Republic of Ireland V Latvia - Wednesday, 22nd March 2023 - Friendly

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Originally Posted by Supreme feet

Except it's eight.

France 05 and 09, Russia 10, Germany 12, Sweden 13, Serbia and Denmark 17, and Luxembourg 21. Unless you're discounting playoffs, but that still makes six.

For comparison, we'd only lost three in the previous eighteen years. (Spain 93, Austria 95, Switzerland 02)

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Sorry, I was only including qualification matches and from after Kerr's reign but as you say, if you include everything going back to 1993, we've only lost 11 in 30 years. And I think we have to go back to the Hand era in 85 for our next home defeat. 11 home qualifier defeats in 37 years. That just shows how hard we are to beat at home. I don't have the time to look it up but I'd say not many countries have a better record than that. Especially for a country not counted amongst the big guns.

What relevance are games from the 90s or 00s at this stage?

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Originally Posted by pineapple stu

It does take home advantage into account. You can see that in the list of upcoming matches and the likelihood of a win here - so it gives Tahiti a better chance of beating New Caledonia tomorrow despite being lower-rated - reason being they're at home.

First-move advantage in chess is very similar to home advantage in football; it's statistically proven to heavily influence the outcome of a game (white scores about 55% and black scores 45%).


I'm not dismissing his comments because he doesn't agree with the rating system; I'm dismissing them because he doesn't attempt to engage in it and still says that Kenny needs a result against France and stuff like that or that we drew in 2009 so we can draw again (a bizarre comparison seeing as our squad is much worse than 2009), or tries to say that there's much of a muchness between third and fifth; that sort of stuff. Elo is pretty well-respected as a measuring system and has even been incorporated into the FIFA rankings.

Elo doesn't predict individual results. What it does do is say that when you play a team 220 points lower at home (Ireland v Luxembourg), you should be winning 80% of the time (or whatever it is). And it can happen that the lower-rated team win too. If those results start exceeding chance, then something's going wrong (and indeed by the time of that Luxembourg result, we had dropped 100 points in Kenny's first ten games, which is pretty stark)

So it's not about saying France are favourites - we know that. It's about showing by how much they're favourites, and even why the comparison with the Portugal draw (even if they were up for the game in Dublin, which they weren't) isn't all that relevant because our chances of drawing with France are 40% lower.

So yeah, we can make it difficult for them even if we lose - that's fine. But when Boomers says "If we had a competent manager I'd be very confident of a draw at least", for example - well then it really helps to put the task ahead of us in perspective. That's the point of Elo.

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My mistake, I should have consulted the Elo rankings system before making that statement. :D Does this magical elo take the standard of manager into account? Did you need elo to tell you France are a better team than Portugal?

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Originally Posted by pineapple stu

What relevance are games from the 90s or 00s at this stage?

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It's showing that we've been hard to beat at home for 40 years. Even under managers like Staunton and Kenny. Probably not something elo takes on board but coming to Dublin is not an easy task for anyone.

Looked at some stuff here. I went from the 2004 qualifiers on, cause I feel that World Cup 2002 was the end of a chapter.

1) Teams are ordered by seeding, so for example, we were first seeds for the Euro 2004 group and we were fourth seed for the World Cup 2018 qualifiers.

2) The number after the team is the Elo ranking at the start of the campaign.

3) the results are in brackets, home result first then away result.

Euro 2004:

Ireland 15
Russia 25 (draw, loss)
Switzerland 33 (loss, loss)

World Cup 2006:

France 2 (loss, draw)
Ireland 14
Switzerland 37 (draw, draw)
Israel 40 (draw, draw)

Euro 2008:

Czech Republic 11 (draw, loss)
Germany 6 (draw, loss)
Slovakia 42 (win, draw)
Ireland 35

World Cup 2010

Italy 4 (draw, draw)
Bulgaria 22 (draw, draw)
Ireland 25

Euro 2012

Russia 13 (loss, draw)
Slovakia 48 (draw, draw)
Ireland 31

World Cup 2014

Germany 3 (loss, loss)
Sweden 9 (loss, draw)
Ireland 31
Austria 57 (draw, loss)

Euro 2016

Germany 1 (win, draw)
Ireland 27
Poland 29 (draw, loss)

World Cup 2018

Wales 28 (draw, win)
Austria 42 (draw, win)
Serbia 33 (draw, loss)
Ireland 21

Euro 2020

Switzerland 12 (draw, loss)
Denmark 14 (draw, draw)
Ireland 43

World Cup 2022
Portugal 5 (draw, loss)
Serbia 25 (draw, loss)
Ireland 46

Euro 2024
France 3
Netherlands 4
Ireland 47
Greece 44

Home result against top seeds:
1 win, 5 draws, 3 losses
Away result against top seeds:
1 win, 4 draws, 4 losses

Home result against second seeds:
0 wins, 7 draws, 1 loss
Away result against second seeds
1 win, 4 draws, 3 losses

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Draw from it what you will.

Idah confirmed as ruled out by Wagner. Curious if a replacement will be called up or if Keane was put in there, essentially knowing that Idah was almost certainly ruled out.

Six CFs were named so Keane was likely added because of Idahs injury.

Looking at some of the opinion expressed here and elsewhere I find myself slightly disquieted by the idea being expounded - no more strongly than by Kenny supporters themselves - of our being completely no-hopers and our qualification bid effectively being over before it's even begun.

I've never known so much negativity and such tempered expectations prior to a new qualification campaign.

Even Northern Ireland fans are allowing themselves a certain level of optimism and hope and following the return of Michael O'Neill.

Previously we were told that merely being difficult to beat and achieving the results, even against the better sides, that, prior to Kenny, allowed us to be competitive in qualification groups for so many years wasn't enough, and that we should do all this while placing greater trust in the players to play a more aesthetically pleasing and expansive possession-based game. And to in any way suggest otherwise was disparaging of the abilities of the players.

Well, we've now lost all of that former solidity, results have worsened, and we are now being told by those self-same people, who were quick to criticise Trap, O'Neill and Mick for their alleged dismissal of the ability of the players at their disposal and pragmatic approach, that we shouldn't expect any better because 'we just don't have the players' and dumping Kenny doesn't change this. And all without any apparent hint of self-awareness.

In my view, Michael O'Neill's return as NI manager automatically and immediately makes them a much better side. Probably a better side now, I would suggest, than we are. Because in seeking to extract the maximum possible from the available talent pool, the choice of manager does actually make a difference. A huge difference.

While we shouldn't expect to punch above our weight, we should at least aspire to do so. As it stands, we are arguably underperforming as a nation. And history shows us that you don't necessarily need an abundance of top-level players to be successful in international football.

Under O'Neill, NI topped their Euro 2016 qualifying group as 5th seeds, progressing from the group stage when they got there.

Iceland qualified for the same competition as 5th seeds in group featuring Holland, Czech Republic and Turkey, before getting to the Quarter Finals.

Look at the progress and results achieved by the likes of Finland and North Macedonia in recent years, despite their limited playing resources.

Hungary have achieved some extremely creditable results in competitive matches over the past couple of years. For example:

Hungary 1-1 France
Germany 2-2 Hungary
England 1-1 Hungary
Poland 1-2 Hungary
Hungary 1-0 England
Hungary 1-1 Germany
England 0-4 Hungary
Germany 0-1 England

And this, aside from three or four Bundesliga players, with a squad of players drawn, not from the elite leagues, but rather from the likes of its own domestic league, Slovakia, Belgium, Serie B, MLS, Switzerland, Cyprus and Korea.

Failure shouldn't be meekly accepted as simply inevitable. It never used to be.

Kenny has been afforded a great deal of patience and a huge amount of good will. It is time to repay that faith invested in him. He's had more than sufficient time to rebuild the squad, inculcate his ideas and arrive at an effective and winning formula and I would expect us to at least be very competitive in this coming campaign.

Fully agree.

We have a Premier League regular goalkeeper who is achieving well beyond his peers at his age. We have an excellent crop of young centre backs, as well as John Egan to provide experience. Two quality wing backs in Coleman and Doherty. An excellent deep lying midfielder in Josh Cullen, as well as two hard working solid pros in midfield in Molumby and Knight and an emerging talent in Smallbone.

Up front we have one of the biggest emerging talents in the Premier League in Ferguson and an experienced Premier League performer and mercurial talent in Obafemi.

I'm not saying we should be expecting to split France and Holland in the group, but we should be aiming to be consistently competitive here, and be well ahead of the other two teams.

No more excuses, time for results.

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Originally Posted by Trequartista20

I've never known so much negativity and such tempered expectations prior to a new qualification campaign.

Even Northern Ireland fans are allowing themselves a certain level of optimism and hope and following the return of Michael O'Neill.

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We’ve got a group with probably the two best teams in Europe. How can you not be pessimistic?

If we were the fifth seeds, I’d fancy us to qualify from Northern Ireland’s group:

1. Denmark
2. Finland
3. Slovenia
4. Kazakhstan
5. Niron
6. San Marino

Denmark will win the group and everyone else is extremely beatable. Even Denmark are very much in the second tier of teams in Europe. There’s 8 or 9 elite sides in Europe and Denmark aren’t one.

I think we should come ahead of Greece but I’d fancy Greece to qualify from Northern Ireland’s group too. Maybe I underrate Finland but if you dropped Greece into the group instead of Northern Ireland - my money would be on Greece.

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Originally Posted by elatedscum

We’ve got a group with probably the two best teams in Europe. How can you not be pessimistic?

If we were the fifth seeds, I’d fancy us to qualify from Northern Ireland’s group:

1. Denmark
2. Finland
3. Slovenia
4. Kazakhstan
5. Niron
6. San Marino

Denmark will win the group and everyone else is extremely beatable. Even Denmark are very much in the second tier of teams in Europe. There’s 8 or 9 elite sides in Europe and Denmark aren’t one.

I think we should come ahead of Greece but I’d fancy Greece to qualify from Northern Ireland’s group too. Maybe I underrate Finland but if you dropped Greece into the group instead of Northern Ireland - my money would be on Greece.

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Michael O'Neill must have kissed a, Lucky Leprechaun's Foot.

I blame Kenny for not getting us a lower seeding spot to get N irons group

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Originally Posted by Trequartista20

Looking at some of the opinion expressed here and elsewhere I find myself slightly disquieted by the idea being expounded - no more strongly than by Kenny supporters themselves - of our being completely no-hopers and our qualification bid effectively being over before it's even begun.

I've never known so much negativity and such tempered expectations prior to a new qualification campaign ...


. . . Failure shouldn't be meekly accepted as simply inevitable. It never used to be.

Kenny has been afforded a great deal of patience and a huge amount of good will. It is time to repay that faith invested in him. He's had more than sufficient time to rebuild the squad, inculcate his ideas and arrive at an effective and winning formula and I would expect us to at least be very competitive in this coming campaign.

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Brilliant analysis. Thanks for a great read.

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Originally Posted by Eirambler

Fully agree.

We have a Premier League regular goalkeeper who is achieving well beyond his peers at his age. We have an excellent crop of young centre backs, as well as John Egan to provide experience. Two quality wing backs in Coleman and Doherty. An excellent deep lying midfielder in Josh Cullen, as well as two hard working solid pros in midfield in Molumby and Knight and an emerging talent in Smallbone.

Up front we have one of the biggest emerging talents in the Premier League in Ferguson and an experienced Premier League performer and mercurial talent in Obafemi.

I'm not saying we should be expecting to split France and Holland in the group, but we should be aiming to be consistently competitive here, and be well ahead of the other two teams.

No more excuses, time for results.

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You’re right but… it pales in significance when compared to France and ze Netherlands.

And if I were a Greece fan, I’d point to Vlachodimos, Tsimikas, Mavropanos, Bakasetas, Pavledis and Limnios

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Originally Posted by pineapple stu

Two comments on the above - would we not be better starting 4-3-3 against Latvia? If we struggle to break smaller teams down with 5-3-2 (and we clearly struggle for some reason), would we not try a more attacking system from the start? I don't think I want to watch another game we should win but where for an hour we struggle to make any inroads...

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I suppose there’s a value to a degree of continuity and there are players who would benefit from minutes in that system (I’m thinking Evan Ferguson in particular but also guys like O’Dowda, Smallbone etc.). In terms of team selection and formation, you’re balancing what most helps preparation for the France game (rest player x, give minutes to player y, play player z here), what advantages we can gain later in the group (improve at beating weaker sides at home where we’re dominating), and simply getting a win (primarily for the confidence boost and momentum - I can’t think of a worse mood killer than losing to latvia prior to the France game)

4-3-3 is more suited to beating sides who’s primary aim is not to lose, mostly because you often have a centre half who is totally redundant. The last 30 mins against Lithuania was progress on that front when Manning moved in there because he provided incisive creativity with his passes from that position which is almost always lacking.

It certainly doesn’t make any sense to start 4-3-3 and transition to 5-3-2 if it doesn’t work. And I think learning how to transition between two systems in a game has a value to it as well. I think there’s been a fear in changing formation within a game (not entirety unjustified, it is a risk) and doing it successfully would be of benefit to us in the long run.

I don’t feel entirely convinced that I’m definitely right but if I was in the manager’s shoes that’s how I’d approach it.

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Originally Posted by pineapple stu

Then on Kelleher - I think if he puts in such a good performance against Latvia that you'd promote him to number 1 based on it, we have bigger problems than in nets!

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Yup. I mean we did concede 2 against Armenia in the last competitive window. If he could turn those goals into saves - maybe he can give us all pause for thought, as unlikely as that is.

In his last start for Liverpool, against Wolves, I thought he was really excellent - and frankly, I struggle to remember his last bad game for club or country. I know he rarely plays but he’s consistently good when he does. Bazunu has largely redeemed himself over the past month - and I think both keepers, on their day, can be game winners for us. So I’d hold fire for now…

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Originally Posted by BOOMSHAKALAKA

My mistake, I should have consulted the Elo rankings system before making that statement. :D Does this magical elo take the standard of manager into account? Did you need elo to tell you France are a better team than Portugal?

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Man, the bookies must love you.

I haven't had time to fully cocentrate on this thread, but two things immediately jumped out at me reading the last few pages:

Where is this huge pessimism from "Kenny supporters"? Examples please - of both, the huge pessimism and the justification of the term "Kenny supporter".

And to dismiss elatedscum's post because it references elo rankings is juvenile and disingenuous to the extreme. Hard to believe someone actually appluaded the way BOOM engages with others on this forum.

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Originally Posted by John83

Man, the bookies must love you.

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They did until I permanently closed my account. They miss me now.

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Originally Posted by Stuttgart88

I haven't had time to fully cocentrate on this thread, but two things immediately jumped out at me reading the last few pages:

Where is this huge pessimism from "Kenny supporters"? Examples please - of both, the huge pessimism and the justification of the term "Kenny supporter".

And to dismiss elatedscum's post because it references elo rankings is juvenile and disingenuous to the extreme. Hard to believe someone actually appluaded the way BOOM engages with others on this forum.

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Some have given up before a ball has been kicked in this group. Can you remember a group in the last 40 years where that's happened?

And I can look back but I don't think I dismissed any of elatedscum's posts because of elo rankings. I just don't really care about them but each to their own.

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Originally Posted by BOOMSHAKALAKA

Lads, on that ELO rankings, France are 3rd. Portugal are 5th. We drew with Portugal at home and nearly beat them away in the World Cup campaign. Ok, we had Anthony Barry at that stage but it was under Kenny's reign. Drawing at home to France will take some luck but it really isn't as outlandish as some of you are making it out.

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The premise in almost every single post, is that when something good happens, it's root cause is somebody else apart from Kenny. and those good things, or positives are mitigated.
When something not ideal, undermining, or just bad happens, it is all Kenny's faults, with zero mitigating circumstances.

Even the comparator post from (Skstu?) above which I'd agree with in terms of 23 france, vs 09 France - which is 8 vs 3 in favour of 23 France - you call it close to 50/50 which it is not, without ever considering that 23 Ireland vs 09 Ireland are about 3 vs 8 against 23 Ireland.

If we were to ask Ireland to play core backs-to-the-wall tactics akin to Moscow in 2011 (which was, f'king horrific), to try and eck a point (I can appreciate the merits of a solid defensive, limited effort at attacking tactic, trust me) that would be fine, but irish players by and large who are very adept at that just hoof the ball away, rather than try and retain possession to remove the pressure to relieve fatigue and so on. But those same players (lets call them Duffy's) are not capable of introducing different tactics to suit the occasion, which would mean rotating a large portion of the side to try and take the game to "inferior" opponents. This is not something that Irish fans would accept.

There is the fact, and it is a fact, that Irish players coming through the Irish development system - those players now coming close to making up 50% of our squad now, and will be somewhere in the region of 75% of our squad in 2 years, just are not taught to give the ball away. Possession, recycling possession, transitioning. Hoofing the ball and giving it back to the opposition without trying to retain it (lets be honest, that's what a lot of people expect and accept) is just not part of their mindset - whether they are good enough at senior level to do it is a topic for a different discussion. But if you are trying to gradually change the ethos of a nation again - and that word is very important - it does not happen overnight, unless you get an actual golden generation, and this crop are not - yet - the golden generation we need, but are possibly the golden generation some Irish fans deserve. It takes time, perseverance and luck.
The heyday that a lot of fan hanker for, was a geehair away from not happening as almost butchered two results against Luxembourg in 1987, trying to enforce a style onto players that didnt suit them or their abilities. Patience and luck were the order of the day and the course of Irish football changed - for good or for bad.

the minnows of football are not the same as the minnows of football in our 'golden era'. Their clubs might not be on the radar, but players from all across Europe at senior level have demonstrated greater technical ability in international football than their irish counterparts for a number of years. And not some French dictionary of flicks and movements - just simple basics like receiving with weaker feet and positional awareness. I'm trying to think which game it was last year where Ireland were keeping possession well without making significant progress and Conor Hourihane tried a ridiculous pass that took 2/3 of the team out of the game and we conceded. It may have been Luxembourg. We've witnessed this for at least 4/5 campaigns where we have really struggled - under good managers in your eyes, such as Mon & Mick - to play dominating football, with 'better' (perhaps more established is more accurate) players against Gibralter and Georgia especially.

Am I happy that we are not doing well? No.
Am I a Kenny fanboy? No.
Do I appreciate what he is trying to do? Yes.
Can I accept that he's making mistakes? yes.
Is what he is trying to do, the correct thing to be doing? Absolutely.
Would I accept his sacking, if this campaign wasn't acceptable? Absolutely, so long as someone committed to playing football in the correct manner and utilising the best of our resources that are coming through in the medium term in the best way possible.

But you, and a lot of others like you, are absolute fanatics. And not in a good way - in my very humble opinion. There is no legislating for the fact that none of our established outfield players are PL regulars. There is no legislating for the fact that our established players have been quite poor and in a few cases void of any real on-field responsbility, and of those established players a good few having been plagued by injury. There's always an excuse not to excuse an issue with Kenny.
And there is the perceived undertone that, again, just in my opinion, the real problem here is that we're not at the junket, we're not doing everything we can to try and get that short-term high, the quick-fix, for the event-addict to say they were there. It might be stupidity, but personally I think it's showing actual courage and leadership to try and fix a serious problem at the expense of short-termism.
And that's what makes this forum so bloody difficult to engage with sometimes, and that's coming from someone who spent WAAAAAYYYYYYY too much time on here than was healthy for any adult over too long a period of time.

And what is most upsetting is that with the quality of players coming through, the quality of coaching that schoolboys are getting, having witnessed it and being involved at domestic level, there will be a sustainable squad very soon that will play football that we can enjoy and can be competitive. Kenny, whether he had to or choose to, has started that process by introducing as many of his own 21s group as he did. Chances are he's not going to reap the benefits of that work and someone else will. I just hope that we don't scupper progress by spunking a few million on an Allardyce or a Dyche, because I know it is what a lot of Irish 'fans' would like, but it would be absolutely reckless.



Also, just to say, I'm not trying to 'pick' on you as such - I could have quoted up to a dozen posters. I can't say I admire your standpoint, I absolutely don't and a lot of your posts p'ss me right the f*ck off, but I can appreciate that you are actually engaging on the forum and I'm not, that I could be quite wrong and in the minority, at which point I'll f*ck right back off to the foot.ie wilderness gladly.