TartanTyneArmy Posted April 17, 2018 Posted April 17, 2018 So the SFA have confirmed another friendly for the senior squad for next. Thought the idea of this Nations League stuff was to cut down on uncompetitive games? By my count Mcleish will have overseen 6 friendlies by Oct. Not really complaining here as it’s good opposition and we need the game time to work out the system before the full round of qualifiers. Just think UEFA have marketed the whole thing wrong to fans.
morrison Posted April 17, 2018 Posted April 17, 2018 1 hour ago, TartanTyneArmy said: So the SFA have confirmed another friendly for the senior squad for next. Thought the idea of this Nations League stuff was to cut down on uncompetitive games? By my count Mcleish will have overseen 6 friendlies by Oct. Not really complaining here as it’s good opposition and we need the game time to work out the system before the full round of qualifiers. Just think UEFA have marketed the whole thing wrong to fans. It's a free date because we're in a three-team group, no? Other groups have four and so need six match days; a three still needs six with one twiddling their thumbs - or playing Portugal - each match day.
Gordopolis Posted April 17, 2018 Posted April 17, 2018 Mandatory for three group teams to play friendlies on their free dates
lanky_ffc Posted April 18, 2018 Posted April 18, 2018 A chance to see Ronaldo in the flesh should get a few more bums on seats.
Savage Henry Posted April 18, 2018 Posted April 18, 2018 1 hour ago, lanky_ffc said: A chance to see Ronaldo in the flesh should get a few more bums on seats. Doubt he'll play. And Scotland will still lose. All this game shows me is that the SFA still don't seem to realise that losing friendlies is never good, whereas winning them is almost always good.
craigkillie Posted April 18, 2018 Posted April 18, 2018 We are required to play a friendly on this date and we are the only "non-elite" UEFA nation who have a free week.
MEADOWXI Posted April 18, 2018 Posted April 18, 2018 UEFA Nations League has 6 allocated Matchdays, a UEFA Matchday is three days of games, (THUR/FRI/SAT or SUN/MON/TUE) Matchday 1 - 6 - 8 Sept 2018 Matchday 2 - 9 - 11 Sept 2018 Matchday 3 - 11 - 13 Oct 2018 Matchday 4 - 14 - 16 Oct 2018 Matchday 5 - 15 - 17 Nov 2018 Matchday 6 - 18 - 20 Nov 2018 If you are in a group of 4 you get 6 competitive Nations Leagues games. Scotland are in a group of 3 so only have 4 competitive games, Mon 10 Sept - Albania (H) - (Matchday 2) Thur 11 Oct - Israel (A) - (Matchday 3) Sat 17 Nov - Albania (A) - (Matchday 5) Tue 20 Nov - Israel (H) - (Matchday 6) The rules state we have to play games in all Matchdays hence the Belgium friendly (Matchday 1 - Fri 7 Sept) and now the Portugal friendly (Matchday 4 - Sun 14 Oct), so wouldn't be an issue if we were in a group of 4. In League C (Scotland level there are 15 teams so 3 groups of 4 and 1 group of 3). In any of the other groups we would have no Friendlies this autumn. At least it the Sunday and not the Monday or Tuesday night, let's hope for Sunday afternoon so folk can get home at a decent time too.
Gordopolis Posted April 18, 2018 Posted April 18, 2018 3 hours ago, Savage Henry said: Doubt he'll play. And Scotland will still lose. All this game shows me is that the SFA still don't seem to realise that losing friendlies is never good, whereas winning them is almost always good. I wondered that myself, but then he appears to play every game he's available for (going by his 149 caps)
lanky_ffc Posted April 18, 2018 Posted April 18, 2018 2 hours ago, Gordopolis said: I wondered that myself, but then he appears to play every game he's available for (going by his 149 caps) Going by his Transfermarkt page, he's missed the friendly match after the last 3 tournaments, albeit through injury each time. Time will tell if he makes this one.
CM. Posted April 18, 2018 Posted April 18, 2018 Portugal have a nations league game against Poland on the 11th. If the squad they name for that game will be the same one that plays Scotland 3 days later I imagine Ronaldo would be in it (barring injury as pointed out already).
DrewDon Posted April 18, 2018 Posted April 18, 2018 Ronaldo will be there. He won't want to miss the opportunity to get Scott McKenna's jersey at full-time.
Guest DAVIDB69 Posted May 10, 2018 Posted May 10, 2018 Doubt he'll play. And Scotland will still lose. All this game shows me is that the SFA still don't seem to realise that losing friendlies is never good, whereas winning them is almost always good. Playing friendlies against better teams will only see where we need to improve. Don’t like mcleish but glad we are moving away from only the occasional friendly against diddies
forameus Posted May 11, 2018 Posted May 11, 2018 21 hours ago, DAVIDB69 said: Playing friendlies against better teams will only see where we need to improve. Don’t like mcleish but glad we are moving away from only the occasional friendly against diddies We need to have a mix though. Since the end of 2016 qualifying, we've played 8 friendlies. I'd say 2 of those fit the sort of team we want to be playing in these - Costa Rica and Hungary. Not ones we're fully expecting to beat, but challenging games that at least a few times out of 10 we could expect to do well. 3 of the 8 were very questionable decisions - Italy, France and the Netherlands. The latter, fair enough. They'd fallen on hard times, and we maybe could've got some luck against them, but the Italy and France ones were really, really stupid decisions. End of the season, no-one could be arsed, and we were essentially sparring partners getting knocked about by a champion. Hopefully now that friendlies are more enforced, the SFA can be a bit more proactive about getting the right opponents, rather than just picking up the munters that are left in the middle of the dance. I mean, we're a munter ourselves, but you've got to have standards.
GordonS Posted August 2, 2018 Posted August 2, 2018 On 18/04/2018 at 09:42, Savage Henry said: All this game shows me is that the SFA still don't seem to realise that losing friendlies is never good, whereas winning them is almost always good. Spot on. The key objective from friendlies should be improving our ranking. The money we can get from a glamorous friendly opponent is as nothing compared to the money we could get from qualifying for something.
Peppino Impastato Posted August 2, 2018 Posted August 2, 2018 8 hours ago, GordonS said: Spot on. The key objective from friendlies should be improving our ranking. The money we can get from a glamorous friendly opponent is as nothing compared to the money we could get from qualifying for something. Nah improving the team and giving our best young players as much exposure to good quality intl players as possible should be the aim. Don't give the slightest fk about the results. It's brilliant for a guy like McKenna to play Belgium, Portugal, Mexico and Costa Rica etc, such a good education for him. Will improve him much more much faster than games against Motherwell, and that will lead to us qualifying anyway.
forameus Posted August 3, 2018 Posted August 3, 2018 10 hours ago, Peppino Impastato said: Nah improving the team and giving our best young players as much exposure to good quality intl players as possible should be the aim. Don't give the slightest fk about the results. It's brilliant for a guy like McKenna to play Belgium, Portugal, Mexico and Costa Rica etc, such a good education for him. Will improve him much more much faster than games against Motherwell, and that will lead to us qualifying anyway. Yeah, when we're tumbling down the pots thanks to choosing shite friendlies, at least McKenna can say he touched Ronaldo once.
Peppino Impastato Posted August 3, 2018 Posted August 3, 2018 3 minutes ago, forameus said: Yeah, when we're tumbling down the pots thanks to choosing shite friendlies, at least McKenna can say he touched Ronaldo once. Not realistic champ. I can't be bothered engaging with idiots. I'm right, you don't know what you're talking about.
forameus Posted August 3, 2018 Posted August 3, 2018 You're fair working that "Pep's Shite" soundboard today, maybe need a wee bit of new material, you're starting to sound a bit stale.
Estragon Posted August 6, 2018 Posted August 6, 2018 On 02/08/2018 at 13:44, FifeArab said: Maybe slightly off topic, but is there any reason that there has been such a delay in announcing ticketing details for the Nations League games? I feel like these games have been scheduled for months, and here we are five weeks away. It seems like it would have been most sensible to get the tickets released straight after the world cup, capitalising on people's increased level of interest in international football - now the clubs are back in action, I don't know if it has quite the same appeal given people's opening stance of not understanding the mechanics of the competition.
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