Internationals

[Rafiagra]

Goalkeepers: Scott Carson, Joe Hart, David Stockdale

 

Defenders: Leighton Baines, Gary Cahill, Ashley Cole, Phil Jagielka, Phil Jones, Micah Richards, John Terry, Kyle Walker

 

Midfielders: Gareth Barry, Stewart Downing, Adam Johnson, Frank Lampard, James Milner, Scott Parker, Theo Walcott, Ashley Young

 

Forwards: Darren Bent, Andy Carroll, Wayne Rooney, Danny Welbeck, Bobby Zamora.**

 

 

So glad Gerrard isn't in there. I'm astonished Capello hasn't picked him. I reckon Kenny probably threatened him with actual physical violence.

 

As for the game, Im not really arsed but hope we win. In the main, I want our players back fit for the mancs.

[Pidge]

Agger's not been picked either. Wouldn't have been the first time he would have gone off with Denmark before even returning for us.

[razor]

I don't want ANY Liverpool players to play international football EVER.

 

This has always been the case.

[Ian Sea]

England are really scraping the bottom of the barrel with their goalkeepers. Carson and Stockdale? Fucking shite. There must be better keepers out there, surely.

 

England will be fucked if Hart gets injured.

[Pidge]

Robinson and Foster refusing callups and Green injured.

 

Stockdale's a decent stopper. Fuck knows why Carson's in. Isn't he playing in fucking Turkey at the moment?

 

I'd have liked to see Fielding get a shout. Good young keeper, playing every week.

[Chocoholic]

Does Bogdan qualify for England by any chance?

 

 

Please say yes!

[RobbieOR]

I cant wait for our games.

 

Id be made up if we qualified.

[fowler9]

Robinson and Foster refusing callups and Green injured.

 

Stockdale's a decent stopper. Fuck knows why Carson's in. Isn't he playing in fucking Turkey at the moment?

 

I'd have liked to see Fielding get a shout. Good young keeper, playing every week.

 

I like Stockdale, really suprised he didn't get a prem club, disagree on Fielding though tends to be poor whenever I see him

 

the squad is appalling even though we've done shit for ages until a couple of years ago you'd look at it and feel it was strong on paper, can't believe Kelly and Sturridge aren't in yet Walker, and Welbeck are, least Kelly can't get injured or are the u21's playing?

[The Tott]

I cant wait for our games.

 

Id be made up if we qualified.

 

Be so typical of us to drop points now

[waiting game]

I really hate international break. Just thought I'd share that :)

[Pidge]

I like Stockdale, really suprised he didn't get a prem club, disagree on Fielding though tends to be poor whenever I see him

 

the squad is appalling even though we've done shit for ages until a couple of years ago you'd look at it and feel it was strong on paper, can't believe Kelly and Sturridge aren't in yet Walker, and Welbeck are, least Kelly can't get injured or are the u21's playing?

 

Stockdale's on loan from Fulham I believe. Well and truly in line to take Schwarzer's place. Stockdale's a great shot stopper but I haven't been convinced by the other parts of his game yet. Fielding's kind of the opposite, he can miss the odd shot but he has good command at a young age. Was surprised Blackburn just let him leave.

 

The squad is shite. Agbonlahor and Sturridge are the form players right now but Bent and Walcott are in. Walker is okay for now, he's done all right for a while. Kelly is in the u21s. I think Richards will finally get a chance to prove Capello wrong anyway. Amazed that Jagielka got called up again when he was so shite against us. I'd like us to look at Woodgate again now he's fit, or King. With only one established senior CB to call on why not? We know how good he is.

[piscinin]

Does Bogdan qualify for England by any chance?

 

 

Please say yes!

 

Pretty sure that he's the guy that is keeping our Gulacsi out of the Hungary squad!

[Allan]

Pretty sure that he's the guy that is keeping our Gulacsi out of the Hungary squad!

 

The one and the same.

 

On the subject of Hungarian youngsters, just noticed that Krisztian Nemeth is a free agent after terminating his contract with Olympiacos.

[fowler9]

Stockdale's on loan from Fulham I believe. Well and truly in line to take Schwarzer's place. Stockdale's a great shot stopper but I haven't been convinced by the other parts of his game yet. Fielding's kind of the opposite, he can miss the odd shot but he has good command at a young age. Was surprised Blackburn just let him leave.

 

The squad is shite. Agbonlahor and Sturridge are the form players right now but Bent and Walcott are in. Walker is okay for now, he's done all right for a while. Kelly is in the u21s. I think Richards will finally get a chance to prove Capello wrong anyway. Amazed that Jagielka got called up again when he was so shite against us. I'd like us to look at Woodgate again now he's fit, or King. With only one established senior CB to call on why not? We know how good he is.

 

 

I just think Walker's very poor positionally, far worse than Johnson who actually is okay defensively but just because he likes to attack people assume he can't defend, agree on Woodgate its a shame he never stayed fit as I think he would've been better than all the other centre backs around his age, Terry,Ferdinand, Carra etc and would've been interesting to see how his career would've gone if he didn't get the really bad injury straight away at Madrid, never seen the fuss about King to be honest but Tottenham's record with and without him is telling

[Unrighteous]

I don't want ANY Liverpool players to play international football EVER.

 

This has always been the case.

 

This.

 

Fuck internationals in their whorey asses.

[Barnesey]

We were going well before the last break then lost to Stoke and Spurs. Just got things back on track and now another. Hope we do better in following games....

[DJLJ]

UEFA decides on less rest for international qualifiers | Evening Echo

 

UEFA decides on less rest for international qualifiers

 

10/5/2011 - 2:19:00 PM

 

International qualifiers will be played across six days between Thursdays and Tuesdays from 2014 to maximise TV coverage and broadcast income, UEFA have announced.

 

The move will see national teams having just a two-day break between matches in World Cup and European Championship double-headers, in what is being dubbed The Week of Football.

 

Teams will play either Thursdays and Sundays, Fridays and Mondays, or Saturdays and Tuesdays. Most double-headers are currently being played on Fridays and Tuesdays – leaving the weekends without football.

 

UEFA general secretary Gianni Infantino told the Leaders in Football conference in London: “You can play every three days – it’s what happening in club football all year long so that’s not a problem.

 

“This has been unanimously supported by all 53 national associations.

 

“If we leave the weekend to other sports then in the medium and long-term it will be damaging.”

[Pidge]

What fucking retards.

[Trumo]

The reasons given for changing the schedules make no sense.

 

“If we leave the weekend to other sports then in the medium and long-term it will be damaging.”

 

I very much doubt football would lose out if they didn't change it. No, the reality is that they've realised, at long last, that two weeks is far too long for an international break when only 2 games are being played (in Europe at least). A simpler solution - and one that would still fit with this change - is to have all the minnows compete for a place in the qualifying competition, instead of continuing to see pointless exercises like the Dutch thrashing San Marino 11-0.

[Il Fenomeno]

Why should smaller countries have to play extra games, just to satifsy big football clubs, and nations? And who decides which countries are actually minnows?

[Gym Beglin]

'The Week of Football'.

 

What a bunch of European twats.

[Trumo]

Why should smaller countries have to play extra games, just to satifsy big football clubs, and nations? And who decides which countries are actually minnows?

 

I've posted a suggestion on the site before. I'll have to search Google to hopefully find it.

[Trumo]

Here we are.

 

http://www.liverpoolway.co.uk/forum/ff-football-forum/102836-2014-world-cup.html

 

Those seedings are weird to say the least. What the hell are Norway doing in the first pot? England ALWAYS seem to have Poland in the qualifying group, and playing the likes of Ukraine and Montenegro is also déjà vu.

 

One thing I would have done prior to THIS qualifying draw, is have the 8 lowest ranked UEFA countries (at the end of the Euro 2012 qualifying campaign) play a mini qualifying tournament in the new year, which concludes at the same time as Euro 2012. The top 3 would then go on to the World Cup qualifiers. Allowances could be made so that everybody knows which group these 3 teams will be in, but the identities of the 3 won't be known until the mini qualifiers are played out.

 

For one thing, it will reduce the number of pointless qualifiers where, say, England have to travel to San Marino. The risk of needless injuries will be minimised, the extra travelling and expense will be minimised too. Secondly, having these lesser nations play out amongst themselves first will give them a chance of actually winning an international for once. Hell, create a trophy for the winners if need be.

 

Just a thought.

 

It is something similar to that done by UEFA already for their club competitions, where we see qualifying rounds and so on. In international terms, CONCACAF (North America) and the OFC (Oceania) already have lesser teams play qualifying rounds before they can enter the main qualifiers, against the likes of the USA, Mexico or New Zealand (in the case of the OFC). Teams like St Lucia or British Virgin Islands (CONCACAF) and Turks & Caicos Islands or Solomon Islands (OFC) are entered into FIFA competition this way. With my idea, UEFA's qualifying section would have 48 nations competing in the main qualifying section, rather than the current 53. You can have 8 equal groups of 6 teams, so everybody involved plays the same number of competitive qualifiers (10).

[Trumo]

How could it work for UEFA? Well, if it had been conceived or accepted early enough, the idea could have been implemented from 2012. If you start with the FIFA World Rankings (arbitrary I know, but at least it is an established ranking system despite not being ideal), they were last updated in September 2011. They will be updated at least once before the end of the year, so once the Euro 2012 qualifiers are completed, we can use the rankings from then. At the moment, UEFA's bottom 8 are:

 

San Marino (FIFA ranked joint-203rd in the world)

Andorra (joint-203rd)

Malta (154th)

Kazakhstan (132nd)

Faroe Islands (126th)

Moldova (122nd)

Liechtenstein (118th)

Luxembourg (114th)

 

You could set it up as 2 groups of 4, so each side plays 6 games. The games could be played from February/March through to June of next year, and be completed before Euro 2012 starts. The top team in each group goes through to the main World Cup 2014 qualifiers, and the 2 second-placed teams can play each other in a two-legged play-off to decide the 3rd team to join the top 2.

 

It would give these teams a chance to play games on the front foot with an incentive to win, rather than the backs-to-the-wall job they end up doing when up against the stronger teams in the UEFA section. The time of year I've scheduled these games for is usually filled by international friendlies, and the weaker teams are often not involved in those. With my way, they get some meaningful competitive action, and by doing well they can score ranking points and climb up FIFAs table. Who knows, the upshot of could be that some teams will no longer be mainstays in UEFA's bottom 8. That has to be a good thing for both the stronger nations AND the minnows.

[Il Fenomeno]

My problem with this is that its unfair to make smaller nations play a minimum of 6 extra games. If you remember, Wales were in the 6th pot for the World Cup 2014 draw, that would mean players like Gareth Bale and Craig Bellamy would have to play an extra 6 games in the season. I don't think that would be particularly fair on the players, Bale in particular seeing as his team is also in Europe, and its unfair on their respective clubs to lose their players midweek to lose a player to a needless European qualifier. I know its an anomaly, and its normally the same 8 or 9 countries that are in the bottom pot, but it could still happen, and put the national team, and player at a massive disadvantage missing games due to injuries because they've played too many games.

 

It just stinks of dismissing smaller clubs and nations in favour of the bigger ones in my opinion. How are these smaller nations supposed to improve if they're never allowed to even play against the bigger nations and test themselves in competitive matches. Its exactly the same in rugby, how are nations supposed to improve if they're not allowed to test themselves against the bigger nations? France didn't win a Six Nations for about 40 years after joining, now they're one of the big teams in rugby. Italy were equally rubbish before joining the six nations, now they've been playing every year and testing themselves they're a pretty formidable side and always a tough game at home. If they weren't playing in the Six Nations every year then they'd be awful and people would be putting 70 points past them everytime in the rugby world cup.

 

I think the system is fair as it is in terms of number of fixtures for each team to play. I do think the timing of the fixtures need to be improved though, could they possibly be played in both winter breaks between the tournaments e.g. Winter 2010 and Winter 2011 between WC 2010 and Euro 2012 for the Euro 2012 qualifiers. The only problem there is there would be a massive backlog of fixtures in the premier league because there is usually 4 or 5 games being played in that particular window.