Jump to content

Scotland v Ukraine


Lex

Recommended Posts

1 hour ago, Donathan said:

I think they’re trying to drive up TV ratings by doing away with the traditional home and away playoffs and replacing them with 4 teams competing for a single spot over two single legged fixtures. Replacing the first leg with a semi final means that you get double the number of countries interested in the playoffs, which should drive up TV numbers. 

If they were overly bothered by that, it'd be a two legged affair to be able to sell two matches instead of one.

This is purely down to scheduling.  There isn't time to do it the traditional way, so you either have one team at home or a neutral venue.  The home draw for semi finals makes sense, it's a reward for best record.  The final is a bit shite that it's a random draw, agree with Craig that something should be done about that. Personally I'd hold all the playoffs at neutral venues, and if we're going full fantasy then put them in the country due to host the tournament as a sort of mini-confederations cup dress rehearsal.  Or just the final to remove the unearned advantage.

One other way you could do it I guess is to assign the two best finishers the home draw in the semis, then just give the home final to the best team left standing after the semis.  So we'd know that if we won our semi, we'd be guaranteed a home final.  If we got put out, then whoever was 2nd gets it, or 3rd if it comes to that.  At least then the home draw is earned.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It'll be a sad day when League D loses its spot.  Guaranteed to happen, but I liked the idea of having at least one relative diddy getting a spot they'd never otherwise have gotten.  North Macedonia didn't completely embarrass themselves.  In fact, they weren't even the side with the worst record.  I mean, joint worst (with Turkey) but they had their moments.  Much more interesting prospect as a neutral than another pot 3 jobber getting in.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, DA Baracus said:

Why not? That's how the draw was made.

Appreciate that, but given it's a 1 legged final and there was no 'seeding' for who was the home team, an even split (if the away team can take the tickets) would seem fair to me. 

It would have been fairer to use the same seeding model as the semis if this was the way they were doing it, which would have meant as a higher ranked team based on the qualifiers, we'd have had a home final guaranteed too.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 21/04/2022 at 08:47, Tartan Dave said:

Matt Targett possibly getting called up for this. Was watched by scouts last night, be a good tierney replacement

He has been excellent for Newcastle since he arrived in January. Definitely a better player than Taylor

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, forameus said:

It'll be a sad day when League D loses its spot.  Guaranteed to happen, but I liked the idea of having at least one relative diddy getting a spot they'd never otherwise have gotten.  North Macedonia didn't completely embarrass themselves.  In fact, they weren't even the side with the worst record.  I mean, joint worst (with Turkey) but they had their moments.  Much more interesting prospect as a neutral than another pot 3 jobber getting in.

The revamp has put paid to that though. North Macedonia were effectively the 40th best team in Europe, whereas the league D winner now would be 49th. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
On 22/04/2022 at 15:56, forameus said:

It'll be a sad day when League D loses its spot.  Guaranteed to happen, but I liked the idea of having at least one relative diddy getting a spot they'd never otherwise have gotten.  North Macedonia didn't completely embarrass themselves.  In fact, they weren't even the side with the worst record.  I mean, joint worst (with Turkey) but they had their moments.  Much more interesting prospect as a neutral than another pot 3 jobber getting in.

I'm all for it. Would love to see the Faroes give someone (not us) a fucking shock at a major championships. 

Failing that, I always thought we should just go down to League D to try guarantee a place despite the fact we'd utter scunner it. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I had a looking at how Ukraine play. I have the full 90 minutes of their friendly against Bulgaria from November 2021.

image.png.f1156b24615b899c26ba565175f6556d.png

This video focused around their pivot (Sydorchuk, #5) and how they build their play because that was what I was looking at anyway with Scott McTominay and the cover shadow stuff. In that game they played with two centre-backs, full-backs high and wide, a single pivot supported on each side by a shuttling midfielder - all behind a front three.

I believe this approach was not previously used by their manager. They played a little like Croatia did against us, patient in possession waiting for the chance to work fast combination plays or fire direct and diagonal balls in behind the Bulgarian defence. I thought some of their passing and moving looked quality.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, Loominous said:

Ukraine play Monchengladbach tonight, it's free to air on German tv apparently.

Still a half decent enough side considering it’s just Ukrainian based players. I would have thought Riznyk or at least Dovbyk would have started, but Petrakov has already said all of them will get game time. 

A2B1B671-871F-4736-B43F-90FD1C4F4FE4.jpeg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Karpaty Lviv said:

Still a half decent enough side considering it’s just Ukrainian based players. I would have thought Riznyk or at least Dovbyk would have started, but Petrakov has already said all of them will get game time. 

Yeah, I'd say Bushchan, Matvienko, Zabarnyi, Stepanenko are certain to start against Scotland, also a fair chance for Shaparenko and Mudryk so that's potentially half the team right there. They won 2-1 tonight and I think they have another game scheduled against Rijeka and maybe also a lower Serie A team.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

https://oddspedia.com/football/scotland-ukraine-887468

Interestingly has Scotland as favourites. I had (wrongly) assumed it'd be a lot tighter or Ukraine would be favourite.

The stats from recent games though (shots, corners, goals scored etc) all seem to back up our status.
Plus, of course we're at home.

The big unknowable really is: what kind of Ukraine are going to turn up? They could be shadows of their normal selves, or they could be charged up with national pride and overrun us.

Starting to get nervous for this one now...




Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 08/05/2022 at 17:08, Stellaboz said:

I'm all for it. Would love to see the Faroes give someone (inevitably us) a fucking shock at a major championships.

FTFY

23 minutes ago, Gordopolis said:

https://oddspedia.com/football/scotland-ukraine-887468

Interestingly has Scotland as favourites. I had (wrongly) assumed it'd be a lot tighter or Ukraine would be favourite.

The stats from recent games though (shots, corners, goals scored etc) all seem to back up our status.
Plus, of course we're at home.

The big unknowable really is: what kind of Ukraine are going to turn up? They could be shadows of their normal selves, or they could be charged up with national pride and overrun us.

Starting to get nervous for this one now...

Doesn't surprise me at all. They had a shite qualifying campaign (for a side still in with a chance of getting there) and weren't expected to do particularly well to begin with, plus we're at home. Their minds will very much be elsewhere too. It was a good draw for us to begin with, but now there really shouldn't be any excuses if we aren't playing Wales next month.

Link to comment
Share on other sites



What I hope for is that they're not match fit and we can use that to our advantage if things are level going into the last half hour.


Yeah there is that. How many times have we seen Old Firm sides caught cold and knocked out in the July/August euro qualifiers to Scandinavian teams etc who are already mid-way thru their season.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...