There are some tremendous sides out there Sven Goran Eriksson is reluctant to talk Turkey. I'm not taking anything away from the boys who've played here, but we need our best XI if we're going to win games.". "Hopefully, next time we'll have a full-strength squad because when we've beaten the likes of Germany and Italy we've been at full strength. Deciding which side deserves to win by totalling the number of shots is a fairly crude method of calculation, but the lingering regret voiced by Mark Hughes, that his team had missed a chance to go top of the group, was tempered by the realisation that a patched-up Welsh side might have been thrashed."I don't think we did enough to win," Hartson added. The stadium announcer urged Wednesday's crowd to "believe in Wales" but on the pitch Wales looked like they needed to believe in themselves.Finland had 15 shots to two by Wales and forced twice the number of corners. There are some tremendous sides out there."Hartson said few teams, whatever their reputation, would relish coming to Cardiff, but the Millennium Stadium will only be truly intimidating if Wales perform as they did against Italy in October. Just look at where I'm playing football at the moment [Glasgow]."Sod's law, or Jones' law, will probably ensure that Wales end up in Seville rather than Scotland, and the Celtic striker admitted: "There's lots to fear. The Netherlands, after their 3-1 defeat in Prague, certainly will, and unless Northern Ireland can discover the art of scoring goals - let alone winning - in Greece next month, they will be joined by Spain.Although privately officials at the Football Association of Wales would yearn for a Slovenia or a Latvia, popular bravado demanded Scotland - a feeble, beatable shadow of the side which denied Wales a place in two World Cups - or more courageously, England."To get one of the home countries would be superb," John Hartson said "You know who I would like.
Wales would accept being runners-up and the talk was all about who they might meet in November's play-offs.There are some formidable sides likely to finish second. Nobody in Cardiff believed Italy would fail to overcome Azerbaijan at home, so next month's match with Serbia and Montenegro, which would mark the end of what has been, by ordinary standards, a hugely successful group campaign, was of limited relevance. The final whistle had shrilled an hour previously and already Welsh minds were turning not to next month's final European Championship qualifier but what lay beyond. Group tables were being anxiously studied. The Icelanders require their greatest win to deny Scotland a play-off spot, assuming Vogts' improving team defeat Lithuania in Glasgow.Ross can look ahead to tackling VfB Stuttgart in the Champions' League, and Rau to further evidence of the physicality of Scottish football Next week: Bayern v Celtic.. I'm glad it's over."Germany, deserved victors yet far from the indomitable force of old, still need a point against Iceland in Hamburg next month to seal automatic qualification. "I don't feel like the winner in this saga," he said of the "crisis" sparked by Saturday's draw in Iceland "The past few days have been a burden The pressure on the players was almost unbearable. I tried to tell the Scots to calm down, that it was only a game, but they didn't want to listen."No one in international football, least of all Germany, thinks it is only a game One only had to see V?r's drained features. Scotland had just halved a two-goal deficit with a breathtaking goal by Neil McCann.Rau, a 21-year-old from Bayern Munich, said: "That was the hardest, most physical match I've played in. But the tendency of their players to fall as if hit by a poisoned blow-dart at the merest brush of an opponent's body has been a trait of their football for too long, and is in itself disreputable.If Rau's role in Ross's first booking appeared cynical, the Rangers full-back's second foul on him was the height of folly, despite Rau's melodramatic response. The West Ham captain's out-of-shot exclamations interrupted a post-match television interview with Berti Vogts, the Scotland manager and former coach of Germany.With their place in the top two in Group Five assured and Rudi V?r's position looking more secure, Germany can afford to let the matter rest. But they were probably said in the heat of the moment, and will probably not lead to disciplinary action." Lee said the remarks were not mentioned in the report by the referee, Sweden's Anders Frisk, and added that the German FA had not complained.Dailly, arguably the Scots' best player on Wednesday, was incensed by what he saw as Tobias Rau's theatrical part in the 66th-minute sending-off of Maurice Ross. |
 |
 |
