quote:

Originally posted by malek +1 its written in the sky, its Germany's cup.

germans should stick to making bmws.
german football days are over...

I think I'll be cheering for: Serbia, Croatia and Argentina (more realistic)

i'll bet my left nut that it won't happen!!!well thats going to the extreme

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Quality Not Quantity!

meaning brazil won't win,,,its time for a european team to shine, england, portugal,italy, netherlands, poland (a long shot, but they're practically playing at home). ukraine even is a front runner...

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Quality Not Quantity!

quote:

Originally posted by Tiesto4Life ^^ Sorry to dissapoint you sahand but turkey will not make it all the way to the finals. they don't have the same team as they did last world cup. second of all they might still not even make it. they got a second spot in their group (that is if they beat albania on wednesday) and that was with a huge help from denmark knocking out greece. now they will end up going through a playoff game against teams such as spain or maybe even france or sweden. there are a lot of good teams this year in the second spots meaning some big teams will not even make it to world cup. thus if spain plays france in a playoff one of them will not make it. then look at other teams that are not in the world cup. romania, denmark, greece, bulgaria, maybe uruguay and russia etc. while teams like uzbekistan or bahrain will be in there along with angola and togo. i'm sorry but this system is just retarded!!

After following yesterday's results in World Cup qualifying competitions around the World, I couldn't help but notice a few interesting results.

Ukraine 2 Albania 2
Portugal 2 Liechtenstein 1 (the visitors actually lead the game 1-0!!!)
Israel 2 Faroe Islands 1
Noway 1 Moldova 0
Italy 1 Slovenia 0
England 1 Austria 0


Here are my conclusions:
- Albania, Liechtenstein, Faroe Isalnds are ALL MUCH WEAKER teams
- Ukraine, Portugal and Israel are ALL MUCH BETTER teams
- And yet, these MIGHTY teams, barely managed to win, at home, against CRAPPY opponents!


Football has CHANGED.
There are no SMALL TEAMS any more ( to an extent . WORLD CLASS speaking)



and turkeys team if they qualify are alottttt better than WC 2002 !!!!

^^ sahand, the only reason it was close games is cuz teams like portugal and italy couldn't care less for their results, they were already in. they had nothing to play for and took these teams lightly. israel game went down to the wire cuz israel themselves are not a strong football nation. yes the gap between the bigger teams and weaker teams have decreased drastically over the years which i think is really good for the sport, however, if portugal played lichtenshtein for the winner to go to world cup, 99 out of 100 times, portugal would still win. remember sahand, that in the games that matter THE MOST, better teams would still advance.

p.s. and ukraine didn't even have 4 of their starters in the lineup and took off shevchenko after first half b/c they didn't care about the result since they already made it to the world cup. and england played almost the entire second half with 10 men after becks got sent off and austria is actually a really good football nation. you might not remember but they qualified for the 1986 and 1990 world cup tournaments and came within one game of qualifying for 1994 world cup.

Poland doesn't actually suck anymore and they got some level headed young guys on their team that have amazing teamwork. Hope they do well.

who else is goin to Germany next summer !

Germany here i come!

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Palm Trees > Pine Trees , Sand > Snow

if england hit top form next year, i reckon they have a very good chance of winning the cup .... personally, i think on paper england have the best squad after brazil ... a midfield comprising of joe cole/downing , lampard, gerrard and beckham is undoubtedly a force to contend with ....

obviously brazil would have to be my favs to win it ... they currently playing bolivia with a team full of substitutes to see who they can use of the bench in germany and among those susbstitutes are adriano, juninho and baptista whod make any other team in the world

im happy to see the netherlands get the results once again and hope they carry this form into the tournament since they have this reputation of being big league chokers lately ...

same goes with italy ... on paper, the team looks phenomenal ... till last year it was given that the italian forward line will comprise of either DP, vieri and cassano but these 3 are going to struggle to make even the bench now with gilardino and Luca Toni announcing their arrival on to the seen ....

Its going to be one hell of a tournament with no clear cut favorites since there are just to many good teams to seperate the men from the boys ... its going to come down to who gels well as a team and i just hyped myself mad with this comment and cant wait for 2006

ummm mr tiesto israel is not a weak team, they came back against france, ireland, and switzerland. they did not lose a single game in the entire campaign. israels biggest problem is that it usually plays to the level of their opponents. so when they play france they look great and when they play faroe islands, well... shit happens. if they get a real coach im sure the team will get much further than they usually do. too bad theres only one good coach in israel (and hopefully he wont leave the team hes coaching right now to coach the national team).

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"Let me guess, you picked out yet another colorful box with a crank that I'm expected to turn and turn until OOP! big shock, a jack pops out and you laugh and the kids laugh and the dog laughs and I die a little inside.".

Adamo, ur right, polish soccer has expanded in terms of players playing for good teams, they have an amazing team in my view.

underrated, but thats good.

they will show some good stuff in germany,
I just hope they are in the groups i have tickets for!!!

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Quality Not Quantity!

Ukraine kicks some serious ass this year, cannot wait for the first cup game.

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Volodymyr