The road to Qatar begins.

[irishultra]

Dust has settled on WC 2018. The long road to Qatar begins.

[pineapple stu]

That's getting started early!

And yet - the first qualification draws are in 12 months.

Didn't realise it still wasn't decided if it'd be a 32 or 48 team World Cup

[irishultra]

I'm looking forward to saying goodbye to MON. I think we should go back to the drawing board. Just accept where we are and try to grow organically. Change our national mentality and football culture. Give talented LOI players a chance in qualifiers. Give them a chance to win moves to bigger clubs through their national team performances, maybe they'll move beyond the British Isles.

[tetsujin1979]

Who was the last LOI player to move outside the British Isles? Amond?

[pineapple stu]

Kilduff is in America

[mark12345]

I'm looking forward to saying goodbye to MON. I think we should go back to the drawing board. Just accept where we are and try to grow organically. Change our national mentality and football culture. Give talented LOI players a chance in qualifiers. Give them a chance to win moves to bigger clubs through their national team performances, maybe they'll move beyond the British Isles.

I like your attitude of changing the national mentality and football culture.
Let me ask you this.
I thought countries with 4 million people were only allowed to hoof the ball long and then defend for 80 of the 90 minutes in the hope of sneaking a goal. So how is it Croatia played expansive, technical and beautiful football throughout this tournament. Did Ireland not get the memo?

[samhaydenjr]

Who was the last LOI player to move outside the British Isles? Amond?


Kilduff is in America

As are Richie Ryan (FC Cincy), James Chambers (Bethlehem Steel), Paddy Barrett (FC Cincy), Colin Falvey (Ottawa Fury)

And Roy O'donovan moved to Brunei after Amond's sojourn in Portugal

[nigel-harps1954]

Eamon Zayed at Persepolis and then onto America too.

Shane McEleney spent time in America

Heaps of underage LOI players take up scholarships at American colleges for football too.

Danny Furlong and a couple of others from Wexford went to New Zealand to play.

I'm sure there's others too.

[tetsujin1979]

Would Amond be the last player to move outside the British Isles to play top division football?

[nigel-harps1954]

Eamon Zayed to Persepolis would be afterward.

[EAFC_rdfl]

I like your attitude of changing the national mentality and football culture.
Let me ask you this.
I thought countries with 4 million people were only allowed to hoof the ball long and then defend for 80 of the 90 minutes in the hope of sneaking a goal. So how is it Croatia played expansive, technical and beautiful football throughout this tournament. Did Ireland not get the memo?

Same simplistic comment/question was put to Ray Houghton this morning on the radio. It wasn't really debated enough, but his view was reasonable: That the selection pool is much smaller in this country for our football team due to competition with 2 GAA sports and rugby. Taking Donegal alone, there are at least 3 county players who could be playing for Finn Harps right now (Shaun Patton, Odhran McNiallias, Ryan McHugh). Seamus Coleman was probably a hairs breadth away from taking the GAA route back before he joined Sligo, as he was always involved at county underage level.

[Señor Willy]

Same simplistic comment/question was put to Ray Houghton this morning on the radio. It wasn't really debated enough, but his view was reasonable: That the selection pool is much smaller in this country for our football team due to competition with 2 GAA sports and rugby. Taking Donegal alone, there are at least 3 county players who could be playing for Finn Harps right now (Shaun Patton, Odhran McNiallias, Ryan McHugh). Seamus Coleman was probably a hairs breadth away from taking the GAA route back before he joined Sligo, as he was always involved at county underage level.

I would also put in the point of where Croatia's squad play. They are all at big names, the first 11 anyway in Europe. Unlike our fellas smashing the ball around in the blood and guts of english football. There is a big difference in standard but no reason we can't look at getting our players to level of croatia. No way could we do it now but 4-8 years, emphasis on development of technical game of our players.

[seanfhear]

Croatia also have good DNA ( to go down the Gordon Strachan route ) Bar Modric and maybe Rakitic to a degree the rest of the Croatian team are fine physical specimens = not Paddy Midgets .

Mind you with Mass Immigration the Irish Governments are prioritising the Irish Soccer team .

[Olé Olé]

It's funny though. You could pidgeon hole their players into stereotypes- 3 hard-running sh*thouse forwards, 3 small and technical midfielders, 2 blood and thunder centre backs and full-backs better going forward than backward.

[tetsujin1979]

the42 published their prediction for the Irish team in four years: http://www.the42.ie/heres-what-irelands-team-might-look-like-for-the-2022-world-cup-4128999-Jul2018/

[pineapple stu]

Really just a clickbait article. There'll be plenty of 2G and 3G players dropped by the English youth systems and commandeered by us between now and then, if nothing else.

[samhaydenjr]

Same simplistic comment/question was put to Ray Houghton this morning on the radio. It wasn't really debated enough, but his view was reasonable: That the selection pool is much smaller in this country for our football team due to competition with 2 GAA sports and rugby. Taking Donegal alone, there are at least 3 county players who could be playing for Finn Harps right now (Shaun Patton, Odhran McNiallias, Ryan McHugh). Seamus Coleman was probably a hairs breadth away from taking the GAA route back before he joined Sligo, as he was always involved at county underage level.

Number of registered footballers in Ireland in 2014: 340,070 (https://www.balls.ie/football/soccer-players-gaa-players-ireland-went-war-whod-win-108849)

Number of registered footballers in Croatia in 2009: 118,316 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croatian_Football_Federation)

[EAFC_rdfl]

That's that then!
A venn diagram of that 304,070 would be helpful here to show how many are also registered to GAA clubs. Those are the lads that will jump ship straight away once the GAA starts up again, using football to keep the fitness up

[passinginterest]

This article was posted in Shane Supple's thread; https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/shane-supple-sees-way-forward-for-republic-of-ireland-hz0d8pj9f

Is this the type of management we need to improve?

“He is similar to Joe Royle, who I played under at Ipswich. Joe would stand back and watch training from a distance and let his coaching staff look after all that. He would pick the team on a Saturday. ‘You are men, go out and play’. That is the way it is. The game has evolved a lot since then and players are maybe looking for a bit more direction, with the information and the technology available. That is there for the international team as well and a lot of the lads utilise it, but Martin I suppose would leave it up to the boys themselves. Again that kind of an old attitude; ‘You are grown men and this is way it is. Go out on the pitch and do your job’. Simple as that.”

Surely football in the modern era has moved forward? The same sort of anecdote comes out of every training camp, there's little in the way of tactical direction, of practicing different formations or even discussing the planned formation for the game.

[Stuttgart88]

It'd make you weep.