Ah just fecking disband the team. Move over San Marino, you have competition
Republic Of Ireland Football Thread
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Bazuna has a bit about him.
The number 10 for Qatar is a decent player.
They've grown into the match 
Has Parrot done anything since coming on apart from giving the ball away and standing in an offside position?
I gave up on the Ireland game.
Luxembourg are giving Portugal a good game, they are actually a decent well drilled side.
Luxembourg are giving Portugal a good game, they are actually a decent well drilled side.
He has done nothing, I repeat, he has done nothing
Jesus, Ireland look so lost out there I’d expect another Qatari goal soon.
Ahhhh thought we'd nicked it there. poor shot
A couple of excellent deliveries from free kicks there from Manning.
Argh, what a chance. Not an awful header but could have been the winner.
That was very, very not good.
I say give Kenny the benefit of the doubt simply because he has worked wonders with our young lads, many of whom will come of age to come through in the next couple of years. As @Pogue Mahone said we have successful underage teams but most of them just aren't ready for the step up yet. Its imperative that they al play regular football whether that be at premier league level or below that.
I do think people don't realise how big a deal gaelic football and hurling are in this country. I was an ok soccer player and a very good gaelic football player and when I was 14 and got picked for Kildare underage I was implicitly told to give up all other sports. Now I had a couple of mates who were excellent soccer players but they were the same and gave up soccer to play for their county. I'd be confident to say that we lose a lot of potential talents to GAA and, to be fair, I can't think of many countries of our size that have an equivalent national sport as that.
I do think people don't realise how big a deal gaelic football and hurling are in this country. I was an ok soccer player and a very good gaelic football player and when I was 14 and got picked for Kildare underage I was implicitly told to give up all other sports. Now I had a couple of mates who were excellent soccer players but they were the same and gave up soccer to play for their county. I'd be confident to say that we lose a lot of potential talents to GAA and, to be fair, I can't think of many countries of our size that have an equivalent national sport as that.
Depression in Debrecen.
Having thought about it since the Luxembourg game, I've now decided that I prefer this (trying to do something good in theory but failing miserably) over the obvious alternative (a re-embrace of dire hoof-ball as Plan A) by a huge margin.
More specifically, that thought process took the shape of imagining a Sam Allardyce managed Ireland team. I want the exact opposite of what that would be like, in all conceivable ways
Kenny may well be shite but if he is, I want another theoretically progressive manager to replace him if/when he gets sacked. Then another to replace him, then another to replace him. And then on and on until the heat death of the universe.
More specifically, that thought process took the shape of imagining a Sam Allardyce managed Ireland team. I want the exact opposite of what that would be like, in all conceivable ways
Kenny may well be shite but if he is, I want another theoretically progressive manager to replace him if/when he gets sacked. Then another to replace him, then another to replace him. And then on and on until the heat death of the universe.
Aye, I think most people that played a certain sport to a decent level have experienced being 'gently advised' that they'd be better off specialising. Due in large part to the traditional GAA calendar.
I think the bolded part's overplayed, tbh. Almost every single country has sports that lose potential players to other sports. In many cases multiple sports, whether those are national sports or not. I just reckon we get caught up on the idea of GAA because it's a sport unique to our country. I'm not sure that the overarching problem is, though.
The frustrating thing is that we are trying to finally play this football when we have a shit squad but when we had very good ones we played shit football. No offence to Charlton but I agree with Keane when he said that in this tournaments we has a team of players very capable of playing good football and didn't need to be reduced to long ball shit. Even worse is that in 2002 we honestly had a seriously good side that a progressive manager honestly could have turned into a serious World Cup contender.
Typical Irish shite. We make our best players play shite football that is beneath them and we finally employ a coach who wants to play football when we don't have the players. I'm no massive fan of Kenny but watching us now I'd love to have seen a guy like him in charge in 2002.
I’ve heard that said before but I don’t think there are many countries in the world that have a team sport other than soccer which is a preferred option for the most talented kids in the country.
Maybe cricket and hockey in the sub-continent, rugby in NZ, aussie rules in Australia. Certainly not an issue for any of the countries we would most regularly play against.
EDIT: Basketball in some central European countries, I guess, but only for massive tall dorks. Soccer gets first dibs at anyone 6’2” or shorter.
Yup. I was in two minds about his appointment. I liked the idea and the intent behind it, I just didn't see a great deal of evidence that Stephen Kenny was necessarily the right man, much less the unopposed choice, to bet the house on. The track record at any sort of level was just too sparse to be sure. But I also felt that it was a gamble worth taking, for all that. I'm less convinced now, or at least less convinced that this all has a happy ending. He's had horrendous bad luck in all sorts of ways, but he also seems to be doing a pretty average job thus far. For all of those issues, can anyone really argue that he's doing all the right things on the stuff that is within his control?
With all that said, I'd be inclined to leave him at it for quite a bit yet. He's trying something that hasn't been tried before in Irish football. Like yourself, I'd prefer to see him fall when doing a high wire act than watch the likes of Big Sam just kicking the can down the road for another year or two.
Yeah we didn’t even have a soccer team where I grew up and I don’t think they have one until this day everything was circulated around the GAA club which is very good now tbf. I often wonder what it would be like to have played underage football and worked the way up until senior level like I did with GAA.
I'm sorry but sack him. Yeah he's had bad players, but fecking Mick won a game with the same player's. Embarrassing.
Yeah that's fair enough. We probably do use GAA as an excuse somewhat. I seen an opinion online that we have always depended on English clubs to develop our players and now with more foreign talents coming in that we have lost out somewhat. If that is true I wonder if we can somehow use Brexit and the common travel area to our advantage in picking up the numbers at English clubs. Its depressing but obviously our young lads are better off at United, Arsenal, Villa etc than at home. I have no idea how we improve the situation with home clubs which would be the optimal solution overall.
I really don't see the point. If the qualifying campaign is gone he may as well stay the course and see how things go when he has a settled team and crowds start coming back.
We've had terrible luck with player availability since he took over as well. I like the approach its the correct way to go and these things do take time. As others have said if he's ultimately unsuccessful I'd want his replacement to be a progressive manager rather than the awful hoofball we been served up for years.
I agree that we should play progressive football and match nations with the ball it’s the only way we’ll go anywhere in the future, as teams can handle a long ball nowadays and we’ll get rings played around us at a big championship but I’m not sure how long this can last to be honest a few more losses and it’s curtains for Kenny.
Kenny's interviews are beyond awful. Please stop doing these.
It's actually painful to watch
It's actually painful to watch
Jesus it's pretty grim at the moment.
Was thinking that before the match he’s really not good in front of the camera.
I'm not denying that we probably lose disproportionately more potential players than, say, Italy or Spain, but my point is more about the loss of those players from the outset by the presence of other sports vying for their attention as kids, rather than the case of "the most talented kids in the country" being forced to stop playing for their local soccer club because the hurling team train 4 nights a week, or whatever.
A relatively similar effect is achieved by, say, the likes of the UK having cricket; rugby and tennis, the likes of the Czech Republic/Finland/Switzerland/Russia having ice hockey etc etc. There will always be large groups of kids who, for a variety of reasons, aren't exposed to a particular sport or who don't actively choose to play it. Sure, because our population size is small we probably suffer a bit more, but the numbers of players that can go through the system to be developed in the modern way won't vary massively, nor I imagine the overall talent pool. I dunno. Maybe I'm biased by the fact that every one of the GAA lads who plays seven a side with us basically plays football in the style of a much less talented James McClean having just rewatched Stephen Kenny's 1916 video.
I like the football Kenny wants to play and hope we stick with him but he could mix things up a bit as well. We seem to try and play through the middle way too much instead off getting it out wide and crossing it in.
Ha! Strength and aggression over technique definitely the hallmark of GAA lads on a seven a side pitch.
My point was that soccer is such a ubiquitous sport. It’s probably played at every school in every country in Europe. Except Ireland. Where it must be played in a smaller % of schools than most countries on the planet. That’s a fairly unique challenge to overcome.
It is a bit of a red herring though. We could blame GAA for our failure to keep pace with top international teams that have the same population as us. Like Croatia or Uruguay. When we’re getting beaten by Luxembourg or dominated by Qatar that excuse rings pretty hollow.
Tbf - very annoyingly - that's a good point.
I was the best player, or top 3 in every team up until after minors. Junior b lads would jist batter me after that.
Oooh told ya
We might have the same population but the problem lies in it being their best athletes against our overly dredged selection imo.
Its hard for us to be physical and outwork sides because the majority are off to other sports if they can catch a highball. The kids have to make a choice pretty early on if its GAA or soccer. If a kid isnt picked up by an academy early on and he has guarenteed spots on minor panels then hes just lost to soccer because the chances of succeeding in soccer is just so low. It hampers our chances to have those late bloomers like a McTominay come out of nowhere for us.
By GAA making you choose your sport early on. It just shuts off that pipeline for good.
Edit a Coleman quote that sums it up. Almost lost one of the best FB in the league at 18
had a few choices along the way. One of the biggest choices I had to make was at 17-18 was when I had to go either to the Donegal county minors or go to Sligo Rovers. So that was a tough choice for me at the time," Coleman said.
"I probably thought it was the wrong choice at one stage when they got to the All Ireland semi final and I wasn't even being involved with Sligo. In your life you always have choice to make. But it's about making the right choice or sticking to it."
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Might rewatch it tonight
Might rewatch it tonight
Glutton for punishment
Friendly with Andorra in the summer. Might have an outside chance of pipping a result there.
Is there much money in it though? I'd imagine if you were good enough to go pro and end up in the Premier League you wouldn't give that up for a sport that doesn't generate anywhere near as much money.
Steady on. Youre getting ahead of yourself.
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