World Cup 2022 Qualifiers

[SouthLanarkshireWhite]

Just booked Manchester to Vienna direct. Out Sunday, back Thursday for £85. Sadly I will struggle to get tickets so 4 of us making it a family outing.

[John Lambies Doos]

Just booked Manchester to Vienna direct. Out Sunday, back Thursday for £85. Sadly I will struggle to get tickets so 4 of us making it a family outing.

Get them from the Austrian FA... Done this for away games several times.. Never any issues in away ends

[SouthLanarkshireWhite]

19 minutes ago, John Lambies Doos said:

1 hour ago, SouthLanarkshireWhite said:

Just booked Manchester to Vienna direct. Out Sunday, back Thursday for £85. Sadly I will struggle to get tickets so 4 of us making it a family outing.

Get them from the Austrian FA... Done this for away games several times.. Never any issues in away ends

Cheers bud, will certainly look into that. Youngest is very excited about the possibility of his first away game. Where do you get them delivered to? Local hotel or pick up at stadium?

[John Lambies Doos]

Cheers bud, will certainly look into that. Youngest is very excited about the possibility of his first away game. Where do you get them delivered to? Local hotel or pick up at stadium?

To my house, they will post them over if you give them plenty of time

Sent from my VFD 710 using Pie and Bovril mobile app

[SouthLanarkshireWhite]

24 minutes ago, John Lambies Doos said:

To my house, they will post them over if you give them plenty of time

Sent from my VFD 710 using Pie and Bovril mobile app
 

Thanks

[DA Baracus]

On 08/12/2020 at 16:35, Insert Amusing Pseudonym said:

I disagree.  Denmark are favourites and rightly so but they're not a great team and it isn't too much of a stretch to see a way past them.

Bookies seem to have priced it right to me

 

On 08/12/2020 at 17:02, DAFC. said:

Yer arse. Denmark and Austria aren't that much better than us. This is the best group we've had in a lifetime. We absolutely have a fantastic chance of finishing top. 

We have drew, by far, the worst team in Pot 1 and avoided a hell of a lot of really dodgy Pot 2 teams like Poland and Switzerland. Austria is s till a toughie, and we could have drew an easier team like Wales, but you really cannot complain about drawing those two as your main competitors for top 2. It's the Israel one that gives me the fear. Can almost see it now: only needing a draw over there and get absolutely humped.

There's simply no basis to these shouts that we can finish top.

When was the last time Scotland finished top of a qualifying group? When was the last time we even finished second?

We couldn't even finish top of the last Nations League group.

We've lost, recently, away to Israel and Slovakia. Our away record in qualifying is poor in general, going back decades.

Austria and Denmark may be favourable in terms of teams we could have drawn from those pots, but they are still better and stronger teams than us. In a one off game I could see us beating either at home, and possibly even one of them away, but over the course of campaign at least one of them, possibly (maybe even probably) both, will be stronger than us and pick up more points.

Folk can't be thinking we can win the group but also fear going to Israel. 

[paul-r-cfc]

Raging. Sky scanner has been showing direct flights to Faroe islands for £192 for the last day but keeps on saying the price is no longer available. Can only seem to get them for double that. Seems like I missed out.

Anyone went another route? There are options that stop off in Amsterdam and Copenhagen but they involved very tight turnarounds of 45 mins - 1 hour, which seem like a recipe for disaster.

[SouthLanarkshireWhite]

2 hours ago, paul-r-cfc said:

Raging. Sky scanner has been showing direct flights to Faroe islands for £192 for the last day but keeps on saying the price is no longer available. Can only seem to get them for double that. Seems like I missed out.

Anyone went another route? There are options that stop off in Amsterdam and Copenhagen but they involved very tight turnarounds of 45 mins - 1 hour, which seem like a recipe for disaster.

The 1 hour turnaround at Schipol can be mental. I almost missed a flight to Detroit some years back because of it. It takes 20 mins to get off the plane, then you sometimes have to change terminals etc. 

[John Lambies Doos]

The 1 hour turnaround at Schipol can be mental. I almost missed a flight to Detroit some years back because of it. It takes 20 mins to get off the plane, then you sometimes have to change terminals etc. 

This.
We actually missed a connecting flight few years back because we landed on one of their runways which was fecking miles away. Took about 45 mins for the plane to taxi to Terminal. If I remember correctly, we actually taxied over a busy road and the taxi took longer than the flight.
Hopefully better now.

[craigkillie]

11 hours ago, DA Baracus said:

 

There's simply no basis to these shouts that we can finish top.

When was the last time Scotland finished top of a qualifying group? When was the last time we even finished second?

We couldn't even finish top of the last Nations League group.

We've lost, recently, away to Israel and Slovakia. Our away record in qualifying is poor in general, going back decades.

Austria and Denmark may be favourable in terms of teams we could have drawn from those pots, but they are still better and stronger teams than us. In a one off game I could see us beating either at home, and possibly even one of them away, but over the course of campaign at least one of them, possibly (maybe even probably) both, will be stronger than us and pick up more points.

Folk can't be thinking we can win the group but also fear going to Israel. 

By this logic, the same teams would have to win every single qualifying group, since no team could ever expect to win one if they hadn't won one before.

Scotland's record 15, 10, 5 or even 3 years ago is completely irrelevant to the here and now. In the here and now, we have a team who are quite clearly capable of winning this group. We're by no means the favourites, but we have shown enough over the last eight games to suggest that we are a good team who are capable of picking up a result, home or away, against any of the teams in our group.

The three away performances in November, especially the first two, were as good as I have seen from Scotland in over a decade, and the fact that we lost to Slovakia doesn't detract from that. If you replayed that game 10 times we'd probably win 8 of them.

Denmark's recent results suggest they are a stronger team than us, but what makes you say Austria are definitely better?

[HuttonDressedAsLahm]

1 hour ago, craigkillie said:

By this logic, the same teams would have to win every single qualifying group, since no team could ever expect to win one if they hadn't won one before.

Scotland's record 15, 10, 5 or even 3 years ago is completely irrelevant to the here and now. In the here and now, we have a team who are quite clearly capable of winning this group. We're by no means the favourites, but we have shown enough over the last eight games to suggest that we are a good team who are capable of picking up a result, home or away, against any of the teams in our group.

The three away performances in November, especially the first two, were as good as I have seen from Scotland in over a decade, and the fact that we lost to Slovakia doesn't detract from that. If you replayed that game 10 times we'd probably win 8 of them.

Denmark's recent results suggest they are a stronger team than us, but what makes you say Austria are definitely better?

Austria are not much better.  They're probably a weaker side than the Czechs, and have a team full of decent international-level players.

They have two outstanding players in Sabitzer, and Alaba, with Arnautovic being their talisman, but not at the level of the former two.

They haven't qualified for a World Cup since 1998, and most recently qualified for the 2016 Euros where they went out with a whimper.

They have qualified for the 2020 Euros, despite trying their hardest to fail to qualify, getting gubbed 4-2 by Israel, and somehow losing 1-0 to Latvia, one of the worst teams in European football.  Otherwise they were able to overcome the mighty Slovenia, and North Macedonia, to stagger across the line behing Poland.

The did just win their Nations League group of Romania, Northern Ireland and Norway.  They were fortunate that Norway had Covid issues in November, otherwise they were certain favourite to win that group.  They somehow managed to contrive a draw with Norway, (days previous handing Romania an automatic 3-0 win) who had 8 debutants due to a travel ban.

Austria are observably not much better than Scotland.  They have a similar talent pool to us - most of their players are in their bigger neighbour Germany, at Europa League/middle-level clubs.  They have more experience than our group (few nations don't), but there's no doubt that Robertson, Tierney, McTominay, McGinn, and Christie would easily make their squad.

Their defence is undoubtedly stronger than ours over recent times, but they've similarly had big problems in finding an established striker capable of returns at this level.

Edited December 10, 2020 by HuttonDressedAsLahm

[Pie Of The Month]

6 hours ago, paul-r-cfc said:

Raging. Sky scanner has been showing direct flights to Faroe islands for £192 for the last day but keeps on saying the price is no longer available. Can only seem to get them for double that. Seems like I missed out.

Anyone went another route? There are options that stop off in Amsterdam and Copenhagen but they involved very tight turnarounds of 45 mins - 1 hour, which seem like a recipe for disaster.

A fair few folk booked for £192 and have since been contacted saying the price changed and they need to pay an extra £200 or cancel so you've probably had a lucky escape there. Atlantic Airlines do about 3 flights a day from Copenhagen to the Faroes so if it's tight then you could easily just book the next flight if booking the connections yourself.

Wonky Sheep who do Welsh and Irish trips and look to be starting up doing the same for Scotland are doing a daytrip for it at £319.  I might do that just to save on annual leave.  https://wonkysheep.co.uk/product/faroes-v-scotland-ft/

[Insert Amusing Pseudonym]

3 hours ago, craigkillie said:

By this logic, the same teams would have to win every single qualifying group, since no team could ever expect to win one if they hadn't won one before.

Scotland's record 15, 10, 5 or even 3 years ago is completely irrelevant to the here and now. In the here and now, we have a team who are quite clearly capable of winning this group. We're by no means the favourites, but we have shown enough over the last eight games to suggest that we are a good team who are capable of picking up a result, home or away, against any of the teams in our group.

The three away performances in November, especially the first two, were as good as I have seen from Scotland in over a decade, and the fact that we lost to Slovakia doesn't detract from that. If you replayed that game 10 times we'd probably win 8 of them.

Denmark's recent results suggest they are a stronger team than us, but what makes you say Austria are definitely better?

Saved me a very similar reply there.

Denmark are better than us, and are warm favourites to finish top but to suggest they're untouchably good, not for me.

There's a reasonable chance we can beat all 5 teams at home, and from there you'd have a fantastic shot

[Detournement]

The main issue isn't quality of player. It's the tactics we use. Clarke's tactics are good enough to get you to a shoot out but there is no chance of us winning away using them unless the opposition is devastated by Covid. 

We don't have a goal scoring striker so unless we play two of Christie/Fraser/Forrest in support of Dykes we are going to be struggling for goals. We need to go baws out to beat Austria in the first game but the usual mentality from Scotland bosses is that drawing early group games is a decent result and they are happy to settle for a point.

[craigkillie]

^^^cliched pish

We're capable of winning away to good teams as we showed in Serbia, and we will be trying to win that opening game too.

[HuttonDressedAsLahm]

15 minutes ago, craigkillie said:

^^^cliched pish

We're capable of winning away to good teams as we showed in Serbia, and we will be trying to win that opening game too.

The only reason we didn't win by two or three in Slovakia was because of a devastating inability to score when it was harder not to.

Yes, we often struggle away, but we created more chances in those three away games than we probably did in the last half dozen against Lithuania, Georgia, and Kazakhstan combined.

Edited December 10, 2020 by HuttonDressedAsLahm

[HuttonDressedAsLahm]

16 minutes ago, craigkillie said:

^^^cliched pish

We're capable of winning away to good teams as we showed in Serbia, and we will be trying to win that opening game too.

And just to add, in 20-odd years of watching us play, I can't remember us ever pressuring a team on the ball like we did to Serbia.

Serbia are a very good outfit and couldn't live with the pressure.  Why we always back off against much weaker nations has always bemused me.  If Serbia can't cope with a high press, there's no way Moldova, Faroes, and Israel can.

I would have Austria on a very similar level to Serbia...

Edited December 10, 2020 by HuttonDressedAsLahm

[craigkillie]

We drew with Serbia.   

But we showed we were capable of beating them.

[Stellaboz]

Austria are fucking dug shite! We'll absolutely smash them, fucking nazi, Fritzl, Wiener c***s.

[Carnoustie Young Guvnor]

1 hour ago, HuttonDressedAsLahm said:

And just to add, in 20-odd years of watching us play, I can't remember us ever pressuring a team on the ball like we did to Serbia.

Serbia are a very good outfit and couldn't live with the pressure.  Why we always back off against much weaker nations has always bemused me.  If Serbia can't cope with a high press, there's no way Moldova, Faroes, and Israel can.

I would have Austria on a very similar level to Serbia...

Is that fuckin cuntwipe who used to play for Stoke still playing for Austria

Whats his name big diddy who thinks he's Ronaldo