The World Cup Thread | Page 62 | Vital Football

The World Cup Thread

DeanoVilla said:
Yes it is. Football is for everyone.

Who are you to tell a kid who was born in San Marino who has trained 6 days a week, 8 hours a day for his entire life to be one of the best players in his Country that he can never play against England or France or Germany....

You're effectively trying to kill the dreams of millions of kids.
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There are only 33,000 people in San Marino. I watched the Scotland game last night as it was a competitive game. San Marino should play in a lower Italian league rather than this. Getting slaughtered the whole time in mismatches doesn't help anyone.
 
There should be pre-qualification for clubs below a certain seeding to weed out teams like San Marino, Andorra, the Faeroe Isles and Republic of Ireland* to increase the quality of qualifying as a spectacle, reduce the number of qualifying matches and reduce the likelihood of injury for the players likely to be actually playing in the final tournament.








*wzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz Here, fishy, fishy, fishy...
 
It gives money to the small nations, sell out crowds to see the stars of the premier league visit, and if there is a great player born in a small nation he gets a chance to play in the World Cup qualifiers or maybe with the expanded format players like George Best or Giggs would get to the big stage.
But I wish my team, Wales, would get an occasional match with San Marino or Andorra instead of our regular fixture with Belgium.
I don't understand how England always seem to get such easy groups - well I do it's the seeding that means tier one teams always get the worst teams to play.
 
distefano said:
It gives money to the small nations, sell out crowds to see the stars of the premier league visit, and if there is a great player born in a small nation he gets a chance to play in the World Cup qualifiers or maybe with the expanded format players like George Best or Giggs would get to the big stage.
But I wish my team, Wales, would get an occasional match with San Marino or Andorra instead of our regular fixture with Belgium.
I don't understand how England always seem to get such easy groups - well I do it's the seeding that means tier one teams always get the worst teams to play.
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Agree mate, most of the time the qualifiers are a waste of time and are designed to make sure the top teams get to the tournament (main event)
May as well just put them there, but even the big teams need competition, It’s a conundrum that’s for sure, would love to see all the big teams playing together throughout the international season, but that could mean more small teams getting to the finals and the money men couldn’t cope with that.
 
The FA Cup analogy is a poor one. For a non league team to play a premier team they'd have to win plenty of games to earn it.
The fact that teams like Andorra, San Marino, Gibraltar are in tournaments with Germany, Italy , England , France etc is farcical
 
At some point an air-conditioning salesman who plays for Andorra for a laugh is going to try and be a national hero but accidentally end the career of an Mbappe or a De Bruyne and everyone's going to look really fucking stupid.
 
distefano said:
It gives money to the small nations, sell out crowds to see the stars of the premier league visit, and if there is a great player born in a small nation he gets a chance to play in the World Cup qualifiers or maybe with the expanded format players like George Best or Giggs would get to the big stage.
But I wish my team, Wales, would get an occasional match with San Marino or Andorra instead of our regular fixture with Belgium.
I don't understand how England always seem to get such easy groups - well I do it's the seeding that means tier one teams always get the worst teams to play.
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Agree with some of that.
It's a fact that England have virtually no chance of failure in qualification.
Never really think of Wales as being a small nation.
 
Platypus said:
There should be pre-qualification for clubs below a certain seeding to weed out teams like San Marino, Andorra, the Faeroe Isles and Republic of Ireland* to increase the quality of qualifying as a spectacle, reduce the number of qualifying matches and reduce the likelihood of injury for the players likely to be actually playing in the final tournament.








*wzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz Here, fishy, fishy, fishy...
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Hey smartarse, we beat Luxembourg the other night and it was away and everything, so there!
 
Hifriedelity said:
There are only 33,000 people in San Marino. I watched the Scotland game last night as it was a competitive game. San Marino should play in a lower Italian league rather than this. Getting slaughtered the whole time in mismatches doesn't help anyone.
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Far too lazy to look it up but I am 99% sure they do have a team in the lower reaches of the Italian leagues.
 
These qualifiers against the likes of Andorra, San Marino and Gibraltar do feel like a waste of time and to be honest I dont usually bother watching them. However back in the 80's and probably before then people used to say similar about England playing Iceland, Albania and Turkey - so some of these nations do develop. We regulalry used to thump Turkey 8-0 in the 80's but they've vastly improved and managed to reach the World Cup Semi Final in 2002. Iceland used to be a team of postmen, accountants and teachers when I was a kid but we know all too well just how much they've developed.
 
garygaryshaw said:
These qualifiers against the likes of Andorra, San Marino and Gibraltar do feel like a waste of time and to be honest I dont usually bother watching them. However back in the 80's and probably before then people used to say similar about England playing Iceland, Albania and Turkey - so some of these nations do develop. We regulalry used to thump Turkey 8-0 in the 80's but they've vastly improved and managed to reach the World Cup Semi Final in 2002. Iceland used to be a team of postmen, accountants and teachers when I was a kid but we know all too well just how much they've developed.
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You could probably say the same of France, who I'd have never taken as a serious football nation until the 80/90s and I'd have expected a comfortable win for England ie it's only France type of thing
 
Villan57 said:
You could probably say the same of France, who I'd have never taken as a serious football nation until the 80/90s and I'd have expected a comfortable win for England ie it's only France type of thing
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My first memory of France was their 82 World Cup team, but I'm sure I read somewhere that up until the early 80's Rugby was by far the most popular sport in France. Football was something that few were bothered about
 
garygaryshaw said:
These qualifiers against the likes of Andorra, San Marino and Gibraltar do feel like a waste of time and to be honest I dont usually bother watching them. However back in the 80's and probably before then people used to say similar about England playing Iceland, Albania and Turkey - so some of these nations do develop. We regulalry used to thump Turkey 8-0 in the 80's but they've vastly improved and managed to reach the World Cup Semi Final in 2002. Iceland used to be a team of postmen, accountants and teachers when I was a kid but we know all too well just how much they've developed.
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Even the likes of Gibraltar have improved over the past 3 or 4 years. I said before all these countries should have their own group(s) and the winners could have a play-off with the other minnows of other federations leaving one space at the World Cup for one of these teams. Whoever qualifies is then put in the regular qualifying groups after. It would be a great incentive for these for these countries, otherwise they may as well pack it in.
 
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