Euro 2012 Qualifiers

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lolfrance

Though to be fair most of their team has less than 10 international caps.

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Does anyone have any idea how to buy tickets to any of the qualification matches? Scotland is coming to play the Czech Republic in Prague in October and I'd like to go. Is there a UEFA website for this?

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My Czech roommate was pretty depressed about last night's game.

Poor Kazakhstan.

The Norwegian goal against Portugal is hilarious, by the way: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqtIwkNkHfg&feature=player_embedded

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France.

The match has showed that now we have several possible good combinations for middle and attack. It still needs construction and automatisms, but something could be on its way...

And sometimes life is ironic to the point that after Romania we play Luxembourg.

From what I caught of the game (the last twenty or so minutes) the "new" French team really impressed me. Also seeing almost everyone in the stadium waving the tricolore was neat visually.

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That's the second 4-4 tie of the qualifiers so far! Nice to see after the low-scoring World Cup.

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Germany won. Somehow. Didn't deserve to.

By relying on Mario Gomez to score twice, including a winning 90th minute goal. LOL

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Germany's not playing in top form, but to say that Azerbaijan is playing at their level is a stretch.

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2-1 is probably a fair score.

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So in the end Germany playing like crap is still decidedly better than Azerbaijan, which is not a very radical conclusion.

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Meanwhile, in the preview for 2014's final match, Germany dominated Brazil and beat them for the first time since 1993 with a bunch of Bundesliga 20 year olds.

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In somewhat European related news, Brazil has apparently cancelled their upcoming Friendlies with Spain and Italy, instead opting for Costa Rica, Egypt and a few others. Sounds like they're in trouble.

Hahah, that's hilarious.

Unfortunately we all know that the Brazil will be good again by the time 2014 comes around and they'll win.

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For the first time ever maybe, the highest ranked and lowest ranked FIFA countries will be playing each other today, when the Dutch face poor little San Marino.

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damn, that Belgium result sucks.

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Belgium will be a strong team in 2014 and on. Their team is young but very talented, and another few years should be good for them.

Glad to see Germany as the first team to qualify though. It was especially nice to see Götze and Schürle score goals after coming on.

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There are a handful of friendlies today as well, including Belgium-USA and Poland-Germany, both of which should be good.

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There are probably 25.000 Turks in the Vienna stadium and 20.000 Austrians or so ...

It's like when USA plays Mexico at home...

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I wonder what language the Belgium players speak to each other during games...

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Although, come to think of it, I think Holland is guaranteed best runner-up even if they were to lose the remaining games.

Yeah, Netherlands qualified because even if the Swedes tie them, they're still best runner up. So it's Italy, Germany, Holland, Ukraine and Poland as of today.

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Turkey needs to lose, Belgium needs to win.

Armenia should beat Macedonia, but Ireland and Russia doing poorly in their away games will be helpful too.

I'll be cheering on Italy (gross), so that Estonia still has a chance of 2nd place.

Don't really have a preference between Switzerland and Montenegro, though Montenegro is apparently resting players tomorrow who are a yellow card away from suspension for the game against Switzerland on Tuesday, which should decide second place.

Scotland's obviously not beating Spain, so the Czechs should hopefully be through to the playoffs.

Keeping Portugal out is going to be tricky, unless Iceland somehow upsets them. But maybe Denmark can win the group by defeating them at home? Cross your fingers.

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The Czechs actually lost to Lithuania at home at the very beginning (can't believe I forgot, I was watching the game on Czech TV at the time!) so yeah, beating Lithuania isn't assured, you're right.

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The German team has quite a few Muslims (Khedira, Özil at least) as well, let's not forget.

Very happy about Armenia's showing today. They've done their part; now it's up to Slovakia and Andorra.

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Reminder to everyone: teams finishing on equal points will be ranked on head-to-head record before anything else. Might be important in a number of groups.

UEFA's use of head-to-head record instead of goal difference is really stupid.

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Vintage display of German counter-attacking precision, 1-0.

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Spain's scored again, 2-0 after less than 30 minutes.

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Reminder to everyone: teams finishing on equal points will be ranked on head-to-head record before anything else. Might be important in a number of groups.

UEFA's use of head-to-head record instead of goal difference is really stupid.

No, it's the better method as it compares how well the teams did against each other and not how good they were at beating up the minnows.

It may be more fair, but it ultimately makes the outcome less exciting/fluid and fails to promote attacking play, unlike deciding by goal difference.