UEFA Group F - March 2021 predictions

[Malcolm]

We should be winning this group.  Those of you settling for second, do you really think qualifying via a playoff will be easier?  Denmark have a population same as us... we should be competing for first.

[vanderark14]

59 minutes ago, Malcolm said:

We should be winning this group.  Those of you settling for second, do you really think qualifying via a playoff will be easier?  Denmark have a population same as us... we should be competing for first.

Should we? We've barely competed for 2nd in the last decade and you think we should be winning a group. Bizarre 

[Malcolm]

12 minutes ago, vanderark14 said:

Should we? We've barely competed for 2nd in the last decade and you think we should be winning a group. Bizarre 

if we have aspirations to be at a World Cup, yes.  The point I am making is that our game has fallen so far we are blithely accepting a team like Denmark, whom in my day we would expect to beat comfortably home and away, are going to walk this group. Sad.

[vanderark14]

2 minutes ago, Malcolm said:

if we have aspirations to be at a World Cup, yes.  The point I am making is that our game has fallen so far we are blithely accepting a team like Denmark, whom in my day we would expect to beat comfortably home and away, are going to walk this group. Sad.

What happened in your day or my day doesn't matter. 

What matters is the here and now. We are improving slowly and you have to set realistic targets. I'd take 2nd in world Cup qualifying and playing at the euros as a first step to regular qualifying again. 

These last 3 matches were a reality check, there's a huge amount of work to do to get back to where we want to be but I am more confident that we can achieve this compared to the last 2 decades.

[Toepoke]

23 minutes ago, Malcolm said:

if we have aspirations to be at a World Cup, yes.  The point I am making is that our game has fallen so far we are blithely accepting a team like Denmark, whom in my day we would expect to beat comfortably home and away, are going to walk this group. Sad.

Back in the day the Danish team was full of part timers plus Laudrup senior (they still managed to beat us in the Euro 72 qualifiers).

They are now ranked 12th in the world and their squad is filled with players from the top flights in England, Germany, Italy and Spain. 

[Caledonian Craig]

2 hours ago, Malcolm said:

We should be winning this group.  Those of you settling for second, do you really think qualifying via a playoff will be easier?  Denmark have a population same as us... we should be competing for first.

It is not a case of people settling for second. It is people being realistic enough to realise Denmark are a level above us as recent records, results and rankings clearly show. Even with just three games gone in the group it is evident. I cannot see us thrashing Moldova 8-0 and we drew in Israel whilst Denmark have already gone to Tel Aviv and won quite comfortably whilst we drew. And last night they went to Austria and demolished them 4-0 whilst we had to settle for a 2-2 draw AT HOME to Austria. The clues are glaring.

[bonzo]

Would we take another 5 points from the next 3 games?

[Caledonian Craig]

4 minutes ago, bonzo said:

Would we take another 5 points from the next 3 games?

I think the onus is on us to pick up seven points. A draw in Denmark, a home win V Moldova and a win away in Austria. Do that and we go a long way to securing second spot. If we only pick up five points (although not disastrous) it leaves us in a right scrap for second with our nemesis still to come to Hampden which could tilt qualification in Austria's favour.

[Toepoke]

16 minutes ago, bonzo said:

Would we take another 5 points from the next 3 games?

I don't think coming away from Copenhagen and Vienna with draws in the space of a week would be a bad outcome at all.

[Orraloon]

19 minutes ago, bonzo said:

Would we take another 5 points from the next 3 games?

I'd bite you hand off for that right now. 

[Orraloon]

4 minutes ago, Toepoke said:

I don't think coming away from Copenhagen and Vienna with draws in the space of a week would be a bad outcome at all.

It would be more like us to beat Denmark then draw the next two. 

[PASTA Mick]

2 hours ago, bonzo said:

Would we take another 5 points from the next 3 games?

That would be a very good outcome in my opinion.

We'd still be in with a shout regardless of the results in the other games and then have a run of Israel (H), Faroes (A) and Moldova (A) before taking on Denmark at home in the last match.  

[weekevie04]

Israel beat Austria in the last campaign, so ideally the same again and for Austria to beat them in Vienna. 

The group is fairly wide open. Israel will also be fancying second as well, and maybe the Austrians will look at the 2-2 with us as a good result after last night. 

I thought at the start whoever wins in the Faroes, Israel and Moldova will win the group. Denmark have won in Israel and Austria, so they are firm favourites to win this now. 

5 pts in the next set of fixtures - Austria, Denmark (a) and Moldova (h) would put us in a decent position.

Anyways, I reckon there's a lot of games to go and us getting a draw in Tel Aviv might actually end up being a decent result in the long run - if for second place - 

 

[Tartan Chris]

5 hours ago, Malcolm said:

if we have aspirations to be at a World Cup, yes.  The point I am making is that our game has fallen so far we are blithely accepting a team like Denmark, whom in my day we would expect to beat comfortably home and away, are going to walk this group. Sad.

When was that? They won a major tournament in the early 90s and since then made knock outs of 2002 world cup, euro 2004, qualified for world cup 2010 and euro 2012 and at last world cup lost on penalties in last 16 to team who made the final in the end.

Their record is comfortably better than Russia in last 30 years who were a comfortable second in the last qualification group.

Much poorer to finish behind likes of Slovakia and ROI in last few campaigns than Denmark imo.

[Tartan Chris]

3 hours ago, bonzo said:

Would we take another 5 points from the next 3 games?

Easily.

Would means wins over Israel (surely), Moldova and Faroes gets to 19 points. Think Denmark will be qualified by final game so will be dead rubber for them at Hampden so potential to get at least a draw from that.

[romanticscot]

5 points in the next three games would be a great achievement and I would.take it, unbeaten in 6 games in the campaign. It's going to be difficult. Interestingly I noticed last night as I was studying the fixtures is there is only one more triple header the rest are back to doubles.

[gkm_vancouver]

Bookies now have our chances of making 2022 at 7% compared to 12.5% before the Austria game. We may be unbeaten but experience has shown that relying on other results going against seeding has never gone for us. We'll need to get better results to be able to make 2nd spot. Lets hope the gradual improvements keep coming.

[Orraloon]

6 hours ago, Malcolm said:

if we have aspirations to be at a World Cup, yes.  The point I am making is that our game has fallen so far we are blithely accepting a team like Denmark, whom in my day we would expect to beat comfortably home and away, are going to walk this group. Sad.

You must be going back to the 70s with that one. Denmark have been better than us since the mid 80s if not before. They started to come good around the same time as we went into decline.

[mccaughey85]

8 hours ago, Malcolm said:

We should be winning this group.  Those of you settling for second, do you really think qualifying via a playoff will be easier?  Denmark have a population same as us... we should be competing for first.

with our current squad 1st place was always unrealistic. second is an hard but achievable goal considering our performances in the first three games. you are deluding yourself if you think we should be winning this group.

[romanticscot]

12 minutes ago, mccaughey85 said:

with our current squad 1st place was always unrealistic. second is an hard but achievable goal considering our performances in the first three games. you are deluding yourself if you think we should be winning this group.

I had to come to terms over the last few days that winning the group was a wild aspiration, I do think that in isolation it is more feasible to do that than having two playoff games in a week and winning.  I think second place and play-off qualification would be great, what happens from then depends on the draw.  We have to secure 2nd place and if we get it then I think its fair to say progress that is measurable is being made.  The football landscape has been changing since the mid 90's and we will never be a football superpower qualifying automatically for World Cup's ever again -  EURO's possibly.  The UEFA sector has grown with the end of Yugoslavia and the USSR, an expanding World Cup helps but only marginally.    

[mccaughey85]

2 minutes ago, romanticscot said:

I had to come to terms over the last few days that winning the group was a wild aspiration, I do think that in isolation it is more feasible to do that than having two playoff games in a week and winning.  I think second place and play-off qualification would be great, what happens from then depends on the draw.  We have to secure 2nd place and if we get it then I think its fair to say progress that is measurable is being made.  The football landscape has been changing since the mid 90's and we will never be a football superpower qualifying automatically for World Cup's ever again -  EURO's possibly.  The UEFA sector has grown with the end of Yugoslavia and the USSR, an expanding World Cup helps but only marginally.    

i think qualifying via the play offs is possible. lots of beatable teams will finish second, we just need to finish second and get a favourable draw.

[scotlad]

9 hours ago, Malcolm said:

We should be winning this group.  Those of you settling for second, do you really think qualifying via a playoff will be easier?  Denmark have a population same as us... we should be competing for first.

The fact is though, they have better players in most positions and certainly better strength in depth.  Why this should be when, like you say, their population is a similar size as ours, and we're both relatively wealthy, developed northern European countries, where football is the main sport and is played professionally is the real crux of the issue.

Their population might be similar to ours in terms of numbers but is it similar in other ways?  I'll admit, I've only been to Denmark a couple of times but I remember thinking there seemed to be more young people and folk in general just seemed healthier.  That's been my take whenever I've visited most other European countries, if I'm honest. 

Sport doesn't exist in a bubble; societal factors are bound to affect the quality and quantity of football players we produce.

[PASTA Mick]

Looking at my initial predictions, I clearly underrated Denmark. 

• 25 March 2021
  • Israel v Denmark - Draw
  • Moldova v Faroe Islands - Draw
  • Scotland v Austria - Draw
• 28 March 2021
  • Denmark v Moldova -Denmark win
  • Austria v Faroe Islands - Austria win
  • Israel v Scotland - Draw
• 31 March 2021
  • Austria v Denmark - Draw
  • Moldovia v Israel - Israel win
  • Scotland v Faroe Islands - Scotland win

Looking to September -

• 1 September 2021
  • Denmark v Scotland - Denmark win
  • Faroe Islands v Israel - Israel win
  • Moldova v Austria - Austria win
• 4 September 2021
  • Faroe Islands v Denmark - Denmark win
  • Israel v Austria - draw
  • Scotland v Moldova - Scotland win
• 7 September 2021 
  • Austria v Scotland - Austria win
  • Denmark v Israel - Denmark win
  • Faroe Islands v Moldova - Faroe Islands win

Which would leave it looking like this -

1. Denmark - 18 pts (Moldova (A), Austria (H); Faroes (H), Scotland (A)). 
2. Austria - 11 pts (Faroes (A), Denmark (A); Israel (H), Moldova (H)). 
3. Scotland - 8 pts (Israel (H), Faroes (A); Moldova (A), Denmark (H)). 
4. Israel - 8 pts (Scotland (A), Moldova (H); Austria (A), Faroes (H)). 
5. Faroes - 4 pts (Austria (H), Scotland (H); Denmark (A), Israel (A)). 
6. Moldova - 1 pt (Denmark (H), Israel (A); Scotland (H), Austria (A)). 

[ceudmilefailte]

Looks doable when you put it like that but it does rely on Austria not winning in Israel although we cancel that out by not losing in Austria.

[PASTA Mick]

49 minutes ago, ceudmilefailte said:

Looks doable when you put it like that but it does rely on Austria not winning in Israel although we cancel that out by not losing in Austria.

There are 4 games between the top 4 in September. Each of the 4 play 2 of the others. Its a big month. 

Whilst Denmark are storming ahead, I wouldn't bet on them winning all 10 matches. We need to make sure we get any points they drop.