Scotland v Israel

Our win against Albania has set us up nicely to fall at the last hurdle and lose to Israel at Hampden.

My usual optimistic self goes out the window where Scotland are concerned, too many broken dreams following them and seeing them fall at the last hurdle, I aint getting sucked in again.

And yet you raised this thread...

I suspect we will be held to a draw which will be sufficient to keep us where we are.

Yay, i'm more negative than Bertie.

Very good turnaround- looked like lost little lads when they went behind but they gradually too the game by the scruff of the neck & deserved the win. Wasn’t without its heart stopping moments but well done to the lads. Forrest has gone up hugely in my estimation over these last two games.

Yep thought they'd blown it again, some form Forrest is on. Bloody confusing listening to all the ins and outs of this thing though and not got the inclination to invest my time figuring it out, something along the lines of another 2 play off games/rounds to win yet and then we're in the best possible position to qualify. So I stiall aint getting my hopes up.

Liviforever wrote:Yep thought they'd blown it again, some form Forrest is on. Bloody confusing listening to all the ins and outs of this thing though and not got the inclination to invest my time figuring it out, something along the lines of another 2 play off games/rounds to win yet and then we're in the best possible position to qualify. So I stiall aint getting my hopes up.

It's not that hard to understand really, but the media have just been ignorant towards it so not many people know how it works.

The situation we're in now is that if we don't qualify through the usual groups (which run March - November 2019) then we have the play offs which are in March 2020. As it stands we're at home to Finland in the semi final, with the winner playing Norway/Serbia in the final. Venue for the final will be drawn, so either Semi Final A or Semi Final B winners will host the final.

When it starts to get a little confusing is when one of the teams who are in the play offs manage to qualify through the normal way. So if, for example, Finland manage to qualify, the next best ranked team in League C take their place at Hampden (without checking I think it's Bulgaria). What makes it confusing is that all (or most) of the League A teams are likely to qualify anyway, so when you run out of League A sides to play in the play offs you dip into the best ranked League B sides (not the group winners - winning the group means you don't need to move up against higher opposition) and so on.

Sounds more complicated than it is, and there'll probably be a load of commotion at the time of qualification.

So all this was to have a safety net if you fail to qualify through normal qualifications, it's even worse than the clusterfeck of Champions League stages, where you have to play rounds of games just to get to the proper group stages. Then if you fail to get through the group stages you can drop into the Europa League, and if you win that you'll qualify for the Champions League the following season.

Liviforever wrote:So all this was to have a safety net if you fail to qualify through normal qualifications, it's even worse than the clusterfeck of Champions League stages, where you have to play rounds of games just to get to the proper group stages. Then if you fail to get through the group stages you can drop into the Europa League, and if you win that you'll qualify for the Champions League the following season.

All it's done is replace meaningless friendlies with another competition, while also using it to replace play offs in the normal qualifiers.

Think it's been a brilliant addition and will only get better when all the pundits (I'm looking at you, Willie Miller) stop pretending it's pointless.

The other thing it does is it guarantees a “minnow” a place at Euro2020 as each of the group winners in the lowest tier also have play offs to produce a qualifier.

Then when the next NL takes place all the group winners (except top tier obv) play at a higher level.

Sounds like each Euro2020 qualifying group produces 2 qualifiers per group; then each NL play off produces 4 more qualifiers. I presume that will be 10 groups producing 20 qualifying nations & 4 play offs producing 4 more.

Bertie Bassett wrote:The other thing it does is it guarantees a “minnow” a place at Euro2020 as each of the group winners in the lowest tier also have play offs to produce a qualifier.

Then when the next NL takes place all the group winners (except top tier obv) play at a higher level.

Sounds like each Euro2020 qualifying group produces 2 qualifiers per group; then each NL play off produces 4 more qualifiers. I presume that will be 10 groups producing 20 qualifying nations & 4 play offs producing 4 more.

Yep. Last Euros the top 2 qualified and the 8 best 3rd placed sides went into a play off to make up the other 4. Now it's still the top 2 teams qualify and the play offs go to the NL winners/best ranked alternatives.

It's like UEFA specifically designed it to finally get Scotland to qualify. What I find brilliant is that one of Georgia, Belarus, Kosovo, and Macedonia will be at the next one. They're likely to get routinely pumped every game but imagine the scenes if Kosovo struck a late winner against Spain?

Deleted.

I think you’re on the wrong thread LF

Bertie Bassett wrote:I think you’re on the wrong thread LF

So I am, oops.

Not got a delete option on the whole post when someone else has posted after you so had to just delete what I wrote in the edit option.

Scotland v Russia.

What an utter shambles of a defence Scotland has, how Clarke thinks any of that pish is better than Halkett is beyond me, in fact just pick Livi's defence and keeper from last season and they'd be 100 x better than that lot. Ball was bouncing around our box and nobody could clear it, players not marking runners, being out muscled and left on our arses, fecking embarrassing.

Been thinking that for a while. Halkett marshalling the troops, Gallagher defending and attacking with his forays up the pitch and big Al getting us "corners" with every long throw. All three of them mopping up every high ball with bullet headers up the pitch or goals from free kicks.

I like Andy Robertson but his “assist” for the Russian equaliser was amateur hour.

At least he had the decency to say they were garbage after the game.

Yeah, we used to base our defence on Aberdeen’s back when we still qualified for World Cups & they were the best Scottish defenders & keeper around... well to my mind Halkett & Gallagher and even Lithgow at his best are much better than the centre of last night’s defence.

Scotland v Israel again, seem to be always playing them.

This is the big one, part of me would be relieved if we lose, just to kill our chances dead now, and not cause more heartache later.

Need to scrap the back 3, and Dykes has to start too, if we're going to improve on the last game against them.

I hope im wrong,but got a bad feeling about this.Even with Lyndon playing ive no real confidence in our defence.He will need service which once again i think he wont get tonight.Sorry for the negativity but its Scotland after all.Having said that Humble pie at the ready just in case.

Troy wrote:I hope im wrong,but got a bad feeling about this.Even with Lyndon playing ive no real confidence in our defence.He will need service which once again i think he wont get tonight.Sorry for the negativity but its Scotland after all.Having said that Humble pie at the ready just in case.

On a positive note, we got a draw against them playing absolute shite, if we could step that up to being just a bit shite we could get a win.

Why is Nisbet not in the squad? He is probably the most in-form Scottish striker at the moment.

Why is McShowpony IN the squad? I’ll tell you why, because he plays for Man U that’s why.

Clark needs to grow a pair & pick players who deserve a chance to show what they can do & it is clear for all to see that, so far, Nisbet has stepped up to the top flight better than Shankland.

Needs to drop his back 3 pish formation, haven't played a decent game using it, yet he persists with it, nae shots on target all game, was like drawing teeth watching it, and that was only the highlights i watched on sportscene. McBurnie is absolute shite, get him tae feck, should've had Dykes and Shankland from the start.

God that was eye gouging last night.Such a poor game and as the commentator said,had pens written all over it. Big Lyndon tried his best but no joy with his efforts.Their no 2 had a blinder. Nevertheless less il gladly take my humble pie grudgingly. Their through and thats all that matters i suppose. Serbia will provide much stronger opposition, and id be amazed if we beat them.Anyway well done boys.

Serbia will win by a couple of goals I think