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Euro 2020 Play-offs


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1 hour ago, The_Judge said:

The whole thing feels grimy!  It's like the team finishing in 6th getting promotion via the play-offs (in your heart they don't deserve it), are we so desperate to get to the Euro's that we'd be happy to win a raffle?

I get what you mean, coming in the diddy door, but with two matches at Hampden we have to get there by any means available. We're not so bad that we couldn't fluke a home win against someone like Finland or Kosovo, and get out of the group as one of the four best runners-up. If we did, we'd have a 30% chance of playing our last 16 match at Hampden too, against the winner of the group with Spain and, if they make it, Ireland. Maybe we scrape a draw in that, win on penalties, and suddenly we're at Hampden celebrating making our first ever quarter final.

We may not 'deserve' it  but I'll bloody well take it!

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Guest DAVIDB69

Surely we could beat Bulgaria they looked as bad as us against england , however I could see us taking a hiding in Serbia although they lost to Portugal they looked decent for long periods

 

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2 hours ago, DAVIDB69 said:

Surely we could beat Bulgaria they looked as bad as us against england , however I could see us taking a hiding in Serbia although they lost to Portugal they looked decent for long periods

 

They’ve got decent players, but their results speak for themselves. Getting tonked 5-0 by Ukraine suggests deeper problems.

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On 09/09/2019 at 06:42, skippy2015 said:

Norway or Serbia would be difficult. Norway have a lot of good players coming through at the moment.

As do we. Their problem, much like ours, seems to be assembling a team that doesn’t playing within itself.

That said, two draws against Sweden is no mug result, and they did well against Spain.

Serbia - Norway would be a decent game to watch and probably highly competitive. 

I’d much rather it that way, with us having a home fixture against Israel/Bulgaria. As long as someone marked Zahavi out the match - he’s scored 11 goals in the last year, including the second against us at Hampden.

What we would do for a player with a record like that!

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I get what you mean, coming in the diddy door, but with two matches at Hampden we have to get there by any means available. We're not so bad that we couldn't fluke a home win against someone like Finland or Kosovo, and get out of the group as one of the four best runners-up. If we did, we'd have a 30% chance of playing our last 16 match at Hampden too, against the winner of the group with Spain and, if they make it, Ireland. Maybe we scrape a draw in that, win on penalties, and suddenly we're at Hampden celebrating making our first ever quarter final.
We may not 'deserve' it  but I'll bloody well take it!
Calm yourself!
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Guest DAVIDB69
As do we. Their problem, much like ours, seems to be assembling a team that doesn’t playing within itself.
That said, two draws against Sweden is no mug result, and they did well against Spain.
Serbia - Norway would be a decent game to watch and probably highly competitive. 
I’d much rather it that way, with us having a home fixture against Israel/Bulgaria. As long as someone marked Zahavi out the match - he’s scored 11 goals in the last year, including the second against us at Hampden.
What we would do for a player with a record like that!



Who do we have coming through that’s of a decent standard
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Play-off picture at end of Round 6/10:

1451344015_UNLPlay-offsPDFversionSept.thumb.png.dc38a1294114d2ce7a5f74e3b1388391.png

The play-offs would be:

A; Switzerland vs Bulgaria/Israel/Hungary  -----  Netherlands vs Iceland

B; Boznia&Herz vs Bulgaria/Israel/Hungary  -----  Austria vs Wales

C; Scotland vs Bulgaria/Israel/Hungary  -----  Norway vs Serbia

D; Georgia vs Belarus  -----  N.Macedonia vs Kosovo

More draws again. These ones are to decide which play-off path Bulgaria, Israel & Hungary go to.

This one was a bit more tricky to understand as it's not really explained in the UEFA documents.  I've assumed they simply put one C team in each of the A,B & C play-offs. I wasn't 100% on what they do after the first draw to see who of Bulgaria/Israel/Hungary goes to the C play-offs. Maybe they include Austria and Wales in the second draw to decide who goes to A & B. It doesn't affect Scotland's potential opponents anyway. Don't know if anyone else knows?

Fingers crossed Finland make it directly anyway. They seem like a step above Bulgaria/Israel/Hungary just now.

 

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The whole thing feels grimy!  It's like the team finishing in 6th getting promotion via the play-offs (in your heart they don't deserve it), are we so desperate to get to the Euro's that we'd be happy to win a raffle?
If it's a 24 team tournament then there are always going to be 4 places up for grabs via the play-offs. As shite as we are we'll probably still finish 3rd in our group and would have made the play-offs anyway.
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I take it the Playoffs are similar to the Week of Football that UEFA? The dates being the 26th to 31st of March (wonder if that will be another EU extension date).

Also, you'd hope the final of each game would be the only game on at that time/day and the exposure/excitement it would get especially for the teams of League D.

Using Chargers currents teams and blagging in a few results; will the Playoffs look a bit like this?

Thu 26 March : 5pm Kosovo vs North Macedonia ; 8pm Georgia vs Belarus

Fri 27 March : 5pm Norway vs Serbia ; 8pm Scotland vs Bulgaria

Sat 28 March - 2pm Austria vs Wales ; 4pm Bosnia/Herz v Hungary ; 6pm Netherlands vs Iceland ; 8pm Switzerland vs Israel

Then :

Sun 29 March : 8pm Georgia vs Kosovo

Mon 30 March : 8pm Scotland vs Serbia

Tues 31 March : 5pm Austria v Bosnia/Herz  ; 8pm Switzerland v Holland

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Agree with the earlier sentiment that qualifying for the Finals, even through this convaluted route, would let the SFA off the hook in that they would see this as justification in their actions in running our game...... when this couldn't be further from the truth.

I like Clarke and obviously support my Country (attended 3 major finals to support them) but can't help but think that we truly need to hit rock bottom before the penny drops and the decks get cleared. I take no pleasure in saying this.

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FFS. Turns out Uefa have an article with the playoff standings which they update after every matchday.

https://www.uefa.com/uefaeuro-2020/news/newsid=2581807.html

If every A team were to qualify automatically the four A slots would go to the highest ranked teams not already in the playoffs. Likely a mix of B & C teams.

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This should not be beyond us and if this was given to precious scotland teams I'd be delighted, however this current mob are fucking hopeless. Clarke has a lot of work to do in not a lot of time to do it in. Can you still arrange B internationals to try and get some games and players tried out?

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Agree with the earlier sentiment that qualifying for the Finals, even through this convaluted route, would let the SFA off the hook in that they would see this as justification in their actions in running our game...... when this couldn't be further from the truth.
I like Clarke and obviously support my Country (attended 3 major finals to support them) but can't help but think that we truly need to hit rock bottom before the penny drops and the decks get cleared. I take no pleasure in saying this.

I don't have a lot of time for this argument to be honest. Things change very quickly in football and success is based on hundreds of fairly intangible things. Success in one area is just as likely to drive success in lots of other areas.

Killie were at a similar low ebb two years ago, with people questioning basically everything about how the club was run on and off the park. Within 6 months of Clarke taking over that was all forgotten and every aspect of what we were doing seemed to be much better.

If we end up qualifying for the Euros, the whole game in Scotland will get a boost. We'll have (at least) two games at Hampden which will basically stop the country, and it will likely have knock-on effects on club football in terms of boosting crowds and interest. It will also get the monkey off our back in terms of not having qualified for so long, which might let us actually direct some focus on overall improvement instead of lingering on that single issue for so long.
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14 hours ago, craigkillie said:


I don't have a lot of time for this argument to be honest. Things change very quickly in football and success is based on hundreds of fairly intangible things. Success in one area is just as likely to drive success in lots of other areas.

Killie were at a similar low ebb two years ago, with people questioning basically everything about how the club was run on and off the park. Within 6 months of Clarke taking over that was all forgotten and every aspect of what we were doing seemed to be much better.

If we end up qualifying for the Euros, the whole game in Scotland will get a boost. We'll have (at least) two games at Hampden which will basically stop the country, and it will likely have knock-on effects on club football in terms of boosting crowds and interest. It will also get the monkey off our back in terms of not having qualified for so long, which might let us actually direct some focus on overall improvement instead of lingering on that single issue for so long.

I'm talking about the fundamental issues we have with our approach to developing players from grassroots, not the professional set up. Much in the same way Uruguay does. ie they've accepted that their domestic league will never be strong enough financially to compete so they looked to developing skillful youngsters with good technique knowing they'll be picked up by foreign Clubs, who will effectively be finishing schools for their talent.

We on the other hand still have kids playing 11 v 11 in the freezing cold throughout the winter.....

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1 hour ago, stuart87 said:

I feel like any chance we have rests on us having the play off final at home.

You'd think, but recent insipid displays at home suggest we can't even rely on that.  

It's certainly something to aim for though.  If we get a decent draw in that semi, and a decent kick-off time, Hampden should be absolutely bouncing leading into that game.  Get through that, and 90 minutes at home with a place in a tournament at stake, that should surely be the boost the players need.  

EDIT: Looking at the articles posted already, UEFA seem to have picked a day for the semi finals.  A Thursday.  A fucking Thursday.  

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