Seeds for Brazil: Spain, Germany, Argentina, Colombia, Belgium, Switzerland & Either Uruguay (if they win their play off) or Netherlands if Uruguay fail to make it, will join the hosts (Brazil)! in Pot 1
Note: Portugal 14th - Greece 15th - Croatia 18th - Ukraine 20th - France 21st - Sweden 25th - Romania 29th - Iceland 46th, this order Determines who could play who in the Play Offs
Oooo i see. Lol, then again playing a European team on South American soil (other than Spain) would be easier probably than playing the likes of Colombia/Argentina/Uruguay/Brazil due to those teams used to the climate and the other Europeans are going to need a few games to adapt.
Seeds for Brazil: Spain, Germany, Argentina, Colombia, Belgium, Switzerland & Either Uruguay (if they win their play off) or Netherlands if Uruguay fail to make it, will join the hosts (Brazil)! in Pot 1
Note: Portugal 14th - Greece 15th - Croatia 18th - Ukraine 20th - France 21st - Sweden 25th - Romania 29th - Iceland 46th, this order Determines who could play who in the Play Offs
Beaten by 2 points... I hope we draw Switzerland
Dude, never underestimate a team coached by god himself.
Seeds for Brazil: Spain, Germany, Argentina, Colombia, Belgium, Switzerland & Either Uruguay (if they win their play off) or Netherlands if Uruguay fail to make it, will join the hosts (Brazil)! in Pot 1
Note: Portugal 14th - Greece 15th - Croatia 18th - Ukraine 20th - France 21st - Sweden 25th - Romania 29th - Iceland 46th, this order Determines who could play who in the Play Offs
Beaten by 2 points... I hope we draw Switzerland
Dude, never underestimate a team coached by god himself.
haha well we have our very own self proclaimed football prophet: Van Gaal!
I think an interesting possibility is that if (BIG IF) Jordan beats Uruguay and qualifies, then there will be 9 Asian/NA/Oceania teams, which means a lucky group will have 2 out of those 9.
Imagine like Switzerland, New Zealand, Jordan, Romania or something. A group of life! But...Uruguay won't lose
I don't think Switzerland are that good though I mean by the way the team looks, it is just and old fashioned good defensive team. They played Albania and Slovenia in their last two qualification games and 2-1 vs Albania and 1-0 vs Slovenia. They also (after Wikipedia the squad) have hardly any goals amongst them :S
49 goals amongst their 23 man squad for those two games (thats including the goals above) and thats vs weak teams. Toughest games would of been vs Norway which they drew 1-1 and won 2-0. I think they might give people a "good game" but attacking options seem extremely poor, especially for a top 8 team in the world :S
They scored 17goals vs teams of the following; Iceland (conceded 4goals vs them in a 4-4 draw) Norway Cyprus Slovenia Albania
Thats 11 goals if you discount the goals against 2nd place team Iceland (4-4 draw and 2-0 home win) against that class of opposition averages out at 1.375 goals a match >.< Alot of 1-0s
Shaqiri and Inler the only decent attacking talents they have, and Shaqiri hardly gets to play for Bayern.
I think i would take getting drawn in Switzerlands group <3
Any Ajax fans/watchers know how good Kolbeinn Sigþórsson is for iceland? After reading up on Swtizerland i noticed Iceland scored quite a few goals and even in their friendlies (3-2 loss away to both Sweden and France) seems like they know how to find the net. Kolbeinn Sigþórsson has 13 goals in 19matches at international level which i find quite astonishingly good! Is he that good domestically? I see him with a 38games played for Ajax and 19goals scored which is 1 in 2 exactly. He look as good as his stats back up?
Remember that Switzerland is the only team that managed to beat Spain last WC!
Ok they went 0-1-1afterwards but nobody cares about that... :D
Not but seriously: I think they are the weakest out of pot 1, and nobody would complain if they are drawn into a group with Switzerland instead of f.e. Spain.
On October 17 2013 23:38 Pandemona wrote: I don't think Switzerland are that good though I mean by the way the team looks, it is just and old fashioned good defensive team. They played Albania and Slovenia in their last two qualification games and 2-1 vs Albania and 1-0 vs Slovenia. They also (after Wikipedia the squad) have hardly any goals amongst them :S
49 goals amongst their 23 man squad for those two games (thats including the goals above) and thats vs weak teams. Toughest games would of been vs Norway which they drew 1-1 and won 2-0. I think they might give people a "good game" but attacking options seem extremely poor, especially for a top 8 team in the world :S
They scored 17goals vs teams of the following; Iceland (conceded 4goals vs them in a 4-4 draw) Norway Cyprus Slovenia Albania
Thats 11 goals if you discount the goals against 2nd place team Iceland (4-4 draw and 2-0 home win) against that class of opposition averages out at 1.375 goals a match >.< Alot of 1-0s
Shaqiri and Inler the only decent attacking talents they have, and Shaqiri hardly gets to play for Bayern.
I think i would take getting drawn in Switzerlands group <3+ Show Spoiler +
Any Ajax fans/watchers know how good Kolbeinn Sigþórsson is for iceland? After reading up on Swtizerland i noticed Iceland scored quite a few goals and even in their friendlies (3-2 loss away to both Sweden and France) seems like they know how to find the net. Kolbeinn Sigþórsson has 13 goals in 19matches at international level which i find quite astonishingly good! Is he that good domestically? I see him with a 38games played for Ajax and 19goals scored which is 1 in 2 exactly. He look as good as his stats back up?
I agree that Switzerland is probably overrated in the fifa world rankings, but not by a too big margin. Ironically teams that qualify for a big tournament and then are eliminated in groupstage are punished much much much more in the FIFA world rankings than those who closely fail to qualify. Belgium, Switzerland and Colombia all benefit from this. Neither Switzerland nor Belgium would be seeded, had they done better in EURO 2012 qualifying and made it to the tournament, just to then finish last in their groups.
That being said, and I surely don't like to say this as a german right now, the proverb "attack wins games, defense wins championships" still is very valid. Scoring many goals helps ofc, but it surely isnt necessary to win a tournament: Greece won EURO 2004 with a 7 goals in 6 games Spain won the 2010 World Cup with 8 goals in 7 games. Denmark won EURO 1992 with 6 goals in 5 games.
I was surprised to see Switzerland in the first pot. Have they been doing that well? I know they won their group so I guess that was good enough to get them up there?
On October 17 2013 23:38 Pandemona wrote: I don't think Switzerland are that good though I mean by the way the team looks, it is just and old fashioned good defensive team. They played Albania and Slovenia in their last two qualification games and 2-1 vs Albania and 1-0 vs Slovenia. They also (after Wikipedia the squad) have hardly any goals amongst them :S
49 goals amongst their 23 man squad for those two games (thats including the goals above) and thats vs weak teams. Toughest games would of been vs Norway which they drew 1-1 and won 2-0. I think they might give people a "good game" but attacking options seem extremely poor, especially for a top 8 team in the world :S
They scored 17goals vs teams of the following; Iceland (conceded 4goals vs them in a 4-4 draw) Norway Cyprus Slovenia Albania
Thats 11 goals if you discount the goals against 2nd place team Iceland (4-4 draw and 2-0 home win) against that class of opposition averages out at 1.375 goals a match >.< Alot of 1-0s
Shaqiri and Inler the only decent attacking talents they have, and Shaqiri hardly gets to play for Bayern.
I think i would take getting drawn in Switzerlands group <3+ Show Spoiler +
Any Ajax fans/watchers know how good Kolbeinn Sigþórsson is for iceland? After reading up on Swtizerland i noticed Iceland scored quite a few goals and even in their friendlies (3-2 loss away to both Sweden and France) seems like they know how to find the net. Kolbeinn Sigþórsson has 13 goals in 19matches at international level which i find quite astonishingly good! Is he that good domestically? I see him with a 38games played for Ajax and 19goals scored which is 1 in 2 exactly. He look as good as his stats back up?
I agree that Switzerland is probably overrated in the fifa world rankings, but not by a too big margin. Ironically teams that qualify for a big tournament and then are eliminated in groupstage are punished much much much more in the FIFA world rankings than those who closely fail to qualify. Belgium, Switzerland and Colombia all benefit from this. Neither Switzerland nor Belgium would be seeded, had they done better in EURO 2012 qualifying and made it to the tournament, just to then finish last in their groups.
That being said, and I surely don't like to say this as a german right now, the proverb "attack wins games, defense wins championships" still is very valid. Scoring many goals helps ofc, but it surely isnt necessary to win a tournament: Greece won EURO 2004 with a 7 goals in 6 games Spain won the 2010 World Cup with 8 goals in 7 games. Denmark won EURO 1992 with 6 goals in 5 games.
3 years ago i would be agreeing with you. Now, im not so sure. We have witnessed in the last 3seasons a HUGE change in the way football is played (imo). The goals per game average is huge. Lets take the confederations cup as prime example. That was the most fun and attacking tournament i have witnessed in years, it is normally utter shite that tournament. Very defensive style play and hardly any goals, we got the complete opposite, the final was a wonderful display of football. Hell even England in their last 2 games actually tried to attack all game long as they needed to win. Thus i think this world cup is going to have so many more goals in it than we have been used to. Gone of the days of 1-0 victories, i think we will be seeing lots of 2-1 3-1 4-2 kind of games.
On October 18 2013 00:27 Mafe wrote: I agree that Switzerland is probably overrated in the fifa world rankings, but not by a too big margin. Ironically teams that qualify for a big tournament and then are eliminated in groupstage are punished much much much more in the FIFA world rankings than those who closely fail to qualify. Belgium, Switzerland and Colombia all benefit from this. Neither Switzerland nor Belgium would be seeded, had they done better in EURO 2012 qualifying and made it to the tournament, just to then finish last in their groups.
That being said, and I surely don't like to say this as a german right now, the proverb "attack wins games, defense wins championships" still is very valid. Scoring many goals helps ofc, but it surely isnt necessary to win a tournament: Greece won EURO 2004 with a 7 goals in 6 games Spain won the 2010 World Cup with 8 goals in 7 games. Denmark won EURO 1992 with 6 goals in 5 games.
Happened to the Netherlands back in 2002 as well. We didn't qualify for the World cup, but months later we were second in the ranking because most top nations performed like shit. It's a really stupid system of course, Italy's second place finish in Euro 2012 gets outdone by Switzerland winning friendlies.
On October 17 2013 23:38 Pandemona wrote: Any Ajax fans/watchers know how good Kolbeinn Sigþórsson is for iceland? After reading up on Swtizerland i noticed Iceland scored quite a few goals and even in their friendlies (3-2 loss away to both Sweden and France) seems like they know how to find the net. Kolbeinn Sigþórsson has 13 goals in 19matches at international level which i find quite astonishingly good! Is he that good domestically? I see him with a 38games played for Ajax and 19goals scored which is 1 in 2 exactly. He look as good as his stats back up?
Sigthorsson has been with Ajax for a couple of years but he's been injured a LOT. This season is pretty much the first season where so far he's been fit to play all games. There's a lot of criticism on his play because his ball control is fairly mediocre, but he's a good finisher and he's good positionally. He's also fairly strong and works hard. I like him more than the general opinion I think, who think Danny Hoesen should get more playtime. He looks good when he gets subbed in, but anyone can look good when coming on in the 75th minute against a very tired team. Being a striker in the Ajax system is ridiculously hard though because it's not a standard striking position. But that's obvious because Barcelona plays our system (or Cruijff's system) and that system doesn't fit a pure striker like him. Even Zlatan's first year at Ajax was pretty terrible and look where he is now.
Scoring 19 goals in 38 matches in Holland doesn't say much though. If you're a striker and you can't seem to score in other competitions, come to Holland and become top scorer because most of our defensive players suck ass. Right now Graziano Pelle who has scored like 30 goals in his entire career comes to Feyenoord and scores 23 or so last season and this season he's already scored like 10 goals. He looks good doing it, but I wonder if he would ever have that kind of success in a Bundesliga or something. Luuk de Jong who was topscorer in Holland a couple of seasons ago can't get a starting spot at Mönchengladbach for example.
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/xjk8rHl.jpg)
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