Revised irish squad for Finland

[pete]

Revised squad: Given (Newcastle), Kiely (Charlton), Colgan (Hibernians), Kelly (Leeds United), Harte (Leeds United), Cunningham (Birmingham), Breen (West Ham United), Doherty (Tottenham Hotspur), Delap (Southampton), McAteer (Sunderland), Butler (Sunderland), Carsley (Everton), Kinsella (Charlton), Holland (Ipswich), McPhail (Leeds United), Healy (Celtic), Kilbane (Sunderland), Keane (Leeds United), Damien Duff (Blackburn Rovers).

Mick tried to call Babb back into the squad too eventhough he hadn't even watched him - apparently McAteer & Quinn said he doing well :rolleyes:

With only Duff & Keane left as forwards i think that finally dashes any lingering hopes anyone had that Glen Crowe would get a callup. Kind of starnge he good enough to train with the squad last year but not good enough for a callup when when only 2 fit forwards left.

[brine2]

Why the f*** can John O'Shea not make that squad?

[fosterdollar]

i find it very hard to come to terms with practically everything McCarthy does. Fair enough he seems to be lucky and things have a way of working out. But if he'd do a few things differently he'd be a great manager IMO

[brine2]

not good enough for a callup when when only 2 fit forwards left

Even worse, I only see one striker in that squad.

[pete]

O'Shea was earlier withdrawn from the u-21 squad cos his club manager (Mr. Ferguson) asked Don Given. I assume he'd have been called up by McCarthy if hadn't already been withdrawn from that u-21 squad.

Yup, 1 striker but 2 forwards if include Duff.

McCarthy must be one of the best man managers (aside from Roy Keane of course ;) ) as he constantly picks journeymen footballers (Carsley, Dunne, Kennedy yet some how gets the results. Otherwise he just the luckiest manager around...

[brine2]

Sounds like Ferguson is ****ed off at Mick. If O'Shea keeps playing better and better and Mick can't pick him then he'll have to go! Good man Alex.

[The Chief]

Some people seem to be suggesting that Mccarthy is a lucky manager or that if he made one or two decisions differently, he would be a great manager?

I would have been curious to see how we will fare in this qualifying campaign if I hadn't lost all respect for McCarthy, because even though we should cruise this group, because be honest it is the easiest group I have seen us in ever, I think McCarthy will be shown up this time around!

McCarthy seems to think we had a successful World Cup! After the false Euphoria of the World Cup can we not be honest and say, with or without Roy Keane, it was a bad showing. I am sick of Ireland being the last minute, last gasp heroes. What I want is a professional, gritty team that others fear and no matter what team we put out there is a consistency that others fearfully respect, like that of the Germans or the Italians . . . why oh why cant Irish people believe that we are as good as the other International gaints.

ARE WE AFRAID OF WINNING!!!

I think so . . . because if we really wanted to win and be the best, McCarthy would still not be at the helm.

He seems to forget, but for a colossal campaign by Mr. Keane in the qualifiers his dream of World Cup would have been a much harder target, and I think that we don't have that kind of influence in our team and we will have one or two bad results that will dictate our faith in qualifying for the European Championships!!

I was a mad International soccer supporter, but now I don't have the heart for it!!:(

[MikeW]

I have to say I'm getting a bit sick of the delusions of grandeur that some people seem to have about the Irish national team. How in the world can anybody expect us to compete consistently with the likes of Italy, Germany etc. Do I need to remind people that we have a population of just under 4 million, compared with over 50 million and over 80 million for the two countries mentioned above. We have a tiny fraction of the resources of the big boys in Europe yet we've managed to be competitive for the last 14 years. Thats WAY, WAY more than a country of our size could be expected to do. There isn't another country in the world of our size that is up there with the big fish. Denmark is the only other one that springs to mind, and they're bigger than us and apart from Euro 92 haven't been all that fantastic, plus they only began to be successful in 1986, just two years before us.

By my estimate we were the third smallest country at the World Cup (Slovenia and Uruguay being marginally smaller, and they did much worse than us). Out of the teams that made it to the second round, we were BY FAR the smallest. All this and football isn't even our national sport! We can't keep this level of play up for much longer, I'd be very surprised if we don't have a (probably lengthy) barren patch coming up in the near future no matter who the manager is.

Actually, I'd be surprised if we qualified for Euro 2004, its a pretty tough group no matter what anyone says (remember the last so-called easy group we had? Romania in 1998 very nearly went through the group with a 100% record while being "over the hill" and "has beens" according to some people). This is reality, there's only so many quality players a small country can produce at the same time, and we've been very, very lucky with that recently. These people who think we should not only qualify for everything but also win things really need to start getting realistic.

No doubt I'll be accused of being "afraid of winning" or some other such toss by someone when all I'm doing is pointing out the reality of the situation. This is the real world people. Sorry to rant on for so long about this, but its an issue that tends to annoy me a lot.

[The Chief]

Ah sure aren't we great for just turning up to matches I mean we were lucky to scrape together an oul' bus to bring us to the match. I have to say I am sick of the attitude, that we are a small nation and our resources and pool of players are very small compared to the giants of World football. We have a large pool of players playing top class football week in and week out, we have produced some of the best footballers in the world: Liam Brady, Paul McGrath, Roy Keane. We have bags of potential: Steven Carr, Steve Finnan, Damien Duff, John O'Shea, Robbie Keane, Colin Healy, Steven Reid.

I find this attitude very patronising that frankly I am only used to hearing from braindead English commentators, and again the other night on "Your on Sky sports" they patronised us by saying we had a wonderful World Cup and we have a wonderful team spirit. It seems to me that your attitude towards the national team is rank within the management, the FAI and inevitably the team itself and that is why we will only ever be also rans. You have to think like a winner and then you will be a winner. What is the problem with demanding MORE. McCarthy seems to think that because of the World Cup we have BECOME a team to be reckoned with, BULL****, we have always been a team to be reckoned with. THE NEGATIVITY ooozes and seeps from the top down on to the players, apparently we went to the World Cup to enjoy ourselves! I thought like every other team there we went to WIN it.

Don't give me that rubbish about being a small nation with small resources and people expecting too much. We should expect the best at all times and when we have one of the best teams in the world, we expect to win games and compete for first place. But it seems to me in McCarthys case he only wants to make himself look good by playing down how good we actually are!!

Give me a break!

[patsh]

Originally posted by The Chief
But it seems to me in McCarthys case he only wants to make himself look good by playing down how good we actually are!!

Just think
Richard "Ten Ton" Dunne,
Lee "Brazil? A bunch of fannying about Foreigners" Carsley,
Mick "Denis Irwin needs to prove himself to me" McCarthy.

They all fit rather nicely together, don't you think??

That's the great Mr. "penalty practise is for wimps" McCarthy's level right there....:p
You also have to remember that this is a guy who boasted that
"I got standing ovation in me local curry house, me" live on BBC when asked about some of his memories of the WC.
Says it all really....;)

[RamblersWeb]

BBC Sport Preview here (http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/2202957.stm)

loads of stats etc as well...