Minnows in the Euro 2008 qualifying

So, the score is 10 (ten) nil to Germany with 20 minutes left to play.

I ask you. What is the point in having such teams playing such games? Why not have a pre-qualifying to eliminate a lot of these hopeless causes and stop such meaningless competitive games where the only thing of note that could happen is a top player getting injured?

Unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable... A new record defeat for San Marino, eclipsing the 9 nil defeat at the hands of Spain...

EDIT: I'm sorry. It is 12 nil now...
EDIT: Now 13... Penalty to Germany. Lehmann went up to take it but the San Marino players pleaded with him to not increase the embarrassment so he listened to their pleas and Schneider put it in...

So. What has Germany actually learned from this experience?

Alan Hansen's view on the whole subject

The penalty was a joke ... so Lehmann steps up and the San Marino players ask him not to take it as it would be embarrasing ...

What?! And losing 13-0 isn't? The world can see they are a joke already.

If I was Lehmann I'd have had more balls and told 'em to **** off - play better or BE humiliated.

In fact, Lehmann was probably the least warmed up of the whole team ... SM probably had more chance of keeping it to 12 if they'd let him take it .. ha ha ha

Actually, I said "San Marino players pleaded with him to not increase the embarrassment". Obviously it was already an embarrassment.
They have scored 4 goals in 34 Euro qualifiers and conceded over 130. Ice Hockey teams do not concede so many.

All this is is 2 more meaningless fixture added to an already overcrowded fixture list. A real blunt pencil

San Marino holds the record for the fastest ever goal in FIFA history. In 1993 World Cup qualifier against England, Davide Gualtieri scored after just 8,3 seconds! OK, they lost 1-7 in the end, but hey, it's a record!

But it's true, these matches are a total waste of time. Beckenbauer just proposed the idea to let these amateur, or maybe semi-professional, national teams play a pre-qualification round before entering the real qualification.

Exactly Helterskelter. That is what many experts are now asking for. OK, so such victories improve your world rankings but we all know how this can give a false impression on the actual quality of a team...

Didn't they change the scoring system for the world rankings and by now have some kind of factor in there, that is gonna take into consideration the ranking of your opponent?

Well it must have been done quite recently then. I know one team that benefitted in the world rankings from games against meaningless opponents...

that sounds like the IRB rankings in rugby union.

Basically the IRB system means that any points a country earns from a victory are taken off the coutnry they played against. The number of points on offer per game is calculated using a factor that determines the relative ranking of the teams involved. If a highly ranked team beats a lowly ranked team the number of point that are swapped are lower than if the same lowly ranked teams beats the same highy ranked team. Teams that continously lose will continuously lose points. Teams than continously win against lowly ranked teams only, will only gain a small number of points. Only by actually beating teams in the top 10 can you hope to get into the top ten yourself. They also take into account home advantage. ie with two equally ranked teams, the away team can potentially win more points from the match than the home team. Also if you win by more than 15 points (i think it is 15) you get extra points. The crucial thing here is that points are swapped. Whatever points one team wins, the same points are taken away from the losing team.

Gibralter are the latest "nation/state/territory" to have applied to join UEFA. It is beyond a joke. Have Luxembourg actually improved to the point where they might qualify? No. Will they ever? No. All these teams should be forced to pre qualify and no more than 2 of them should get through to qualification proper.

I dont have a problem with the small teams.

Qualify to qualify? Nah, they have every right to play a part in these stages as we do.

Sure the likes of the Faroe Islands and San Marino will never qualify for a Championship, but we shouldnt deny them the right to do so. Occaisonally these teams do throw up a surprise result and either beat someone, or hold them to draws..eg Italy 1-1 Lithunania, that draw could be very costly for Italy.

one point made that i read on the beeb was that teams like Turkey and Greece were being thrashed in every game back in the 70's and now Greece were european champions and turkey have done quite well in recent comps as well. Only by regularly playing class oposition is a team able to improve.

I am not sure I totally agree with this. What do teams gain by being thrashed 13-0?

Granted there are teams that have the potential to improve and they should be given a chance. Others never will (Faroe Islands, Andorra, Monacco, etc etc).

Also bear in mind results like 13-0 are very, very, very RARE. This beat a record that was 23 years old!!

Why not? Even teams that have to pre-qualify have an equal chance of qualifying as before. With pre-qualifying games they play teams of similar standard and then when they prove they are good enough by winning pre-qualifying, they step up a level.

back to comparing to rugby union again. The European qualifying teams do this as well. teams like Germany play in four rounds of pre-qualifying, giving them valuable match experience and building them up slowly before advancing to the next level. Italy, the only 6 Nations team which has to qualify through this route, only starts the process in the last round of qualifying. In rugby a small on-field superiority can lead to a massive score-line difference. There would be nothing to be gained by either team by letting Germany play Italy in a qualifyier.

Same thing for Davis Cup tennis. The lower nations haver to advance to the world group via regional groups.

If you are against pre-qualifying, then by the same logic you should be against qualifying as well.

another thing i think would be quite good to encourage the teams that always just miss out on qualification would be to have a "World Trophy" where the next best 24-32 teams play. This would give them additional competative games and also gives their fans something to take part in.

Lithuania is twice the size of Wales! Not such a small minow...


Gotta point there!


Something like the "loosers cup"?

I think the problem of the tiny minnows is this; the bread and butter of footie is at club level. The managers don't like their players playing big internationals, let alone small ones and friendlies. We've seen 'arrangements' made between the club and national managers to ensure that Player X gets a run-out... but don't get injured, so that we are now going down the route that eg. top Premiership team managers have seen the Germany v San Marino scoreline and must be thinking to themselves that international squads can pick Championship players, rather than the top boys, to avoid injury and have a bit of a rest... because they aren't really required. Is this the farce we want?

well, no. It is the same as having a Champions League and a UEFA Cup (or the Heineken Cup and European Challenge Cup in rugby). The complete losers don't qualify for either. At the moment there are many many teams, especially from Europe, who never qualify for either the World or the European Cup but are far better than many other teams that do qualify. Why should these teams miss out on regular international tournaments.

I concur with the Sinster, the major problem with all these new teams from the east arriving and having huge qualifying groups is that the people who pay, train and own the contracts of all these players ie the clubs are getting increasingly pissed off with meaningless internationals robbing them of their players.

Not so long ago a good few managers were moaning about their African players buggering off for the African Nations Cup matches and vowing not to sign any more players from the dark continent.

It's not a giant leap to foresee that before long the clubs are going to demand that EUFA / FIFA take some action to limit games between players with no boots as it is hurting base level revenue to the people who pay the wages.

Turkey and Greece are countries with sizeable populations. They were bound to improve. The likes of Luxembourg, Andorra, San Marino, Liechtenstein, Faroes and fucking Gibralter if they get in have populations that number in the thousands. These countries will not improve and shouldn't be allowed to particpate in qualifiers proper. They should have their own group to pre qualify and only one should get any further.

And that will be Luxembourg more than likely. So let them in and kick the others out. Their players can try out for France, Spain, Italy, Austria or Switzerland respectively. I doubt any of them will make those squads so why should we waste time playing them at all today?

Actually if I remember correctly it was the last game in a qualifying campaign and England needed to win by 7 goals and have other results go their way to qualify (it might have been the 1994 world cup). The pub I watched it in seemed to have a lot of San Marino fans in it after they scored!

San Marino's Euro Qualifying record:

Pld W D L GF GA
35 0 0 35 4 156

I dunno... But without having an in depth look at results from these 35 games I have to say that I do not see an awful lot of improvement there...