Wednesday's Euro 2004 qualifiers

England v Liechtenstein.

First goal.

Up To And Including 21st Minute @1.8

it wont take that long ! .

paul
www.budgetbetting.co.uk

[PTDSEI]

Bit late sorry:

Lithuania 5-6
Slovakia 4-7
£10 double

(paddy powers)

Very poor so far. Just had £30 on Liechtenstein +3 at half-time. At this rate I will just be thankful if England win the game

Well, just calmed down a little.

I actually backed the HT/FT 1/2 with hard cash @ 40 on Betfair and I still cant believe it didnt win...

We led 1-0 at HT - completely undeserved. We were crap and were gifted a pen. 2nd half - still we are crap, Romania score twice and followingly have - I kid you not - 4 (!!!) one on ones with Thomas Sorensen which they miss (Mutu had 2 of those).

We then go on to score an equaliser 5 (!!!) minutes into extra time when a lucky ball falls at the feet of Martin Laursen of all people in the box.

There must be some higher power playing with me.....

Croatia lost but did have their chances,though,but unlike Belgium, didn't realize them and that's the whole story,both sides were pretty much equal with Belgiums player Van Damme making the difference in midfield.

Although Sonck scored twice,Belgium was very reserved in the first half and Croatia stood better on the pitch,although the result doesn't reflect that.
First goal was from free kick,little piece of art,but double-block was excellent as well, so Pletikosa didn't even saw the ball untill the last moment.
Simic equalised thankfully to Rapaic's "ball with eyes" from corner, but just before the end of a first half,unbelievable confusion in defense led to the second Belgium's goal.
In the second Belgium played just enough to preserve the lead and when Simunic got expelled it was all over.

I won't talk about the referee Poll,he was a little biased towards the host but that's a part of a game and players shouldn't react nervously to that,they have to be menthally strong and prepared.They were to nervous,though,even dirty at moments, so red card for Simunic and all the cards for that matter for Croatia were earned.So in crucial match against Bulgaria many key defense players will be missing.

Coach Baric can't change the players because he cant pull the new ones like rabbits from the hat,but the fact is that Croatia didn't show quality in midfield,in this 3-5-2 formation none of these 5 guys doesn't know how to bring the ball forward,libero N.Kovac wasn't capable of doing that either, so 2 strikers didn't have many usefull balls.

Suma sumarum,Belgium won fairly although a draw wouldn't be unfair outcome as well!

Cheers

S&M v Italy 1:1
Well,that's it!We are out,but nothing bad to say against our players.They have been fantastic.Italy was so bad that I'm very disapointed(and surprised).Vieri and Inzaghi were out the whole match(Inzaghi scored after our mistake and that's all),many,many chances for S&M,simply perfect play.Italians aren't even shadow of players from TV! :| I said that I won't be disapointed,but after this,I'm very disapointed! Sasa Ilic was magnificient again,like against Newcastle.At least,"Maracana" is still unbeatable place. :|

Anyway,good luck to Wales and Italy!

I share your pain Wales - Finland 1-1. (draw was my verdict, shaaaaaaait, why it have to came :b
It was so so so close, bloody gigs
Well, we will make it to final-tournament someday, please
Moose

There is S&M-Italy on EUROSPRT just now!

Well kojic I feel your pain. Just watched highlights of Serbias
game and looked like they were battering Italians.
From about 15 minutes shown, Italians had two chances
which one was converted to goal. The rest of it was Serbias
attack after attack. Even though I had my money on Italians,
I have to say that even draw was unfair score as Serbia should have won that match.
Once again unlucky mate

"If quitters never win, and winners never quit, then who is the fool who said, "Quit while you're ahead?"

System13, looks like we both have seen a different game, which is ofcourse why we all like football so much isnt it?

I saw a decent first half, in which Belgium had some more possession but Croatia was the most dangerous team then with fast counters : 2-1 @ halftime was a little more then we deserved.
Second half without the first 10 minutes Belgium was in my opinion clearly the better team and deserved another goal...
On the referee, I thought he was just giving the visitors advantage in most situations.
Another small remark, you probably mean Clement instead of Van Damme cuz he was the left back

Deserved win in the end although if we look at the two games that they played against eachother there is only one team that deserves the second place and that is Croatia.

Still with such a young belgian team, there is much hope for the future!!!

Ow yeah, System13, the croatian fans were absolutely fantastic, I changed my scarf and hat with one of those guys

You're totally right, Kojic, Italy we've seen yesterday was just a poor shadow of the team we are used to see. I don't know what happen, they were totally aware that Serbian would have play a in or out match, but instead Italians seemed scary and unorganized. Once again, as it happened a lot of time in the Trapattoni's era, thank you to gk Buffon.
By the other side,I've seen a great Serbia, fighting on every ball, and especially I've admired your n°10, who's that guy? Where does he play? I want him on my side, at Sampdoria!! As we have a long tradition with Serbian players (Jugovic, Mihajlovic, the infamous Jovicic and now Sakic and the "crazy horse" -as fans call him- Bratislav Zivkovic!)..

No10 was Djordjevic(Olympiakos).

[Ciderbottle]

Sorr lads made a completely wrong call on this game. I never seen worse. This team just seem to go from bad to worse.

Next thing they'll be asking me too play...

Ah well at least we're now world record holders:o

well,surely we saw a different game,qlpol,afterall you were on the stadium

[cluelessG]

A very happy Wednesday for me thanks to a couple of nice bets and the glorious win of Belgium against Croatia. So now Bulgaria has qualified for the EURO 2004 :hat and I must start looking for tickets and accommodation 8)
I hope we can return the favour to Belgium by getting a result in Croatia but our motivation gets a big question mark.

yeah Clueless,

what do you think, will Bulgaria try to do something in Zagreb?
It would be more then fair to play that game like the past ones, after all Belgium helped Bulgaria in the 1st spot

Oh how beautifull would life be if only Bulgaria took some points away in Zagreb and we went on to defeat Holland in the play-offs :smokin

No national team on World couldn't come to Zagreb and expect to get something without giving 100% of what they have.
I'd like to see in Zagreb full Bulgarian squad,but if they'll play unmotivated,they'll lose.And I doubt they'll find their motive in fighting for Belgium,though,only rightfull motive is to defend colours of the national team.I hope they'll do that by all means so nobody can't say afterwards that Croatia won because Bulgaria was unmotivated.

[cluelessG]

I agree with you, system13, we will need to be very motivated to get a point in Zagreb. We'll have a full squad there because we will need the tough match practice. Motivation will definitely not be 100%, maybe around 80%
One very important motivating factor is Otto Baric - he just keeps talking @#$! about Bulgaria before each game (at least that's what we read here) and it makes our boys angry - they'll want to teach him a lesson. Defending the colours of the national team is important only to a few Bulgarian players (Martin Petrov, Stan Petrov, Peev...) but all of them hate to lose... so they won't go down too easily. I hope for a tough match without injuries to both sides. Personally I had decided to travel to Zagreb for the match but in the current situation I probably will not go so I'll miss a nice trip.
One more thing, I heard on TV that we have a dreadful record of losses after having qualified for previous torunaments... but I have not checked that info.

just read today's newspaper and teletext...

Belgian coach Aimé Antheunis is going to have a little chat with Bulgarian coach Markov on the phone
Not to do any indecent proposal, just to motivate them a bit and see how things are going, made me laugh like hell
Meanwhile Markov is saying that they're going for a win in Croatia because they want the respect they deserve in Europe. But the most important reason is and i quote : " I want the Croatian coach Baric to resign. He's always talking @#%$ about the Bulgarian team and we gonna teach them a lesson." Also Bulgarian star Berbatov is saying the same thing
Should be an interesting game in Zagreb.

Meanwhile, in Holland things are going rough
Jan Mulder, ex-international is criticising the dutch squad and is attacking players very personal in the press. Things like Van Bommel couldn't even get called up for the Iceland squad if he should live there Very funny!!!