Euro 2008: Lessons for Ireland? [Archive] - Page 2

Billsthoughts

01/07/2008, 11:28 PM

ifk101 - My point is that if those players were more talented and had more natural ability then they would not be in the reserves or lower leagues of English football. No Irish player has had the natural ability to 'make it' but failed to because he went to England. The clubs in the English league will spot the players who are good enough and reject those who aren't. This belief that we have an abundance of talented young players who are being let down by the English for some inexplicable reason is simply a myth without any kind of rational explanation.

Again nobody said the English system "let us down."It is what it is. Its just not a system with our best interests at heart so why rely on it? I would have thought thats a no brainer.

Bill I did ask you 'When you talk about having a proper 'system' what sort of thing are you thinking of? What would it look like?' yet for some reason you didn't answer ... it's very easy to moan and whine but not so easy to be constructive and offer positive suggestions and ideas, eh?

I think if you look back I answered all your questions quite reasonably. If you read my posts you will see I think there is NO system in place at the mo and we are relying on dumb luck if we produce any players. all you want me to do is mention strong domestic league so you can go off on one about Eircom league players not making it in england therefore not being good enough. Its been done to death. boring and irrelevant. If you honestly beleive that Irish football is best served by the present system were we rely on English clubs to produce our players well then I go back to my original point thats its attitudes like yours that are the reason we dont have a strong national team. and after answering all your questions I have one for you...
how many players come back from England and never play the game again? Is football in this country best served by that?

Billsthoughts

01/07/2008, 11:29 PM

i stand corrected;)

in fairness ya had me worried for a sec!:D

ifk101

02/07/2008, 6:19 AM

I think there is NO system in place at the mo and we are relying on dumb luck if we produce any players.

Little bit too harsh there, eh?

cavan_fan

02/07/2008, 7:00 AM

I think if you look back I answered all your questions quite reasonably. If you read my posts you will see I think there is NO system in place at the mo and we are relying on dumb luck if we produce any players. all you want me to do is mention strong domestic league so you can go off on one about Eircom league players not making it in england therefore not being good enough. Its been done to death. boring and irrelevant. If you honestly beleive that Irish football is best served by the present system were we rely on English clubs to produce our players well then I go back to my original point thats its attitudes like yours that are the reason we dont have a strong national team. and after answering all your questions I have one for you...
how many players come back from England and never play the game again? Is football in this country best served by that?

I'm a bit confused too. Are you saying we need a better youth system to get players to 16. My understanding is that for a country of our size we actually have a good system in this area. I think we do as well as we can in getting good players at that age. Once they get there they need to move to a professsional club. One option would be for them to stay in Ireland but then their development is going to be based on who they are playing against and the standard of coaching. At present in Ireland this is not high enough. This might improve but I think we've been around that a bit. The other option would be for them to abroad. Logically most will go to England or Scotland just as most Brazilians go to Spain & Portugal.

I'm still unclear what else the FAI could do?

ifk101

02/07/2008, 7:42 AM

I'm still unclear what else the FAI could do?

The responsibility for the development of Irish football lies as much with the country's fans as it does with the FAI and domestic clubs.

We need fans going through the turnstiles to generate revenue that can be reinvested in youth development and the growth of the game.

Our "purple patch" as an international side was largely dependent on players born abroad as a very small percentage of the countless kids we send across the water "make it".

Natural ability is important to "make it" as a professional footballer but other factors also dictate. Taking young lads from their families and friends and placing them in a foreign environment isn't really ideal for the development of professional footballers, is it? And let's be honest about - if it wasn't the football industry this practice would be called child-trafficking.

Ireland has qualified for one major tournament out of the last seven qualifying attempts. If this is acceptable to "Irish fans" they we should continue to look at the English for the further development of our players. If not, we need to examine what we can do to improve ourselves as a footballing nation and stop being fooled by marketing. Every one of the 16 nations that competed in EURO 2008 had players competing in their own domestic leagues. Coincidence?

Emmet

02/07/2008, 8:04 AM

ifk101 - With England (and Scotland too) being so close to us geographically it will be very hard for us to get to the stage where we will have a league that can seriously compete with the English. We also have other sports in our own country - GAA and Rugby to a lesser extent - that compete with football for fans' revenue; It would be great if we did have a domestic league that was competitive and had sides playing regularly in Europe but we are some way off achieving that. Your reference to child trafficking is a bit unfair - many clubs have tried and tested structures in place to take these young men which enable them to live in a safe environment and have regular contact with their families back home. Plus - these young players choose to go over to Liverpool, Manchester United etc.

It would be great if we could get one of the Eircom League sides into the Champions League group phase. I know that some of them have come pretty close in recent years; if one of those clubs can get over that line then there would be the obvious finanical rewards but also a real incentive for young players to maybe think again about England / Scotland and automatically assuming that they have to go there if they are to have any chance as a professional footballer.

Billsthoughts

02/07/2008, 8:40 AM

Little bit too harsh there, eh?

not sure what you mean here. It definitely wouldnt be in our hands under the present system.

I'm a bit confused too........
I'm still unclear what else the FAI could do?
At present they do nothing. I dont know much about the coaching of under 16s but Liam Brady head of Arsenals Academy does. He had an article not so long ago were he heavily criticised the level of coaching at that age in Ireland. Read in to it what you will.

- if it wasn't the football industry this practice would be called child-trafficking.

Agree with this. There does seem to be certain moral issues that everyone is turning a blind eye to. I know that might come across as "emotional clap trap" to narrow minded emotionaly stunted people who see everything in life in terms of euros and cents. But hey...get over it!

ifk101 - With England (and Scotland too) being so close to us geographically it will be very hard for us to get to the stage .

There is so much wrong with this....But just to take the main point...We dont have to compete with the English. Our best players could still go to England and play at the top clubs. It just means our middle and lower tier playing base wont be decimated before it hits 18.

cavan_fan

02/07/2008, 9:43 AM

Ireland has qualified for one major tournament out of the last seven qualifying attempts. If this is acceptable to "Irish fans" they we should continue to look at the English for the further development of our players.

I'm not sure about acceptable but we need to be realistic. We are one of the smaller countries in Europe. So even if we had the same advantages as other countries we are at the Iceland/Finland level. Added to this we are very unusual in Europe in that we have a more popular team sport. So frankly, any success is a bit of a miracle.

My view is that there are 2 things we have had going for us which have allowed us to punch above our weight.

1 - Our players have had good access to the English Leagues allowing them to develop in a professional enviornment. This is declining now as English clubs cast their nets wider.

2 - We have had access to a large popualtion of 2nd gen players which boost our effective popualtion to somewhere around 10 million.

Ask yourself why should we have a better recent record than Hungary, Finland, Iceland??

Billsthoughts

02/07/2008, 10:13 AM

In fairness couple of good points there about why we have done well. I would say with Finland and Iceland that enviroment wouldnt be suited to playing football? Hungary always did ok before the fall of communism(World Cup final afair) so Im assuming they have had other things on their mind since then?

Emmet

02/07/2008, 11:01 AM

I think if you look back I answered all your questions quite reasonably. If you read my posts you will see I think there is NO system in place at the mo and we are relying on dumb luck if we produce any players ... I go back to my original point thats its attitudes like yours that are the reason we dont have a strong national team. Bill - I specifically asked 'When you talk about having a proper 'system' what sort of thing are you thinking of? What would it look like?' You have not answered this. You have criticised me and my supposed attitude in several posts but you have consistently failed to put forward a concrete model of how you would like to see football structured in Ireland. Get off the fence and start answering questions! It is too easy to sit there and knock others' opinions and ideas - its altogether a much more challenging task to put forward your own.

how many players come back from England and never play the game again? Is football in this country best served by that? I don't know the answer to that. How many are there? You've already acknowledged that you cannot think of any Irish player who came back from England branded 'a failure' who was good enough to make it as a senior international for us ... are we discussing those Irish players who have genuine ability and talent and who could enhance our national team, or are we talking about those Irish players who won't necessarily be household names but who are good enough to make it as (at least) semi-pros?

Emmet

02/07/2008, 11:12 AM

1 - Our players have had good access to the English Leagues allowing them to develop in a professional enviornment. This is declining now as English clubs cast their nets wider.I think you've hit the nail on the head there - it is a lot more competitive in England than it was 10-15 years ago. Whether English football will be able to sustain this over a prolonged period of time is debatable. Several years ago Spain was the place to be, before that it was Italy. English league football is going through a rich vein right now but it won't always be like this. Besides, I still firmly believe that the individuals with talent - those who really are good - will get through and will get the opportunity to develop their skills and abilities in England.

geysir

02/07/2008, 12:20 PM

At present they do nothing. I dont know much about the coaching of under 16s but Liam Brady head of Arsenals Academy does. He had an article not so long ago were he heavily criticised the level of coaching at that age in Ireland. Read in to it what you will.
Which points did Brady make?

AFAIR the Brady refrain is critical of the negativity inbuilt into the coaching of youngsters.
The Arsenal motto is "Accept disappointment, praise good work and refrain from criticising his efforts. Encourage and support him without putting him under pressure.''

AFAIK the FAI have started their Acadamy and have had high demand for their Coach Education courses (http://www.fai.ie/coacheducation/)

It was ironic that in Traps 2nd game against Colombia, we had the sight of the most balls being hoofed up front since the Charlton days. Even Dunne was hoofing it when not under any pressure.

Strikes me that many of our players take onboard from an early age an overproportionate amount of fear in their football coaching. Fear of making a mistake. A competent player like Dunne gets afflicted.
How many times do hear it being shouted out, never lose the ball here, never get caught, you never... you effin eejit, fear on top of fear. There is an all pervasive atmosphere of fear.
Reading the Paul McShane thread here is like being stuck in a Dublin taxi for an hour.

Stan talked a good talk about the importance of confidence of youngsters and ways they can strenghten it.

eirebhoy

02/07/2008, 12:34 PM

What age do players in this country start getting thought the tactical part of the game? In the likes of Spain and Italy I bet they have them using their brains from a very early age. It's (football intelligence) without doubt the most important attribute in a player yet the youth in Ireland seem to have to figure it out for theirselves.

I worked with a Swedish girl. She joined an Irish girls team and she noticed the difference straight away. She said the girls just ran with the ball. They didn't think about passing. They didn't sit back, get their head up and look around.

It's the one and only difference between Ireland and Britain and the rest of the world imho. I always say it but you need very little technical ability to pass a ball 3 or 4 yards. Spain were a joy to watch yet 90% of their passes were simple passes that any footballer could make. It was the time they took to make the pass and the availability of their teammates that made it look so superb. That is all down to intelligence. England certainly don't lack technically gifted players. Gerrard, Lampard, Beckham, Carrick, Barry, and many more have equal amount of technical ability as their Spanish counterparts. They lack their movement and everything else that comes with football intelligence in a midfield player.

It's incredible that Trapattoni had to give all our players a 2 page report on what they need to work on.

Emmet

02/07/2008, 12:50 PM

It's incredible that Trapattoni had to give all our players a 2 page report on what they need to work on.
I didn't know that. What sort of things did he identify?

Billsthoughts

02/07/2008, 12:51 PM

I think if you look back I answered all your questions quite reasonably. If you read my posts you will see I think there is NO system in place at the mo and we are relying on dumb luck if we produce any players. all you want me to do is mention strong domestic league so you can go off on one about Eircom league players not making it in england therefore not being good enough. Its been done to death. boring and irrelevant. If you honestly beleive that Irish football is best served by the present system were we rely on English clubs to produce our players well then I go back to my original point thats its attitudes like yours that are the reason we dont have a strong national team. and after answering all your questions I have one for you...
how many players come back from England and never play the game again? Is football in this country best served by that?

Emmet I answered you here. I also countered ALL the points you made in my other posts.

Below is a qoute from Darragh Sheridan former Aston Villa trainee
"It's quite a blow to learn your contract is not going to be renewed when all you dreamt about since you were a child was to be a big time footballer. Add to that the pressure of facing all your friends and family who proudly waved you goodbye and the fact that you may not have completed your secondary education and there is quite a temptation to completely reject football and sport at any level."
http://www3.dcu.ie/news/press/2002/p0702a.shtml

Not exactly a ringing endorsement to what you think is a system that works fine and dandy.
Geysir again. see above.
Emmet the Fai would pay consultants thousands of euros to come up with a plan to bring football forward in this country, do you honestly think I can produce a blueprint for change in a couple of posts? That doesn�t change the fact that the present way of doing things is deeply flawed and totally out of our own hands.

Wolfie

02/07/2008, 1:00 PM

It's incredible that Trapattoni had to give all our players a 2 page report on what they need to work on.

McShane got off lightly with 2 pages.

irishultra

02/07/2008, 1:01 PM

McShane made two mistakes(two too many) in the last two games. One proved costly.

He was class against Serbia IMO.

Emmet

02/07/2008, 1:02 PM

Emmet

02/07/2008, 1:07 PM

Not exactly a ringing endorsement to what you think is a system that works fine and dandy.

What I actually said was:

I'll admit it is not ideal but ...

Wolfie

02/07/2008, 1:07 PM

McShane made two mistakes(two too many) in the last two games. One proved costly.

He was class against Serbia IMO.

Yeah - a tad uncalled for on my part. McShane could yet develop into an accomplished player.

eirebhoy

02/07/2008, 1:08 PM

McShane got off lightly with 2 pages.
Thanfully Trap is a fantastic judge of a player. We could question the decisions of our last few managers to pick certain players but if I ever disagree with Trap I think I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. McShane-Dunne is our best partnership no matter who's available imo. McShane was superb against Colombia and I think he'll be starting against Montenegro if available. I'm delighted with that. I can't wait to see them play together in the qualifiers.

I truely believed Trap would pick McShane and Dunne for centre half. As I said before a ball was kicked I was delighted he watched all of McShane's games for Ireland and got to see how good he can/will be.

Wolfie

02/07/2008, 1:15 PM

Thanfully Trap is a fantastic judge of a player. We could question the decisions of our last few managers to pick certain players but if I ever disagree with Trap I think I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. McShane-Dunne is our best partnership no matter who's available imo. McShane was superb against Colombia and I think he'll be starting against Montenegro if available. I'm delighted with that. I can't wait to see them play together in the qualifiers.

I truely believed Trap would pick McShane and Dunne for centre half. As I said before a ball was kicked I was delighted he watched all of McShane's games for Ireland and got to see how good he can/will be.

My previous flippancy aside - I do agree McShane could well develop into a decent player (I'm on record on the Paul McShane thread). I think its fair comment that he has certain areas of his game that require attention.

Still a doubt he'll be available for Montenegro also.

Billsthoughts

02/07/2008, 1:34 PM

So basically you're happy to moan and whinge about how things currently are but you have absolutely no intention of offering a potential solution (either because you are unable to think of any or simply because you cannot be bothered). I'd argue that its that type of negative laziness that is holding football back in Ireland.

Stop trolling.

Im happy to criticise a state of affairs that doesnt work in the best interest of Irish Football or of our underage players. Your happy to support that state of affairs because your imagination cant contemplate any alternative.
Possible solutions -
- regional acadamies with top class coaches with a unified coaching philosophy that take the place of the english clubs in player development.
-ban on players going abroad until they reach a certain age.
-academy teams playing games against other academy teams in europe.
-a feeder system so players can move easily into the Eircom League
-Greater support for the league from great Irish public

John83

02/07/2008, 1:48 PM

-ban on players going abroad until they reach a certain age.
Several of those made me raise an eyebrow. This one though, wow. That's not even remotely possible.

Billsthoughts

02/07/2008, 1:58 PM

Several of those made me raise an eyebrow. This one though, wow. That's not even remotely possible.
Shock horror John 83 comes out of the long grass:rolleyes:

they were suggestions they werent the be all and end all. At the moment there is nothing there. If the English clubs decided they didnt want to scout in Ireland in the morning what would we do for players?

btw there are restrictions placed on English clubs on where they can scout. afair age restrictions operate in Norway or did operate until quite recently.

Emmet

02/07/2008, 2:04 PM

Possible solutions -
- regional acadamies with top class coaches with a unified coaching philosophy that take the place of the english clubs in player development.
-ban on players going abroad until they reach a certain age.
-academy teams playing games against other academy teams in europe.
-a feeder system so players can move easily into the Eircom League
-Greater support for the league from great Irish public
There ... that didn't hurt now, did it? For what its worth, I wouldn't have a problem with any of that other than with the ban on emigration.

geysir

02/07/2008, 2:30 PM

http://www3.dcu.ie/news/press/2002/p0702a.shtml

Not exactly a ringing endorsement to what you think is a system that works fine and dandy.
Geysir again. see above.
That is a program which attempted to deal with some of the returning kids some 6 years ago.
The FAI have a development plan now, which at least has a deal of activity which I referred to.
We are talking about different things.

Billsthoughts

02/07/2008, 2:35 PM

That is a program which attempted to deal with some of the returning kids some 6 years ago.
The FAI have a development plan now, which at least has a deal of activity which I referred to.
We are talking about different things.

The qoute is still relevant. I just posted a link to the article the qoute came from.

jmurphyc

02/07/2008, 2:52 PM

We definitely need to do something about the ongoing influx of Irish youngsters going to Britain but that is not something that can be done overnight and isn't something that we learned for Euro 2008.

I do agree that we need to learn to play on the ground a lot better and we need to improve our player's learning in terms of technical ability. However, whilst it's not ideal that Irish kids learn the game in England, I wouldn't be surprised if the whole coaching system is overhauled in England soon what with the amount of foreign managers going to the English league. It might not make a difference as they obviously can't do anything about kids learning in the back garden or what teachers in schools teach kids about the game but it may do.

Anyway, Euro 2008 has taught us a lot about what we can do in the short term. We have a fairly technically gifted midfield but there's no point in having that if our defenders constantly bypass them by hoofing the ball up to our strikers, especially when we don't have a natural target man. Keane is better at receiving the ball at his feet and not in the air. I know our defenders aren't great passers, but how hard can it be for Trap to tell them to just play it simple to the midfield instead of booting it up field. If we continue to play long ball football then we are not playing to our strengths and if we are to eradicate this we need to ensure that the defence obeys this as most moves will inevitably start from the back.

If we are to use a 4-2-3-1 formation (a lot of people seem to think that this would get the best out of our team) then overlapping FBs are essential, as Euro 2008 proved. However, in the first post Stutts said that we need to have FBs playing on their natural side (ie. left footers on the left and right footers on the right). Whilst this can help in terms of building attacks, it's not essential as Germany made the final with Lahm playing on the left despite being right footed and he was quite good there and Germany built up a lot of attacks from that side. If Delaney continues to impress for us then he will hopefully start on the qualifiers and this won't be a problem, but I wouldn't have a massive problem with a right footer playing on the left. One thing that does worry me though is that Trap didn't seem to use overlapping FBs in his first two games. Then again, they were only friendlies and we were using 4-4-2 where overlapping FBs aren't as essential.

eirebhoy

02/07/2008, 4:00 PM

- Overlapping, attacking full backs was a major theme. This means having right footers at RB and left footers at LB.
After the QF's I looked at the stats and the 3 players that had played the most passes in the tournament were all full backs (Lahm, Grosso and Zhirkov). Capdevila was 5th at the time. The top 2 after the tournament are Lahm and Ramos. Full backs certainly did play a huge part.

cavan_fan

02/07/2008, 7:33 PM

Stop trolling.

Im happy to criticise a state of affairs that doesnt work in the best interest of Irish Football or of our underage players. Your happy to support that state of affairs because your imagination cant contemplate any alternative.
Possible solutions -
- regional acadamies with top class coaches with a unified coaching philosophy that take the place of the english clubs in player development.
-ban on players going abroad until they reach a certain age.
-academy teams playing games against other academy teams in europe.
-a feeder system so players can move easily into the Eircom League
-Greater support for the league from great Irish public

A radical idea might be to put a quota of young players for Eircom League teams, for example each EL team must have 8 players under 22 in their starting lineup. Thsi would mean saying the EL is a developing ground for potential internationals and woudl reduce European success.