Ok, it worked out fine for us last night in the end thankfully but imagine if we had drawn the game instead and were relying on the result of the San Marino match. Would anyone think differently about pre-qualification in that case? They shipped 8 again last night and playing them and a few others is effectively a bye and I still maintain this can't be fair on anybody in the long run.
Haven't really got an answer for the Dutch putting 8 past Hungary the other night though!
Not really, as we took 6 points off them and stuck 8 past them as well. If we drew last night, then we would have only ourselves to blame, not relying on other results.
Add Gibraltar to this group, play a pre qualifying round, top goes through to the main group stage, the rest can just play sides of a similar standing in friendlies. That way we do away with 5 hopeless countries, there can be 8 groups instead of 9 and we can have more competitive matches.
Some people might argue that these minnows won't improve unless they're playing against the bigger nations but if anything, the likes of San Marino are getting worse. Can anyone honestly tell me the nations above have got better in the last 10 years?
That by definition means ALL countries that want to play.
I live in hope that the San Marinos of this world will give a bloody nose to the arrogant countries who consider themselves too good and important to grace the same pitch as them.
That by definition means ALL countries that want to play.
I live in hope that the San Marinos of this world will give a bloody nose to the arrogant countries who consider themselves too good and important to grace the same pitch as them.
North Korea 1 Italy 0 1966 scorer Pak Doo Ik
They would still be playing, just a round earlier, much like the FA cup.
FIFA arent going to put in extra preliminary round where san marino play Farao Islands in front of 750 people, when they can stick them in a group with England and get 80,000 at Wembley.
FIFA arent going to put in extra preliminary round where san marino play Farao Islands in front of 750 people, when they can stick them in a group with England and get 80,000 at Wembley.
Why would FIFA care about that?
Incidentally San marino's crowd last night was less than 1500
FIFA arent going to put in extra preliminary round where san marino play Farao Islands in front of 750 people, when they can stick them in a group with England and get 80,000 at Wembley.
Why would FIFA care about that?
Incidentally San marino's crowd last night was less than 1500
I presume FA & FIFA get money from attendances and TV rights??? The more games the more money.
FIFA arent going to put in extra preliminary round where san marino play Farao Islands in front of 750 people, when they can stick them in a group with England and get 80,000 at Wembley.
Why would FIFA care about that?
Incidentally San marino's crowd last night was less than 1500
I presume FA & FIFA get money from attendances and TV rights??? The more games the more money.
Wouldn't affect us as we'd still have the same amount of group games, there would just be one less group.
I actually believe a pre-qualification group would improve these countries, as for once they would get to play evenly in meaningful matches.
This is my thinking and it's nothing to do with 'arrogance'. Nothing would please me more than to see Malta beat Spain or whatever but the truth of it is that such results are getting rarer not more common and the standard is going backwards not forward.
I could be wrong but I can't imagine the Andorran FA sitting down today and thinking, "Well that worked out great didn't it, bring on the Euros." Financially, maybe they made a few quid but football wise they've achieved nothing it seems and don't look likely to any time soon.
Len's point that it is a World Cup and therefore anyone should be able to play in it is misleading because 1) they can, it's just they'd have to start at an level appropriate to their ability and 2) I can't think of many sports that allows anyone to compete at the very highest level without meeting at least some form of qualifying standard.
FIFA arent going to put in extra preliminary round where san marino play Farao Islands in front of 750 people, when they can stick them in a group with England and get 80,000 at Wembley.
Why would FIFA care about that?
Incidentally San marino's crowd last night was less than 1500
I presume FA & FIFA get money from attendances and TV rights??? The more games the more money.
Wouldn't affect us as we'd still have the same amount of group games, there would just be one less group.
Its not all about us though. San Marino would then probably play just 2 games every 2 years. Surely that wont create a step forward? If the attendance money is split between nations then they will miss out on quite a bit of money. Not really in line with FIFA's motto.
Seriously, is it that much of an inconveniancefor us to play two games against shit opposition?
FIFA arent going to put in extra preliminary round where san marino play Farao Islands in front of 750 people, when they can stick them in a group with England and get 80,000 at Wembley.
Why would FIFA care about that?
Incidentally San marino's crowd last night was less than 1500
I presume FA & FIFA get money from attendances and TV rights??? The more games the more money.
Wouldn't affect us as we'd still have the same amount of group games, there would just be one less group.
Its not all about us though. San Marino would then probably play just 2 games every 2 years. Surely that wont create a step forward? If the attendance money is split between nations then they will miss out on quite a bit of money. Not really in line with FIFA's motto.
Seriously, is it that much of an inconveniancefor us to play two games against shit opposition?
It's not just us though, they are an inconvenience for every side. They lost all 10 games and shipped 54 goals. If they were in a group with the 5 other minnows i mentioned earlier they'd play 10 games not 2, and all would be against relatively similar opposition. That has to be better for them than playing teams who beat them 8-0
The big guns don't start Euro qualifying until after the world cup, i'm sure the minnow nations could play their pre qualifying games between now and next summer. It's not as if Gibraltar, san marino and Andorra have top leagues to interrupt, they could arrange their games for whenever they liked.
Just how good are San Marino going to get though? They have a population of about 20. I can understand trying to develop the game in some of the populous but poor African countries for example, but San Marino? Isn't that a tax haven? Playing them is a waste of everyone's time. The only decent thing to do is a pre-qualifying round.
Yes, let's just play against sides that don't ship 8 goals a game, that will be so much more convenient.....
Seriously though, how are they an inconvenience? If anything, they are the exact opposite of that for us or any team who plays them? It just seems to me that if we can't moan about England then people will just pick on something to negate our achievement of qualifying.
Nothing wrong with San Marino qualifying the way they do at the moment. No, they don't win any games, but that is their problem to fix rather than for countries like ours' to say we shouldn't be playing them.
I agree that there should be some sort of pre-qualification tournament for the bottom dozen teams in the FIFA rankings with (say) 4 going through. There is on every other continent except South America.
Football is meant to be a compentitie game and if the only question is whether you are going to knock 5 or 8 past the opposition without getting your top players injured, it becomes pointless and tedius to watch.
This is not discriminating against San Marino or anyone else. It would apply to the bottom ranked teams which could be any one depending on results. If they pull themselves out of the bottom 12, they would not have to pre-qualify.
The teams that need to pre-qualify could all play in a mini tournament when the actual tournament is on - I mean none of them are ever going to qualify are they?
However I suspect that England like playing these 'meaningless games' as much as the teams they face do. It gives the players a chance to win games, score goals and it gives players more experience in a game that is almost a guaranteed win.
If they weeded out the smaller teams there would be fewer competitive games in total and that would lead to a reduction in revenue. There are not enough high profile nations for us to replace the games we have against the minnows with friendlies that would attract paying fans or broadcasters. Neither Poland nor Montenegro are what I'd call big draws but I suspect that both games had a massive TV audience and a full stadium.
Thing is there are situations like this for example: Netherlands put 12 goals past Hungary (FIFA ranking 30) in qualifying, yet only 5 past Andorra (FIFA ranked 200)
Also if we're not careful we would start precedents for the likes of the Premier League to weed out the clubs that they don't like. I am sure that there would be a good case for having a Premier League with ten teams that all play each other home and away twice a season. As West Ham, for example, are never going to win it they might as well be expelled. Imagine how much more money those ten teams would have if they kept the £1bn a season and shared it with half as many teams. They could even reduce it to eight teams and only have 28 league games a season then the Champions League and the Europa League games could take place on a Saturday. Well, obviously, not at 3pm as all games would be televised. All Premier League games could be on every week, as they'd only be four fixtures each week.
Then the FA could change the FA Cup so that the ten Premier League teams all make it to the last 16 and six teams from the rest of the country have to play among themselves until they are whittled down to six teams. They could do the same with the League Cup. They could also make it more practical by insisting that if a Premier League team faces a lower league team they automatically get home advantage.
That would, realistically, prevent Man Utd from having to play a minnow more than once a year, on average and never away from Old Trafford.
I know this is a flippant post, but it's not quite as unrealistic as it sounds the more I think about it.
The teams that need to pre-qualify could all play in a mini tournament when the actual tournament is on - I mean none of them are ever going to qualify are they?
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It must be a bit dis-heartening for these nations to get hammered so often but then I suppose the part-time players just see it as a dream to play against such top players they see on the TV each week!
They'd probably enjoy winning a game or two as well in a mini group.
England vs. San Marino is more like Man Utd vs. Maidstone, rather than Man Utd vs. West Ham.
We do already have tier in place with a promotion/relegation system in our league football so it's not as if it doesn't already exist here. The free-for-all that the current set-up provides has shown to not be doing much to develop football in the majority of the minnow nations.
So let's have a pre-qualification round with a promotion/relegation system in place for those teams to progress should they ever improve. It makes perfect sense to me and mirror's the rest of world football, even our own league system.
The minnows who progress from pre-qualifying will get a chance to play the giants if they're good enough. Should everyone start playing FA Cup fixtures in August?
Comments
San Marino - 0 points, 54 conceded.
Faroe Islands - 1 point, 29 conceded.
Andorra - 0 points, 0 goals scored, 30 conceded.
Malta - 3 points, 28 conceded.
Liechtenstein - 2 points, 25 conceded.
Add Gibraltar to this group, play a pre qualifying round, top goes through to the main group stage, the rest can just play sides of a similar standing in friendlies. That way we do away with 5 hopeless countries, there can be 8 groups instead of 9 and we can have more competitive matches.
Some people might argue that these minnows won't improve unless they're playing against the bigger nations but if anything, the likes of San Marino are getting worse. Can anyone honestly tell me the nations above have got better in the last 10 years?
That by definition means ALL countries that want to play.
I live in hope that the San Marinos of this world will give a bloody nose to the arrogant countries who consider themselves too good and important to grace the same pitch as them.
North Korea 1 Italy 0 1966 scorer Pak Doo Ik
It happens in all other FIFA zones (except south america as not enough countries) so why not Europe?
Guyana are in the CONCACAF zone, same as USA, Mexico etc
Why would FIFA care about that?
Incidentally San marino's crowd last night was less than 1500
Wouldn't affect us as we'd still have the same amount of group games, there would just be one less group.
I could be wrong but I can't imagine the Andorran FA sitting down today and thinking, "Well that worked out great didn't it, bring on the Euros." Financially, maybe they made a few quid but football wise they've achieved nothing it seems and don't look likely to any time soon.
Len's point that it is a World Cup and therefore anyone should be able to play in it is misleading because 1) they can, it's just they'd have to start at an level appropriate to their ability and 2) I can't think of many sports that allows anyone to compete at the very highest level without meeting at least some form of qualifying standard.
Seriously, is it that much of an inconveniancefor us to play two games against shit opposition?
It's not just us though, they are an inconvenience for every side. They lost all 10 games and shipped 54 goals.
If they were in a group with the 5 other minnows i mentioned earlier they'd play 10 games not 2, and all would be against relatively similar opposition. That has to be better for them than playing teams who beat them 8-0
Seriously though, how are they an inconvenience? If anything, they are the exact opposite of that for us or any team who plays them? It just seems to me that if we can't moan about England then people will just pick on something to negate our achievement of qualifying.
Nothing wrong with San Marino qualifying the way they do at the moment. No, they don't win any games, but that is their problem to fix rather than for countries like ours' to say we shouldn't be playing them.
Football is meant to be a compentitie game and if the only question is whether you are going to knock 5 or 8 past the opposition without getting your top players injured, it becomes pointless and tedius to watch.
This is not discriminating against San Marino or anyone else. It would apply to the bottom ranked teams which could be any one depending on results. If they pull themselves out of the bottom 12, they would not have to pre-qualify.
However I suspect that England like playing these 'meaningless games' as much as the teams they face do. It gives the players a chance to win games, score goals and it gives players more experience in a game that is almost a guaranteed win.
If they weeded out the smaller teams there would be fewer competitive games in total and that would lead to a reduction in revenue. There are not enough high profile nations for us to replace the games we have against the minnows with friendlies that would attract paying fans or broadcasters. Neither Poland nor Montenegro are what I'd call big draws but I suspect that both games had a massive TV audience and a full stadium.
Netherlands put 12 goals past Hungary (FIFA ranking 30) in qualifying, yet only 5 past Andorra (FIFA ranked 200)
Then the FA could change the FA Cup so that the ten Premier League teams all make it to the last 16 and six teams from the rest of the country have to play among themselves until they are whittled down to six teams. They could do the same with the League Cup. They could also make it more practical by insisting that if a Premier League team faces a lower league team they automatically get home advantage.
That would, realistically, prevent Man Utd from having to play a minnow more than once a year, on average and never away from Old Trafford.
I know this is a flippant post, but it's not quite as unrealistic as it sounds the more I think about it.
We do already have tier in place with a promotion/relegation system in our league football so it's not as if it doesn't already exist here. The free-for-all that the current set-up provides has shown to not be doing much to develop football in the majority of the minnow nations.
So let's have a pre-qualification round with a promotion/relegation system in place for those teams to progress should they ever improve. It makes perfect sense to me and mirror's the rest of world football, even our own league system.
In cups the minnows play the giants. It's part of the charm.