Nottseagull
Well-known member
I just remember them as Steyning FC in the 70s. Has the village grown into a town in that time?
Should teams like Andorra be in the World Cup?
- Thread starter Worthai Seagull
- Start date
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I just remember them as Steyning FC in the 70s. Has the village grown into a town in that time?
No!
The following 12 teams should play in 4 groups of 3 before the qualifying starts, 2 games home and away, with the 4 group winners joining the other 41 teams, making an even 9 groups of 5! If they play each other it might teach them how to play in the opposition half!!! None of these teams will ever finish in the top 2, so they might as well play each other. Then we only have to put up with the best of a very bad bunch.
San Marino, Andorra, Faroe Islands, Liechtenstein, Georgia, Moldova, Luxembourg, Kazakhstan, Malta, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Montenegro
The following 12 teams should play in 4 groups of 3 before the qualifying starts, 2 games home and away, with the 4 group winners joining the other 41 teams, making an even 9 groups of 5! If they play each other it might teach them how to play in the opposition half!!! None of these teams will ever finish in the top 2, so they might as well play each other. Then we only have to put up with the best of a very bad bunch.
San Marino, Andorra, Faroe Islands, Liechtenstein, Georgia, Moldova, Luxembourg, Kazakhstan, Malta, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Montenegro
Paxton Dazo
Up The Spurs.
- Mar 11, 2007
- 9,719
Dont agree with Georgia. Infact, I dont agree with the Idea, but if that was to go ahead, Georgia dont deserve to be there.
Nottseagull
Well-known member
Let's make it 4 groups of 4 and add Iceland (for preying on British savers), Northern Ireland, Israel and Slovenia.
They are bottom of Group 8 with no wins after 7 games! They should have to pre qualify. They will then deserve to be ther if they win their mini league
Paxton Dazo
Up The Spurs.
- Mar 11, 2007
- 9,719
Georgia is not an easy place to go. They've played 7, lost 4, drawn 3. And one of them games they lost was against Ireland at a Neutral Venue.
Paxton Dazo
Up The Spurs.
- Mar 11, 2007
- 9,719
It's a poor idea. "nuff said!".
Drawing home games in not an achievement! No away game is an easy place to go when they have 11 players behind the ball!
Your opinion mate, it seems to be evenly split on here, I think it's a great idea to save England 2 pointless extra games a season, and it would be interesting to see who comes out on top of this lot. Sounds like your money would be on Georgia!
Porky
New member
They belong to FIFA, pay their dues and should be eligible for the World Cup. Compare it with the World Series where the winner is often touted as the World Champions, but the only teams that can compete are in North America.
Another way to do pre qualifying fairly, is to take the 10 lowest teams in the fifa rankings at the end of the season (say May 2010) from all the 53 European teams, put them in two groups of five then the 2 winners could join the other 43 teams in 9 groups of 5 for the qualifiers.
The 8 that don't make it still participated in the qualifying of the world cup or Euro championship, but it was just at the pre qualifier stage. It could be done on a round robin basis so each team gets to play twice at home and twice away, keeping it to 4 games rather than 8, played over a month.
The games could take place in the summer when the world cup or euros are being played, as these team will be free then obviously! i.e during the world cup 2010 the pre qualifiers would be played for the Euros 2012, so the 2 winners could join in time for when the qualifiers start in September 2010.
As it stands, the 2 groups would be:
Montenegro 110
Luxembourg 120
Azerbaijan 140
Liechtenstein 156
Andorra 196
Estonia 113
Kazakhstan 132
Malta 150
Faroe Islands 166
San Marino 202
Georgia 105 and Moldova 106 could still be overtaken Montenegro and Estonia before next May of course!
The 8 that don't make it still participated in the qualifying of the world cup or Euro championship, but it was just at the pre qualifier stage. It could be done on a round robin basis so each team gets to play twice at home and twice away, keeping it to 4 games rather than 8, played over a month.
The games could take place in the summer when the world cup or euros are being played, as these team will be free then obviously! i.e during the world cup 2010 the pre qualifiers would be played for the Euros 2012, so the 2 winners could join in time for when the qualifiers start in September 2010.
As it stands, the 2 groups would be:
Montenegro 110
Luxembourg 120
Azerbaijan 140
Liechtenstein 156
Andorra 196
Estonia 113
Kazakhstan 132
Malta 150
Faroe Islands 166
San Marino 202
Georgia 105 and Moldova 106 could still be overtaken Montenegro and Estonia before next May of course!
jmsc
New member
Absolute bollocks!
The World series is named after the sponsors, the newspaper, The World!
It is a club competition played in the USA and Canada.
The current world champions are Japan, who won the 'World Classic' some
3 months ago. The USA, if I remember rightly, were knocked out by Cuba
sten_super
Brain Surgeon
I think that this is the key point. The aim of these qualifiers should be for teams to better themselves. However there's been no discernable increase in quality from the minnow nations, primarily I would assume because they don't actually get to play football in these qualifiers, they just attempt to defend for 90 minutes. Andorra have played 30 European Championship Qualifiers since 1958, lost them all, and scored 6 goals. How are they going to learn to better themselves if they are only in a position to have a competitive match (assuming that a game in which they score a goal is competitive) once every 5 games, i.e. about once a year?
Easy 10
Brain dead MUG SHEEP
Good post, well considered, and I completely agree with this idea.
Nobody is saying that these minor footballing nations should be banned from taking part, that would be wrong, but something needs to be done to cut down on the number of ludicrously one-sided forgone conclusions such as what we saw at Wembley the other night. They need to earn the right to face the major footballing nations - thats not snobbery or elitism, its just common sense.
Sport is supposed to be competative, and its supposed to provide a spectacle. You wouldn't get some athlete who does the 100 Metres in 15 seconds pitched straight into the Olympics against Usain Bolt would you. It would be a pointless exercise, a foregone conclusion.
Pre-qualifiers for these minnows are no-brainers. Whats the point of having official World Rankings otherwise ?
Northstander
Well-known member
- Oct 13, 2003
- 14,031
Spain will win next year FACT
Postman Pat
Well-known member
I agree with this proposal, as someone else said how are these teams ever going to progress if they never get out of their own half in 90% of matches. Pre-qualifying at the same time the main tournament is on makes perfect sense. Rest of the time they can play friendlies against each other.
Don't forget about Eric The Eel and Trevor the Tortoise though, these guys got to perform on the biggest stages despite being awful. Trevor 'running' against Kim Collins, but these are the exception not the rule.
Easy 10
Brain dead MUG SHEEP
And Eddie the Eagle I suppose.
What an embarassment all round that was.
"ha ha, let us laugh at you crazy english"
What an embarassment all round that was.
"ha ha, let us laugh at you crazy english"
Jamon Jamon
********** ****
I went to the first Andorra away a couple of years ago and so did about 12,000 others so one of the largest England away followings for years didn't see it as pointless (although the match and the weather was shit!)
.
They are pointless in the grand scheme of things, because if you take their results out of the equation all the other teams would still finish in the same postion 99.9% of the time!!! With all the fixture congestion problems, it's better to have a group of 5 and play 8 matches, rather than 10 games, as these games don't effect the overall result of the group.
Fair play for going though mate, I respect that dedication! It's just not football in the competitive sense when people bet on how many we will win by, not if we will win!!!
If you look at the other continents, they use pre qualifiers to get rid of some of the rubbish.