World Cup 2006 Englands group

Bout the same,both easy.

and they got to the qtrs before going out pens when playing much of the match with 10 men, so what's your point?

No it wasn't, next question please.

My point is England are in a very similar situation as they were in 4 years ago.

good point well made.

why do england get handy little groups?

dan_the_saint 05 Dec 22:12


why do england get handy little groups?





Because FIFA revel in schadenfreude as much as the rest of us.
England get easy group, declare themselves as certs to win the whole thing then fall flat on their face when they come up against a decent team.

a great point, which seems to have escaped most of the media mugs. 2006 group and draw was easier, but was never reported as such because of the misguided notion that sweden were/are a good side, when in fact the current USA team are far better. no team in our 2010 group are anywhere near as bad as trinidad and tobago.

dan_the_saint 05 Dec 22:12


why do england get handy little groups?




Not entirely true

1958 - Brazil, Soviet Union, Austria
1962 - Argentina, Bulgaria, Hungary
1966 - Uruguay, France, Mexico
1970 - Brazil, Czechoslovakia, Romania
2002 - Argentina, Sweden, Nigeria

ok but since seeding was introduced they seem to get handy groups even for qualifying

everyone said the euro 2008 qualifying group was easy an yet they messed that up.
in qualifying for 98 an 2002 world cup they finished above italy and germany

ok but that is 2 big teams in 2 groups, who were the rest of the countries in the groups.

i just wanna give ireland example.
to qualify for 2002 wc, we were in a group with holland and portugal,
2006 france, switzerland, israel
2010 bulgaria, italy

if you were a small country like ireland then maybe you can understand were we are coming from.

in football, big teams get alot of favourtism

hmm let me guess where this is heading

where is it headin?

dodgy refereeing decisions especially ones involving hands

haha thats not were i was going, but if ya wanna talk about that.

tbh its not only that that was against ireland, but to get **ed out of a chance to go to a world cup coz of that. i hate **s and to win a game because of **ing is horrible, england should know, the maradona lad.

the likes of ronaldo, gerrard, rooney, eduardo and henry should be punished.
and video refs should be used, it will only take a couple of seconds to see if it was really a pen, offside, handball etc

i have nothing against seeding in the world cup. If Ireland (or anybody else) want to get seeded they just have to get their ranking to an appropriate standing. There is no law that says only such and such countries can be seeded

imo the seedings and world ranking are load of crap

madsimon 06 Dec 16:53
i have nothing against seeding in the world cup. If Ireland (or anybody else) want to get seeded they just have to get their ranking to an appropriate standing. There is no law that says only such and such countries can be seeded


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its a bit self-perpetuating though; the higher the ranking, the more winnable games you get to play. anyone that started a WC/EC qualification as a third tier side would find it difficult with four hard games to come. its not like a proper league where you get 38 games a season. instead you get maybe 10 or 12 over two years, and your ranking next time relies heavily on the games against better teams (assuming everyone beats the one or two minnows)

some good points made here but i think we can all safely say that like it or not seedings will always be used in tournaments like this just as they are in most sports eg. snooker,tennis.
sadly the main thing about this is money an noway fifa would have a world cup group of brazil,england,germany and italy because of the money they would be guaranteed to lose on two of them definitley going out early.

England's qualifying group for the WC was the only one to contain 3 teams in the top 20 when it started. I'm not sure Ireland would have even made second place if they were in the same group as Croatia and Ukraine.

top 20 of what??? world rankings???

blah, doesnt mean a thing with me, USA are 8th in the world, do you think they are better than
mexico, ivory coast ukraine?

imo opinion, i think england have a better team on paper than france.

I think the potential second round game will be much harder than 4 years ago. Currently Ghana and Serbia are much better teams than Poland, Ecuador and Cost Rica were 4 years ago.

Not sure about Germany, have they improved in the last 4 years?

I assume Australia have found it hard to replace the likes of Viduka in the last 4 years.