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Friday, July 29, 2011

I'm not very popular in Wales

BBC mentioned me again in one of their articles. The reaction in Wales was, well, not very benign.

Geek, mega-nerd, give him a smack, "I don't like you" and obviously the F-word salutation. :)

Apparently it's my fault Wales are in pot 6.

Couple of things to point out.

1. The newspapers said FIFA made an error. This is not 100% correct. We will never know if FIFA would have actually placed Wales in Pot 5.

2. I would have written similar articles if the situation would have been the other way around (i.e. Wales wrongly displayed below the Faroe Islands in the rankings).

3. I wrote to FAW on May 27 telling them they are in danger of falling in Pot 6. Actually, I wrote to all (yes, all) UEFA/CAF associations about the pots as soon as their team were locked in a pot.

4. Wales would have needed only a win against American Samoa in June or July in order to climb in Pot 5 at the expense of the Faroe Islands.

5. Wales could have asked me what they need to do to avoid Pot 6.

6. Who knows, maybe Wales and Faroe Islands will be in same group. Happened four years ago with Azerbaijan and Liechtenstein.

P.S. Something good came out of the BBC article. I got a job offer in London thanks to it. Won't be going though.

About me:



  1. Edgar, do't let this get to your heart. You are doning a great job!! It's the Welsh FA to blaim (and the national team off course) and not you.

    BTW, what kind of a job offer was that? I'm looking for a job myself ;-)

  2. I actually find it amusing :)

    It was a programming job in London related to sports and statistics.

  3. Ah, but what you fail to mention Edgar is that these are all good natured I think. Sure, we can learn that for ourselves by clicking on the links, but it doesn't appear that way if you don't click on them. I found the I don't like you tweet amusing.

    I've read a few Welsh topics on this, and occasionally someone has something bad to say about you or Jakup, but in general the other people in the discussion put them in their place.

    I'm more interested in what the national associations had to say. Were they friendly? Just off the top of my head I can imagine...

    SPAIN: "What do you think we are, stupid? We're the best in the World!"

    NORWAY: "Yes. And I'm going to Mars in a spaceship tomorrow...."

    GREECE: "Excellent. We'll piss everybody off yet again, ha ha!"

    FRANCE: "What?!"

    MONTENEGRO: "Woo!"


    WALES: "I don't like you."

    SAN MARINO: "We don't need you to tell us that..."

  4. As always:
    Good work Edgar!

  5. Just remember all of us when your famous! LOL.

  6. @Bicycle Kicker



    Haha! Me famous! Not going to happen anytime soon. :)

  7. Haha!! Don't make the same mistakes as Adrian Mutu.

  8. Out of interest how many of the FAs took the time to reply to you?

  9. LOL...well, it's actually a bit weird that Wales ended up in Pot 6, while the Feroe Islands got a place in Pot 5... I don't think Wales is that weak.

  10. Keep up the great work Edgar! cannae wait for the draw tonite!

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  12. Edgar you need to look closely on the draw who is a likely qualify and who is a likely surprise etc.

  13. Hey Edgar, as a Wales fan I don't blame you for...

    1. Organising friendlies against teams that are too good for us.
    2. Our players not turning up.
    3. Chopping and changing managers during a campaign.
    4. Playing games in an empty stadium that only suits our opponents rather than ourselves.
    5. Not advertising games.
    6. Putting our matches on pay per view.
    7. Relying on England to develop our players.

    There is no such thing as Welsh media. Wales is a subservient colony of England and as such we only have English media that employs a few Welsh people to patronise us on their behalf.

    As for the "fans" who do blame you I bet they are glory hunters of English clubs that have never even been to a Wales game.

    Keep up the good work.

  14. Edgar,

    Great job!

    While we don't know what would have happened without your work, there is at least a strong possibility that FIFA would have gotten it wrong without you.


  15. I hope it is obvious, but the "Alex" who posted the link above (30 July, 6:25 PM) was not me.

    Keep up the great work, Edgar!

  16. Ah well, Wales isn't very popular with me, so that equals each other out ;) (just kidding, before the Welsh start disrupting the site). Great job, Edgar!

  17. Great job Edy! Don't mind the nagging comments but beware of that dude's daughter she's on her way to smack you :))

    (Proud to know the "mega-nerd" btw)

  18. @ScotlandStewart

    Six: Namibia, Armenia, Germany, Moldova, Scotland, Montenegro.


    Thanks! The Support department is always there to protect me :)

  19. Hey, what about me?! I know I have no right to expect you to answer my questions, but when you answered someone else's on the same topic...

    Also, does that mean you contacted all 200+ global associations?!

    If only 6 responded to you, that should make it much easier than I would have thought to answer my question.

    I am particularly interested in what Montenegro had to say. They must have been happy.

    Germany. Why does that not surprise me. The national team I respect the most just earned even more respect. (Unless they told you to piss off or something, ha ha.) It makes sense that the Germans would understand the value in cultivating one such as you. They just do everything "right". Not that I think they'll ever require your assistance.

    Moldova look to me like the only odd one out. I wonder what they said. Well, I wonder what they all said!

  20. @Lorric

    Well, I took your question as a joke :)
    No, just 106 (CAF + UEFA).

    Namibia - "How can we climb to a higher pot?"
    Armenia - "How can we climb to a higher pot?"
    Germany - "1st pot? We hope so. You have a nice hobby - computing the FIFA ranking." :)
    Moldova - "Multumesc" - that's Thanks in Romanian.
    Scotland - "Pot 4 we are resigned to but there doesn't seem to be a great deal of difference, quality wise, between three and four."
    Montenegro - "We do not understand how we can be in the first pot provided we win Bulgaria in June, even according to current ranking list, as we take position 14 in Europe according to it. How can we go before 5 teams placed before us and go into the first pot together with 8 other teams?"

  21. @ Edgar

    Oh, what a boring bunch! :)

    Seriously though, is that all they could say...

    The German person was nice to you as I expected though.

    You must have really felt you wasted your time with them.

    Maybe you could ask my England to stage penalty shootouts after tied friendlies :)

  22. Ask them yourself, they don't reply to my e-mails. I think I've got only one reply when asking about a friendly they were negotiating at the time - and they've sent me link with the fixtures...

    Well, not with Montenegro and Namibia - they tried and Namibia even succeeded in climbing to a higher pot. Montenegro FA were well aware of the need to win against Bulgaria and said they would do their best.