EURO PREDICTIONS
Predictions for European Championship Qualifiers: Tuesday September 7th 2010
Hello everyone. Welcome to the second part of my European Championship preview article of the season. Well I correctly predicted that England & the Republic of Ireland would win on Friday but Northern Ireland surprised me by winning 1-0 away. By all accounts it was a backs to the wall away win. Well done lads. Scotland managed a 0-0 draw away after I said they would lose & Wales lost 1-0 after I said they would win. We now move on to the second round of games. Wales & Northern Ireland aren’t playing so that leaves three games. Hopefully I should be able to get all three games correct to boost my average.
Just a last note regarding the "News of the World" & "The Sunday Mirror" who have printed this Sunday details (alleged) of Wayne Rooney’s personal life. Great timing lads. These people are really not on our side are they? They just do so much damage.
Good Luck everyone.
Match 1: Switzerland - England: (Group G): (Tuesday September 7th: 7.45pm):
England won on Friday as I predicted but I didn’t expect them to win so well in their 4-0 thrashing of a very poor Bulgarian side. Well done Defoe for his hat trick. I wouldn’t read too much into this result as it says more about Bulgaria than it does England. England now face a Swiss side that they last played in a competitive game in Euro 2004 when England won 3-0 thanks to a brace from Wayne Rooney. Switzerland have managed to qualify for the last four International Tournaments. As already mentioned they qualified for Euro 2004 but went out at the group stages after only failing to gain the one point. At Germany in the World Cup of 2006 they fared better by qualifying out of their group & only going out to Ukraine on Penalties after a 0-0 draw. This was only Switzerland’s second ever appearance at a World cup after their first in 1994 in the USA. They Qualified for Euro 2008 as co-hosts but only won one game to go out at the group stages. Finally at the last World cup this summer they caused one of the shocks of the tournament by beating Spain 1-0 in their opening game but it was a bit of a fluke as was proven by Spain winning the World cup & Switzerland going home after failing to win a game after that victory. This is Switzerland’s first game in the group as they played a friendly on Friday night against Australia. The game ended 0-0 which should give England heart for Tuesday. I think England will win but it might be close as teams tend to raise their game against England & besides England aren’t that good despite Friday nights victory. I will be watching down the pub, which is probably a good idea when you are watching England as the beer takes away the pain. Ha.
Result Prediction: England to win
Score Prediction: Switzerland 1 England 2
Match 2: Scotland - Liechtenstein: (Group I): (Tuesday September 7th: 8pm):
Scotland started with a 0-0 draw on Friday night. To be fair to Scotland their opponents decided to go for a draw from the first whistle & Scotland were simply not good enough it seems to break them down. They now face Liechtenstein at home in a game they should win & to be honest they need to. Liechtenstein lost their first group game 4-0 at home to World & European champions Spain. Liechtenstein didn’t play their first competitive game until 1981. Their history is not too good. They have never qualified for a tournament or even come close but they have improved in recent years since their first competitive win in 1998 against Azerbaijan when they won 2-1 in a UEFA Championship qualifying game. In 2006 they drew a World Cup qualifier against Portugal away 2-2. An amazing result for them. In the last couple of years they have managed 2 victories against Luxembourg & a 3-0 win against Iceland. On the other side of the coin they are the only side to lose to San Marino when they lost 1-0 in 2004. Can’t see a shock here but Liechtenstein will be competitive & it might take Scotland a while to break them down. 3-0 then but Scotland’s big games in this group are obviously against Spain.
Result Prediction: Scotland to win
Score Prediction: Scotland 3 Liechtenstein 0
Match 3: Republic of Ireland - Andorra: (Group B): (Tuesday September 7th: "Dublin" - 7.45pm):
The Republic had a great start to their group campaign by winning in Cyprus 1-0 (as I predicted). They now face Andorra who they should beat which will of course give them 6 points & top position in the group. Andorra only played their first game in 1996 when they lost 6-1 at home to Estonia. This result set the pattern for the future. They have suffered some heavy defeats including 8-1 to the Czech’s in 2005 & 7-0 to Croatia the following year. They have only ever won three games, two of them in friendly games. Andorra very rarely score more than one goal per game even if they do manage to find the net. Andorra lost their opening game 2-0 at home to Russia & it’s not true that the Russians brought on their T34 tank as a second half sub to cement the result. Ha. The republic will win this game & to be honest the only question is how many goals they will score? The big games like Scotland will come later when they play Russia home & away.
Result Prediction: Eire to win
Score Prediction: Ireland 3 Andorra 0
That’s all until The end of the week folks when I will bring you the next round of the Premiership.
Douglas Martin
5th September 2010
dap martin@hotmail.co.uk
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