Tony Cascarino’s Guide to the Republic of Ireland, England, Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland Opening World Cup Qualifiers
There are a few tricky encounters for the British and Republic of Ireland sides this weekend as the 2010 World Cup qualifiers begin. Here’s my views on who to back on Footy 15 this weekend.
I would go for a draw on the Macedonia v Scotland game at the weekend. I’ve been over to Macedonia and played there on 2 or 3 occasions and the home crowd are quite a patriotic lot. It’s a strange, eerie atmosphere to play a game in and from personal experience the home side can actually be very difficult to play on their own patch. However, when they have to travel to your place the game seems to be easy. Macedonia are a real contrast home and away so Scotland may find it a far trickier place to go to, to get a result. The Scots will have to produce the kind of form they showed in their last campaign when they so nearly qualified for Euro 2008.
I have to go with Wales this weekend because it’s hard enough to pick a winner let alone say Azerbaijan. Seriously though, this may be one match to cover yourself on Footy 15 with a home win and a draw for £2 as the Football Pools will give you a free £2 bet so you get twice the chance. I personally think John Toshack is trying to get a younger team together and they have got some good players. Unfortunately for them they’ve lost Craig Bellamy as West Ham won’t release him which is a blow but I still think they’ve got a good few young talents there that they are persisting with so hopefully they’ll improve. 
I saw them against Georgia just recently and they weren’t that bad as they were gradually gaining confidence even though they lost the game so Wales should have just enough to win this one.
In terms of Northern Ireland’s trip to Slovakia I would back David Healy to get them a goal and a win. Also I am going with the Republic to win against Georgia as it’s being played at a neutral ground which I think is a big advantage. Trapattoni has said he wants to make Ireland a far harder team to beat so I am backing the Republic to get this campaign off to a flyer. He has brought people like Glenn Whelan into the squad, he’s bringing people in who can win the ball back and pass it to a certain level as well. I think Trapattoni is going to turn Ireland into a team that is particularly difficult to beat plus the fact he has people like McGeady and Keane though Duff won’t be there who can make a difference in front of goal. I
think this is a great game for them to go and win especially at a neutral ground.
England will win against Andorra at a canter, if they can’t win in Andorra we may as well shut the door and that’s it, done and dusted. I don’t think the choice of the forwards in the squad matter too much for the likes of Andorra, Capello needs to get his team right for the Croatia match. The forwards picked for this game have been given a golden opportunity. If it was me I would want to play in this game as I know I would get chances and England are going to win it. It’s all about how many they win by so as a striker you want to be starting in this one. I hope Fabio is very ambitious and plays at least two forwards because I think the Andorrans will never be able to handle the quality of those players plus if England play it like a home game they should be aiming to try to get as many as they possibly can.
Good luck your Footy 15 predictions this weekend.
Tony
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Tags: England, footy 15, Northern Ireland, Premier 10, republic of Ireland, Scotland, Tony Cascarino, wales, World Cup qualifiers
