Great vid of the lads training today is contained here
http://www.irishtimes.com/sports/soc...317473895.html
Ireland in composed football shocker.
First hoof comes on 2.01,(Ward?)
I couldn't really tell who was who.
Printable View
Great vid of the lads training today is contained here
http://www.irishtimes.com/sports/soc...317473895.html
Ireland in composed football shocker.
First hoof comes on 2.01,(Ward?)
I couldn't really tell who was who.
Interesting, the whole idea of that type of training no matter what sport is possesion and movement in tight spaces, controlling and passing your way through, why anyone hoofs the ball is beyond me.
I did notice the red bips were definitely better in controlling in tight spaces and off the ball movement was best down the left hand side.
At one point I thought I saw the bibs lined up in a 5 man midfield with a redhead (Green?) in the middle.
How much do you reckon a stadium like that one in Gydnia costs to build? Probably not much yet it'd be the best purpose-built football stadium in Ireland.
How much would it cost to re-kit Dalyer like that for example?
Sports facilities in Ireland are a joke. My local municipal running track (Willesden) in London would be Ireland's national stadium.
Food for thought.
Sure, if you drop a striker from the squad for him. A bit late now!Quote:
Originally Posted by Stuttgart88
several reports have it as costing €21m, or 2/3 what it cost Liverpool to buy Andy CarrollQuote:
Originally Posted by Stuttgart88
As a comparison, Thomond Park was redeveloped for €40m
Andy Reid?Quote:
Originally Posted by Stuttgart88
Maybe we should get the Poles to do our construction for us. Oh, hang on...Quote:
Originally Posted by tetsujin1979
Not to state the obvious but we are playing Italy and Spain, the last two World Cup winners. Some of us, myself included, must be blindly optimistic hoping we'll get out of this group.
Slaven Bilic discusses Jelavic and the level of respect he has for the Ireland team: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/18355366
'Robbie Keane ready to play deeper role against Croatia': http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/18359484
Quote:
The Republic's midfield was outnumbered for much of Monday's friendly against Hungary and Giovanni Trapattoni expressed concern after the game.
"I might have to drop deeper on to the [opposition] holding midfielder and not let him dictate the game," said Keane.
"It's more things like that than, say, a formation change."
The LA Galaxy striker added: "He's had the same system since he came in, so if anything changes it would be a minor thing.
"We're not going to just go to a 4-3-3 when we haven't done it for a long time."
Corluka having tests tomorrow. Croatia won't have anybody left!!!
Fresh injury blow for Croatia
'Croatia coach Slaven Bilic suffered another blow on Thursday, on the eve of the start of Euro 2012, as midfielder Ivo Ilicevic was ruled out of the tournament after suffering a left calf injury during training in Poland.'
Not a big blow though.
Hope Corluka is fit, he's definitely a weak link at the back that can be exploited.Quote:
Originally Posted by shakermaker1982
Talk of a rift in the spanish camp between Barca and Real players, Xavi stirring things a bit.
http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/st...nsions?cc=5739
http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/st...ements?cc=5739
Corluka has been cleared to play on Sunday.
The fact that this Greek team finished ahead of Croatia in the qualifiers gives me hope.
Russia were impressive. No dishonour in being the runner-up in that qualifying group. Wouldn't have minded being in Group A but sure we'll have some hell of a tournament in the group we are. It's fantastic though to have great games to look forward to, it's what being back in the big time is all about.
Russia were good but I thought Czech were very poor, and gave them far too much space. They (Russia) are probably capable of beating most teams in the competition but I'd bet on them going out in the quarters when they meet a good side.
I hope YOU and SLAVEN BILIC are both right, because he describes him as their best defender! (http://espnfc.com/us/en/news/1091076...a-cleared.html)Quote:
Originally Posted by French Toasht
Do you think? Only let in ONE goal.LOL:DQuote:
Originally Posted by Murfinator
Quote:
Originally Posted by weldoninhio
Guess who was right???
Pat Kenny?
To anyone who thinks that losing the three games has done irreparable damage to Irish football, what effect do you think Shamrock Rovers's performance in the Europa League did?
In what sense would either performance have done irreparable damage to Irish football? They're only irreparable if we fail to learn from where we went wrong.
Maybe irreparable is a little over the top, but some comments have been along those lines. Roddy Collins claimed the results have put us back 20 years (meaning we're going to qualify for the next world cup?) and I've read posts saying it would have been better not to have qualified.
I don't think the results put us back 20 years, but they do expose just how far behind we are. We can continue with the current slipshod approach or we can learn our lesson. The wake-up call has to be viewed as beneficial, but I can't see how failing to qualify could have been in any way advantageous. It's just people reacting in over-the-top fashion.
Wish it did put us back 20 years as were ranked on the worlds top 10 then.Quote:
Originally Posted by tetsujin1979
Very different tbf. First time a LOI team got to the group stage of a Euro comp, and at least they were fairly competitive in most of the games (unlike Irelands three games). Now if an Irish team continued to get into group stages and not get any points then you might argue that, but not for a first outing.Quote:
Originally Posted by tetsujin1979
10 years at the very leats, if we implement the spanish model from u10 now, more likely the fruits will bear around 15 years, so 20 years isnt too far off really :DQuote:
Originally Posted by DannyInvincible
Anyone who says we've set the game back or done damage is just looking for a Roy Keane-style catchphrase that doesn't stand up to scrutiny. As Danny says, it's a wake up call. We can't compete against Europe's best but we are still serious qualification contenders, just as we were 10 years ago. Maintaining this and cranking it up a notch so that we are group stage contenders is what we have to aim for.
I found this quote from Greg Cunningham (link provided in the Greg Cunningham thread yesterday) quite encouraging:
"We had a good result at home to Italy* and if we beat Turkey in the next qualifier in August we have a great chance of qualifying for the finals. I want to push on to the seniors but I am enjoying the games with the U21s. We have a very strong U21 squad now. A lot of us have been together since we were under-14s"
Last year's U19s were UEFA semi-finalists and got there by beating Italy 3-0. OK, they were utterly outclassed by Spain in the end. (Was there much overlap between that squad and the current U21 squad? What about the U17s that qualified for the Euros a couple of years ago - are they in the U19 or U21 team now? They looked a bit out of their depth in those finals.)
The U17s were a minute away from UEFA qualification last year - thwarted by an injury time Danish winner I think. Denmark went onto the last 16 or last 8 in the U17 World Cup by virtue of their subsequent UEFA performance.
So, amidst all the chaos and gloom, some things are looking up. The underage sides are all playing 4-3-3. The Turkey U21 game might even be a game-changer for Irish football.
* though both our goals were ugly or fortunate. An o.g. from a corner and a penalty from a soft-handball.
21 days of posts missing from this thread? Last post on the previous page was from 9th of June.
Er, no.
People were either in Polska. Or used individual match/player threads. Or discussed how great the LOI was, how sh*t the weather was or how crooked FF were elsewhere.
No, it looks like stuff has been moved.
Davor Suker to take over as head of the Croatian FA with Igor Stimac expected to take over as national team manager: http://fourfourtwo.com/news/restofeu...8/default.aspx
Going back to my photo of the goodbye party from Poznan going slightly viral, I decided to do a reverse-image search* to see where it had ended up
A review of Euro 2012 on an Irish interior design blog: http://www.emeraldinteriordesign.ie/...012-adventure/
The Ireland Euro 2012 thread on RedCafe: http://www.redcafe.net/f7/irelands-e...l#post11823188
A Hungarian sports newspaper: http://sportgeza.hu/futball/2012/eb/...tja_az_ireket/ (click the "Itt a plakat" link)
*this is where you send an image to google, and it tells you what sites it's on
Finally, it all becomes clear as to why exactly we did so badly at the Euros: http://pogmogoal.com/the-blog-reel/s...pressure/7305/
Quote:
He was the Indonesian psychic who predicted Euro glory for Ireland. He couldn’t see past the colour green for the eventual winners. Now Santos wants to apologise to the Irish fans for adding to the pressure on the team. In the end, not even he could foresee Spain’s football from the future.
“Ireland’s performances in Euro 2012 were quite disappointing for all of us. They did not look so confident with themselves. I think it was all about the players’ mentality. They were so nervous. I could see that clearly. They played defence-orientated but did not apply quick counter attack. Maybe my prediction more or less affected them by adding to their burden in this competition. I am so sorry if that’s really what happened.
Predicting a team to be champions can affect them in two ways. First, the team can become confident to win the cup in reality. On the other hand, they will be pressurised so much that they will not play in a way they should.
In 2004, I predicted Greece to be the Euro champions and it really happened. At that time, my prediction (although it was not published) affected the team, making them more confident to compete against stronger sides. I did not pick Greece randomly without any consideration. I really did see the colour blue that year. It meant that only teams with this shade could win Euro 2004. Greece could, Italy could, other blue teams could. But I picked Greece because I wanted to see a surprise in soccer....
Tets that photo has almost become like a child of yours!!Quote:
Originally Posted by tetsujin1979