Are the knockout rounds home and away? Thanks
The New Official Republic of Ireland Football Thread
- Thread starter moses
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In the latest edition of the United Hour Podcast, we interview Duncan Drasdo of MUST - covering ticket prices, new stadium, INEOS and what fans should be demanding from our club.
Also, due to technical issues we couldn't put a notice up for the previous episode which was about the game against Bournemouth and other stuff. If you'd like to listen to it, click here.
That's pretty much it, it's all year round, never stops, there's pretty much no room for players to do anything else.
First one is away, the second had be either home or away (draw based i think)
March 26th AWAY vs either - Poland / Wales / Czechia / Slovakia
then...
March 31st. HOME/AWAY. vs either - Italy / Denmark / Turkey / Ukraine / Romania / Sweden / N.Macedonia / N.Ireland
I think some will choose GAA, some will choose soccer. With the ratio changing depending on where you live. Whatever, the fact they're making that choice puts us at a big disadvantage compared to countries where kids never have to make that choice.
My personal bug bear is the way the people who run both sports in this country like to pretend the other one doesn't exist. There's enough comparable skills for kids to play both right the way through school but that's made impossible by the way league and cup matches are so often scheduled on the same day of the week, plus there's never been any connected effort to try and balance things out over the calendar year (say, GAA in the summer, soccer in the winter)
https://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/2025/1119/1544826-ireland-rise-to-59th-in-world-but-remain-in-pot-3/
Climb back into the Top 60
Climb back into the Top 60
That was the big argument against summer soccer for schoolboys but then the pitches and weather is bad in winter.
Maybe the solution is just to build loads of astro pitches.
I love both sports but wasn't particularly talented at either.
https://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/2025/1119/1544826-ireland-rise-to-59th-in-world-but-remain-in-pot-3/
Climb back into the Top 60
We were 36th exactly 5 years ago.
We were 23rd in 2017.
Kenny completely screwed our ranking.
It'll take years to climb back up unless we qualify for the WC.
GAA just never stops now at any age grade, senior teams start training in October for games starting in February. I was told by a someone involved at GAA a few years ago that the unofficial line from the county board was to try and disrupt other sports as much as possible.
Underage Gaelic training usually starts in January / February, they mightn't play a game until April, with different league competitions run throughout the year, but underage championship generally goes from August to October/November.
We're near the end of November now and it's still going on with new age groups starting up new competitions. For example we had a new u13 boys "grading league" setup this year to "grade the teams for next years u14 league". It started at the end of October.
Our clubs underage teams play soccer from Sept to April. We start training in August and finish the week after the last game of the season, whenever that is. Plenty of our local soccer clubs will go out of their way to move games around to try and avoid gaa fixtures or training. But in my experience they never seem to return the favour. They also actively try to put training on at the same time, or just before so it overlaps. Shitty behaviour that I would imagine goes on all over the country.
Doesn't matter if you go summer soccer or winter soccer, GAA is a year round game now with very little break. Great sport, but it does take a lot of the most talented sports people away from soccer.
Cheers mate.
To be fair, with Kenny we played our best football. But didn’t have the strikers to score in a fecking brothel.
We some good football in patches but in general it was a bad appointment.
We didn't even create that much anyway for strikers to finish.
I think he went too far with playing young players. He should've introduced them gradually with the old pros.
I think he had a dream of building a young team playing attractive football but it didn't work out.
I remember when we were 4th.
I remember when we were 4th.
Really? I thought 6th was our highest ever position.
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Apologies, you’re right. It was 6th.
We were 27th I think in 2017.
Before Kenny took over we were in the low 30s.
He completely screwed us.
Big day today
FFS although I suspected as much
Why do the losers have to play each other in meaningless friendlies the same night as the games that matter?
Apparently this is to do with the centralised selling of TV rights, so channels that have paid for the rights to the qualifiers package are entitled to a specific number of games. The brainchild of that is none other than...John Delaney.
Czech Republic and then Denmark.
Not a bad draw, 2 teams that are beatable.
Home draw in the final....
That’s the best draw we could’ve hoped for. Brilliant stuff!
Someone here booked a flight to Prague.
Surely that's a good sign.
Surely that's a good sign.
Bad draw for Wales - 'ok' draw for Ireland.
Thought Denmark looked really good v the Scots before beating themselves and three worldies.
Czech away tricky-ish, but winnable.
Edit - meant to post this in main thread, not the Irish one
Thought Denmark looked really good v the Scots before beating themselves and three worldies.
Czech away tricky-ish, but winnable.
Edit - meant to post this in main thread, not the Irish one
I think teams have to play twice during international breaks for the rankings points.
Everyone not in the play-offs will have already arranged friendlies, so makes sense to just pair up the losers.
As good as we could have hoped for IMO and a possible home final too. Would not have fancied the possibility of having to go to Italy or Turkey
Denmark away would have been very tough, but drawing them at home is perfect... Same for Wales, playing Italy at home would be much more doable than away.
Good draw fancy us to turnover Czech Republic, Denmark a tough task but after seeing what the Scots did to them and how we’ve played the last two games I have faith we can get the job done, best possible draw that is for us massive opportunity!
Very good draw, although could easily lose either of those games 2-0. But at least there's hope. Away to Poland, Turkey or Italy, not so much.
We've a chance. A chance we thought was unlikely this time last week
It's mental.
Imagine if we end up at the WC.
We were dead and buried a week ago.
HH will get the freedom of Dublin.
Couldnt have asked for a better draw of the teams we could have faced really..
Just need to out there and give it our all against the Czech and hope for a similar performance to the last couple. Hopefully catch them on an off day
Dont like the thought of facing Denmark again though. they done us bad the last playoffs.
Just need to out there and give it our all against the Czech and hope for a similar performance to the last couple. Hopefully catch them on an off day
Dont like the thought of facing Denmark again though. they done us bad the last playoffs.
Really hope you guys do it. Tartan Army & Irish fans in North America together would be an amazing atmosphere.
You have a winnable away tie and the potential final is a home one probably most likely against Denmark. We did the business at home to Denmark on Tuesday night which I’m still recovering from and don’t see no reason why you couldn’t do the same in front of your passionate home crowd.
You have a winnable away tie and the potential final is a home one probably most likely against Denmark. We did the business at home to Denmark on Tuesday night which I’m still recovering from and don’t see no reason why you couldn’t do the same in front of your passionate home crowd.
That result was an aberration though.
We actually took the lead.
The substitutions killed us but MON gambled and lost.
Ireland vs North Macedonia in a friendly could well be one of the most depressing football matches of all time
Dietmar will be in the studio for that one
There's always hope. Fingers crossed for you guys.
More or less the best we could have hoped for. We are in with a dig.