I wouldn't. If you're referring to Kari Arnason, he isn't a bad player, I remember him when he was at Plymouth and he was a decent player, quite a big unit if I remember rightly. Plus the other players around him are also pretty decent. Their weakest position is probably their goalkeepers, neither of whom have had much of a career outside of Iceland. At the end of the day, it just comes down to these two matches, form goes out the window. If they can get an away goal, Iceland will be in with a shout.
Ronaldo may be a **** but i still want him at the WC, Ibra should be there too. Great players should be there. **** draw for football.
Current prices to qualify with Stan James (Ukraine and Sweden are attracting the money at the moment)... Croatia 2/9 France 4/11 Portugal 1/2 Greece 4/6 Romania 11/10 Sweden 6/4 Ukraine 2/1 Iceland 3/1
Not if their countries are **** they shouldn't. The teams that win the games deserve to be there. You shouldn't be there because you were expensive or on the front cover of a FIFA game. Also, the teams there should make up the top 32 teams in the world. So once the tournament is over, the winner should be ranked 1st, the runner up 2nd and so on. What's the point in having 32 teams from around the world in a world wide competition, having a world ranking but not making those teams the best 32 in the World?
Err did i say that. It was the luck of the draw. How does that give the best 32 countries. Their countries arent **** though are they, one finished second to Russia and one to Germany. You'd fancy both to beat Croatia, Iceland Greece Romania wouldnt you?
We all know that football politics plays a huge role in the World Cup, namely the number of nations from each continent qualifying. Even though it has by far the most qualifying spots, Europe still gets the short straw thanks to its strength in depth. Although the rankings are, I admit, crap and should be taken with a huge pinch of salt, it's interesting to note that in addition to the four teams who will miss out in the playoffs, the highest-ranked teams in the world already eliminated are... 26 Denmark 27 Czech Rep 28 Serbia 30 Slovenia 35 Scotland (up 28 places since last month!!) Before we finally get to a non-European: 36 Panama (Bit harsh on Venezuela if you ask me.)
I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of players beyond Hull City but Alfred Finbogasson? Come on admit it you got that name out of an Icelandic online phone directory. I've probably embarrassed myself there. Don't tell me he plays for Chelsea.
Finnbogason has been mentioned quite a lot on here. Mainly when we list strikers we should have gone after.
Been watching out for Icelands results all the way so far, really hope they make it and what an achievement it would be for a country with a total population of 320k. They've actually looked pretty good in the games I've seen, especially the 4-4 draw in Switzerland last month.
Well, you said great players should be there, which sounds like you meant that they should be there on merit. If that's not what you meant then fair enough, it's just what it sounded like. If Brazil don't qualify for Russia in 2018, it means that even though most of their squad would walk into any other country's, they just don't deserve to be there. Qualifiers are there to give every country a chance at getting to the World Cup. Otherwise we might as well just say that the top 32 teams in the World at the time of the tournament should enter. I think Tahiti are a great example. They qualified for the Confederations Cup, but many pundits and armchair experts were frowning upon them even being at the tournament, claiming that their stature devalued the games and made them all one sided. What a crock of **** (the games were a little one sided, but that's not the point). They were never going to say "no thanks, we don't want to play in an international tournament for the first time ever, against some of the world's greatest players". Their players were all part time (save for one who played in Greece), but it's every footballers dream to play for their country at a high level, so I'd love to see John Hartson, who was so critical of Tahiti being there, tell each one of those players that they shouldn't have bothered going.
Not pleased The main problem we've got is our defence right now. We can score goals for fun (7 goals against Germany in the 2 meetings), but at the same time it's like a cheap brothel in the defence. We'll let anything in! A team like Greece would have been perfect. They play with a low defence and miss that attacking threat, just hoping to grind out a 1-0 win etc. We would just punish them with Ibrahimovic and I can't see us losing over 2 legs against them. I didn't really fancy Croatia either, but they are way more constructive than Greece and would threaten us more. The thing with Ukraine is that I believe we're the better team, but the work morale they have is superb together with a decent squad=coin flip! Portugal is just......tough. They've got a really good team on the team sheet, but they tend to struggle putting it together. I do like that we'll begin away though! Portugal v Sweden France v Ukraine. France should just be a class above despite their problems. Greece v Romania. Greece have got the routine and should be able to win this. I reckon they will win the home leg and draw away. Iceland v Croatia. I really do cheer for Iceland here. They've got our former coach, Lars Lagerbäck, and the team they have is interesting! But as I said with France, they should just be a class above if they take the challenge seriously.
