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Hello, this is “Football with Gia Saralidze” for VK,
we are talking about the most important and interesting events in the football world.
Today we are again going to speak about the qualifiers for the 2014 World Cup.
We have already spoken about the Russian team, the Azerbaijani team and the Portuguese team.
Now let’s discuss other interesting games which are worthy of attention,
in particular, the match with the participation of the Armenian team.
After the qualifiers of Euro-2012, in which the Armenian team,
young but well-balanced and quite good in attack, has done quite well,
the expectations related to this team in the current qualifiers were rather high.
However, the Armenian team has not met these expectations yet.
First, they lost to the Bulgarian team.
Second, they lost again in the match with the Italian team on their own pitch; the score was 1-3.
Nevertheless, I cannot say that it was very easy to win for the Italian team.
Firstly, in the first half the teams tied the game,
and the score was 1-1, although the Italians opened the score with Pirlo’s penalty.
But after a great goal by Mkhitaryan the first half ended tied 1-1.
Probably the fans of the Armenian team expected the team to struggle for a victory against the Italians.
Indeed, there were a couple of good moments for the Armenian team, but it did not use them.
The Italians, on the contrary,
showed their professionalism and probably their experience and self-confidence.
They managed to score two goals using the most convenient moments;
as a result, they won a victory which allowed them to remain the leading team in their group.
After the defeat of the Armenian team, its ranking became much worse.
In another group, the Georgian team, another team from the Caucasus,
played in an away match with the Finnish team.
We should recognize that the beginning of the qualifiers for the Georgian team was quite successful.
The Georgians managed to beat the Belarusian team, a very strong team,
a game with which was quite difficult for the French team, on the Georgian pitch.
Nevertheless, now the Spanish team has shown that, though the Belarusian team is strong,
the Spanish team is stronger; it beat the Belarusian team by a significant score.
As for the Georgian team, it could get as many points as the Spanish team and the French team.
However, it wasn't until the second half, when Kashia scored a goal and opened the score.
In three minutes one of the Finnish players was removed, and there were only ten Finnish players;
of course, the Georgians should have mobilized and won a victory,
but the Finns responded to them by scoring a goal.
After that, the game became quite difficult;
though there were only ten Finns on the pitch,
they had a lot of good moments to attack the goal of the Georgians.
A draw was untenable for both teams, because they wanted to get three points.
It is clear that the Georgian team, being in the majority, wanted to get maximum results.
The Finns, in turn, thought that they were a team of higher class than the Georgians,
and they also wanted to win.
So the game consisted of mutual attacks, and both the teams could win, but, as a result,
the game ended in a 1-1 draw.
Both teams rather lost two points than got one, if we look at their rankings.
On the other hand, the struggle is probably for third place in the rankings,
if we speak about some prospects of these teams,
because it is difficult to imagine that they will manage to pose a serious challenge
to the Spanish team or the French team, which are also in this group.
This group is too strong, so there are only local struggles there,
though they are quite interesting.
Rather suddenly, Turkey lost the match to the team of Romania on its pitch.
Before this game, despite serious problems which the Turkish team faced after Guus Hiddink left the team,
experts gave this team some time for building relations with the new manager,
but this defeat was quite painful for the Turkish team and their ambitions related to the 2014 World Cup.
I think it will be quite difficult for the Turks to pose a challenge to the other teams of the group
– for example, there is the Dutch team amongst them.
By the way, the next match will be held between the Romanian team and the Dutch team,
and if the Romanians manage to take points from the Dutch,
we will be able to speak about the leading or at least prominent position of Romania in European football
after a long hiatus.
I would like to touch upon one more result of the qualifiers:
this is the defeat of the Irish team on its pitch by the German team,
beating the Irish team 6-1.
Of course, the Irish team is not the strongest one,
but, firstly, it has participated in Euro-2012,
secondly, this team is usually strong and vigorous on its pitch, always playing in attack.
The way the Germans beat the Irish team simply provokes,
on the one hand, respect for the Germans and, on the other hand,
perplexity concerning the “passivity” of the Irish team.
The young players of the German team have done very well.
This team has significantly changed recently.
After Euro-2012 there are already new players who have proved themselves in Ukraine and in Poland.
Of course, the German team has made a deep impression on everyone.
As a result, the German team, which already plays in the final matches of the European and World Cups,
may get a leading position, probably the current position of the Spanish team.
The young players are doing well, and players considered to be veterans are still in full vigour.
Every time, the play of this team is quite impressive.
There are matches like the game between the German team and the Italians during Euro-2012,
where the Germans seemed to be, I would say,
weak-willed and did not have any possibility of attacking the Italians in the semi-final.
Perhaps this can happen to everyone, including teams with a lot of young players.
Well, these are the most important events I have time to mention.
We shall carefully watch the coming qualifiers for the 2014 World Cup
and discuss the most important and interesting events.
See you later on VK.