Slovakia v Ireland, Thursday, 26th March 2020

Did someone say the magic words

Special Train

Slovakia

Away Fans 

DING - DING - DING - DING - DING 

We have a winner, please email john.delaney@fai.ie to claim your prize 

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

Don’t know what I was thinking when I typed that second sentence 😂

Not solely directed at yerself, but the amount of utter uninformed nonsense that appeared on various threads in relation to the playoffs, whether that be format, potential opponents, possible dates of games and possible venues was shocking on here. Sections of the NL thread are a joke. Hadn't time to go through them all and delete. 

To start with, I think most would acknowledge it was a very confusing format/system/competiton, certainly in comparison to the last few playoffs. The NL thread, fellas like Yoco, Flaghunter, Superdave and meself to name just a few put in a little bit of time & effort into understanding the whole fcukin confusing mess, and generally were able to explain it, from identifying potential opponents a few months out, to likley positioning in playoff paths and all the rest that went with it. 

After any match day, loads would just post giving their opinion on what might happen, based on fcuk all. ''If we finish third in group, so we can't draw Wales in playoff'' type thing. Even today, there has been more than one post stating UEFA ''could move the playoff dates'' even though they confirmed the exact dates a few weeks ago. 

Apologies if it seems like I'm picking on the above post, but just to go through it; 

''Nobody knows where in Slovakia it will be''.  

Hmm. I'm calling bollix. They played all their games so far in Trnava, they opened a new stadium in Bratislava, 30 minutes away. I'd say fair chance it will be in one of those. It could also be Zilina maybe, but the closest airports are still Bratislava/Vienna. It's 2007 since they played anywhere else (Dubnica, a 9500k capacity stadium- I'm chancing ruling that one out)

UEFA didn't state anything of the sort- some media sources claimed they were examining the possibilities of maximising host's chances, it was less reported that most interpreted this as relating to the home venues for finals. Put up a link there to the Uefa statement if you can find it. Ireland's playoff path was confirmed last night, before you posted the above. 

I'm highlighting this for one reason, Its very easy for relatively experienced fans to read this type of crap and recognise it for the crap it is, but there are lads following us away maybe only a few years, may not have been at any previous playoff, may not have had the experience of trying to plan a cheap route in little time before Mick Ruinair wakes up, might be on a budget that requires a bit of hedging bets, might want some info on potential match venues etc, and this forum (at times) serves as a valuable resource for them. 

In the middle of some info that might be of some actual value to them, lads on an ego trip or having a fondness for conspiracy theories post up some complete bollix- and unfortunately, some will give that opinion equal weight. Partly me own fault, should have deleted it, but going to leave it here as a shining example of what Sir Roger Milla would refer to as ''utter dung''. 

 Fair play 

Anybody who needs the skint FAI to get them from trnava to Bratislava really shouldn’t leave the house unaccompanied 

Jaysus PM, there's plenty choice on here if anyone wants to talk bollix, spoiled for choice in fact, but putting up pure speculation and misinformation on travel threads isn't on, just in my opinion. (I'm not talking about Lass's joke about playing Georgia or obvious fishing attempts) 

Everyone on here (possibly even superdave) has fcuked up a booking for an away game at some point in the past, I certainly have, but ya do learn from these things and as a result, can point people in vaguely the right direction when a similar situation arises again. 

Personally couldn't care less about the content in the bollix posts, I'm around long enough to know whose opinion might be worth reading and what to ignore, but this whole process was confusing (you've said so yerself often enough) and for anyone genuinely looking for some info, posts like the one I highlighted just make it even more confusing.