Russia as Host auto qualified

4 Asian Confederation auto qualifiers Iran, S Korea, Japan and Saudi Arabia
3 Concacaf auto qualifiers Mexico, Cotsa Rica and Panama

1 Oz v Honduras 0-0 after first leg in Honduras

3 African Confederation auto qualifiers so far Nigeria, Senegal and Egypt. This weekend's final games
1 Group A Tunisia 13 pts play Libya 3pts and DR Congo 10 pts play Guniea 3pts
1 Group C Morocco 9 pts play Ivory Coast 8 pts away and win goes to the WC or draw for Morocco

4 South America auto qualifiers Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina and Colombia
1 5th team Peru v Oceania qualifier New Zealand. NZ play Peru this arvo in Wellington and then Peru Wed.

9 UEFA teams auto qualified topped their group France, Portugal, Germany, Serbia, Poland, England, Spain, Belgium , Iceland ( yes Iceland). The second team of the 9 that missed out on stage 2 was Slovakia

4 home and away match ups of the 8 second teams in UEFA
------
32

Northern Ireland v Switzerland 1st leg 0-1 in Belfast, 2nd leg in Basel Sunday night local time
Croatia v Greece... 1st leg 4-1 in Zagreb, 2nd leg in Athens Sunday night
Denmark v Ireland 1st leg Copenhagen tonight and Dublin Tuesday night
Sweden v Italy.... 1st leg 1-0 in Stockholm this morning and in Milan on Monday night

Big nations from different confederations that didn't make it, at this stage
Chile finished 6th in group and been top 10 ranked since last WC
Ghana finished 3rd in their group and been at last 3 WC's
Cameroon have been a top African team for 30 years. Between 1990-2014 only missed WC in 2006
USA had been to every WC between 1990-2014

Netherlands finished 3rd in Group A on goal difference to Sweden and France topped group by 4 pts
Czech republic in group C, Ukraine and Turkey in group I couldn't get past Iceland and Croatia.

New Zealand 0 Peru 0

 

[Harlott]

Leckie will be the key as well as Cahill. He was suspended so he has been training and resting up in Sydney.

Leckie reminds me of Viduka - so many nearly moments in his Socceroo career. Like Viduka he was an important player and played important roles despite not scoring but its all those moment where they both have had chances for whatever reason didn't result in goals, hit the cross bar or posts, great save by goalie, arsey flukey save by goalie or defender, just didn't hit the ball right, perfect position but the pass was poor etc.

Luongo was a big difference in this game compared to the previous few I've watched where he wasn't in the team. If him and Mooy can back up in Sydney (especially if Mooy can direct a lot better from set pieces) we should create enough chances to score allowing for our deficiencies up forward.
Any idea why he hasn't played for the Socceroos in a while?

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

Tunisia got a 0-0 draw in Libya, DR Congo won so Tunisa go thru 14 pts vs 13
Morocco drew with Ivory Coast so they go to Russia


Northern Ireland v Switzerland 1st leg 0-1 in Belfast, 2nd leg in Basel Sunday night local time
Croatia v Greece... 1st leg 4-1 in Zagreb, 2nd leg in Athens Sunday night
Denmark v Ireland 1st leg Copenhagen tonight and Dublin Tuesday night
Sweden v Italy.... 1st leg 1-0 in Stockholm this morning and in Milan on Monday night

Switzerland had a 0-0 draw with Northern Ireland at home this morning so the Switz go thru and Greece and Croatia had a 0-0 draw in Athens so Croatia are thru.

Denmark and Ireland played a 0-0 in Copenhagen yesterday. So 2 more euro teams to qualify and Oz and NZ still alive in the other 2 games.

 

[El Zorro]

Italy-Sweden 0-0 after 63'. (0-1 agg). Italy hasn't missed a WC in 60 years.

 

[Garibaldi Red]

Italy-Sweden 0-0 after 63'. (0-1 agg). Italy hasn't missed a WC in 60 years.

The last time they failed to qualify was in 1958, in Sweden. They will hate the Swedes if they have a hand in preventing them qualifying again.

It’s a pretty intimidating atmosphere at the San Siro. The Swedes have held up pretty well so far.

 

[El Zorro]

Italy out of the world cup.

 

[Killer Power]

Wow, that's huge. Imagine the public reaction over there.

 

[LFC2010]

Noticed the Italian's did what Uruguay did to us when the Sweden national anthem was being played.

they got what they deserved.

 

[LFC2010]

Wow, that's huge. Imagine the public reaction over there.

Especially considering it looked like their manager played for a draw by leaving Insigne on the bench the whole 90mins.
Probably one of their most influential players and has been in form in Seria A this season.

 

[Greasyrhys]

Karma from 2006, it’s about time Italy missed a WC!!!

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

Italy out of the world cup.

From the Italian leading sports newspaper Corriere dello Sport

EVERYBODY OUT
Italy after 60 years not going to World Cup Azzuri in tears,
Buffon, forgive us, Ventura ( the coach) - he must not be blamed alone

Translation - The first page of the National Edition of Corriere dello Sport-Stadio Tuesday 14 November > > http://fal.cn/quey

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

So 3 more qualifying games left

Ireland play Denmark tomorrow morning in Dublin starts around 6am. It was a 0-0 draw in Copenhagen. Socceroos played Wednesday night and then Peru v NZ in Lima which commences with a 0-0 from Saturday's game in Auckland and starts around Noon on Thursday.

 

[Holden Hillbilly]

Italy's leading sports newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport said the result brought the arrival of the "apocalypse".

The article said: "We will not be with you and you will not be with us. A love so great must be reserved for other things. Italy will not participate at the World Cup.

"It is time to start thinking about what else we can do in June: concerts, cinema, village festivals. Anything but watching Sweden play at the World Cup - that would be too painful."

 

[Greasyrhys]

So 3 more qualifying games left

Ireland play Denmark tomorrow morning in Dublin starts around 6am. It was a 0-0 draw in Copenhagen. Socceroos played Wednesday night and then Peru v NZ in Lima which commences with a 0-0 from Saturday's game in Auckland and starts around Noon on Thursday.

The NZ v Peru game was actually played in Wellington.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

The NZ v Peru game was actually played in Wellington.

My bad. I wrote it was Wellington Saturday morning when I did my list of qualified and still alive. I had Athens on my mind and just jumped to Auckland.