No sooner is the league title in the bag than Michael begins churning out aliases and mailbombing the BBC. No rest for the...relatively mediocre.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bungle
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No sooner is the league title in the bag than Michael begins churning out aliases and mailbombing the BBC. No rest for the...relatively mediocre.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bungle
In Euro 2012???Quote:
Originally Posted by Stuttgart88
Yes, I thought it was clear in that game just how good a payer he was despite being in the inferior side.
Ok, all I remember was his run at the goal at start of game but not much else. In fairness, I don't think any of our strikers got much of a sniff of the ball in Euro 2012
Trap to Napoli?: http://balls.ie/football/trapattoni-...he-napoli-job/
Quote:
Giovanni Trapattoni has given the clearest indication yet (bar his team selections) that he thinks his time as Ireland manager may be coming to an end, but retire, noooo, Trapattoni wants the Napoli job. Of course he does.
“I always want to win,” he told Il Mattino the local Naples newspaper. “Even returning to a Serie A side like Napoli – why not?
“Am I putting myself forward for the job? Everyone knows my motto: never say never in football. I also tell club Presidents: don’t look at my birth certificate, because that doesn’t reflect my real age.”
This would be the ideal situation. Not only would the FAI not have to pay him any compensation Napoli would have to buy out the remainder of his contract. Too good to be true methinks.Quote:
Originally Posted by DannyInvincible
Napoli have a long standing rivaly with juventus, not sure how they would take to having Trapattoni as manager
The vote is interesting:Quote:
Originally Posted by youngirish
Take him please and best of luck. 28.79% (95 votes)
Take him, leave Manuela, and have John Delaney for free. 65.15% (215 votes)
Rack off Napoli, Trap is staying put. 5.15% (17 votes)
Are you for serious Napoli? really? nooo 0.91% (3 votes)
Total Votes: 330
David O Leary always said that he would like to manage Ireland someday towards the end of his career. Maybe his days of being a club manager at the top level are over now, so would many on this forum like to have the Dubliner who managed Leeds and Aston Villa replace our current Italian in the job.
I'd have Trap in perpetuity over O'Leary for a week.
I don't think club rivalries work quite the same way there. Italian clubs tend to cooperate a lot more and there aren't so many sacred cows.Quote:
Originally Posted by tetsujin1979
With all this speculation about Trap leaving could it be just coincidence that Alex Ferguson has decided to step down from club management after 26 years? I think not.
On a more serious note I heard recently that Bob Paisley (possibly the most successful manager in English football of all time) applied for the Ireland job in 1986 but was overlooked instead by the FAI in preference for Jack Charlton who had never won anything of note. You couldn't make this stuff up.
I suppose in hindsight Jack did okay though.
Those shirts Paisley used to wear in the 70s...
You are absolutely correct. Paisley topped the initial poll by 9 votes to 3 each for Charlton, John Giles and Liam Tuohy. By the time a repeat ballot had taken place, Giles and Tuohy's votes had shifted to Charlton, and he was elected 10-8. It's worth saying that at this point Paisley had been retired for four years.Quote:
Originally Posted by youngirish
http://www.fai.ie/fai/91-history.html?start=15
Hold on, Jack was a successful club manager, a World Cup winner, respected pundit and was coming in without baggage. He had won everything as a player at Leeds, then worked wonders with Middlesborough, got Sheffield Wednesday out of the 3rd Division and to the verge of the 1st and was a respected coach and leader. Giles was never going to be let back near the job, Liam Tuohy would have been another Brian Kerr and it was really a 2 horse race. Jack did well with what has handed over to him and fair play, we overachieved and there was a moment in 1988 when, but for cheating officials (against the USSR and Holland) and out and out thuggery from that tu rd Dasayev (who is as reprehensible a person in person as he was in Hannover) Ireland could have slipped through to the last four of the Euros.
The Meejahideen
Bob Paisley v Jack Charlton, it was a no brainer who was the class act. Only the FAI could manage to fxck that one up.
On Trap to Napoli? It sounds like the Napoli board want the current coaches to sign a new contract and have enlisted the support of Trap to put the pressure on them to do it, asap.
Who cares?
Like Trapp, it's ancient history...
Bob Paisley was desperate for the job and apparently reckoned that Ireland could be a really top team. Liverpool were the Barcelona of that era and the bulk of their team were Irish and Scots. Many say that Bob was the greatest manager of all time and I think it's fair to say that he would have probably done a brilliant job with us, with the great players we had back then.
However, I think it's fair to say that Jack did an absolutely phenomenal job with us. He brought us to three tournaments and created one of the most difficult sides to play in world football. I remain convinced that we could have won Euro 92 if we were there, as the team was at the height of its powers. He literally scoured English football for players that were eligible to play for us. While Bob Paisley was a brilliant manager and apparently an absolute gentleman off the pitch, it is hard to picture an elderly Bob Paisley putting in the amount of mileage that Jack did.
It's very unlikley that Paisley would have had great success with us had he got the job, he unfortunately began to suffer from the early stages of Altzheimers not long after before getting an official diagnosis in the early 90's. Certainly a Paisley with all his faculties would have been a great appointment and the vote when the job was being awarded was a total farce in time honoured FAI fashion but I think we did okay with Jack.....Quote:
Originally Posted by Bungle
I'm still pretty upset with Ray Houghton for his late miss at Wembley. Every time I hear him say... "ah he has to hit the target George", I think of that miss. Stuttgart and Giant's Stadium don't even make up for it. That is probably because I was too young to appreciate Stuttgart and, yes, I know I'm being ridiculously harsh but that miss still makes me squirm. That said, the Poland games that followed were the major f*** ups.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bungle
It was a shocking miss by Houghton at Wembley. Nothing ridiculously harsh about what you said.
Poland away was a total waste, Poland at home was just one of those days and made worse by their keeper wasting about ten minutes feigning injury. Worst of all was Poland, already 1-0 up, not being given a stonewall penalty against England for a Chris Woods foul. It was the last game, concurrent with our 3-1 (?) away win in Turkey. 2-0 would have killed it but instead Lineker got a late equaliser which put them through at our expense.
At the equivalent stage one tournament later England got their just desserts against Holland, though they conveniently overlooked how blessed they were in Poland when blaming eveything under the sun except their being rubbish for not qualifying.
God we absolutely battered England that day. I have vague memories of watching the BBC punditry after the game and Jimmy Hill and Terry Venables agreeing that we deserved to win by 2 or 3 goals. I remember long spells when they didn't even get past the halfway line.Quote:
Originally Posted by DeLorean
Does anyone else agree with me that Ray Houghton must be one of the most negative commentators around? I love him for how he performed for Ireland and I'm sure he's a nice man, but I hate when he's on RTE.
I'd have him over Ronnie Whelan anyday.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bungle
I think he's beginning to chill out a little bit. For the first few years I think he felt the need to comment on every little mis-control or stray pass. I know professionals are paid a lot of money to get these things right but they're not robots either.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bungle
Is it a coincidence that Les Misérables is the google add that Im getting in the last few posts:D
yes, 3-1 was the score with John Byrne (my fav player at the time) netting twice. The home match V Poland was also destroyed by a shocking dry bumpy surface. usually such surfaces suited us with Jacks tactics but in the Poland match is just added to the whole stop / start nature of the game. Jack asked that we never play another home match in March after that game. Only 4 teams in our group back then.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stuttgart88
God damn the break-up of the Soviet UnionQuote:
Originally Posted by jbyrne
and screw Gibraltar too!Quote:
Originally Posted by Fixer82
Capitalism out!Quote:
Originally Posted by Fixer82
Trap to look at new tactics, something he should have done right after the Euro debacle.
http://www.independent.ie/sport/socc...-29262872.html
I remember too that Jack wanted the grass left long when Ireland played Spain soon after a rugby international. After the game, the Spanish press described our tactics as being rugby like, something we were proud of as we intimidated and harried them all game! Memories!Quote:
Originally Posted by jbyrne
Yeah, but he usually trots that line out a few weeks in advance before reverting to type when the squad gets together.Quote:
Originally Posted by gastric
Stu, More comments about possible change!Quote:
Originally Posted by SkStu
http://www.irishtimes.com/sport/socc...toni-1.1391901
Yes, the other papers are also more explicit, saying Pilkington will be integral to a 451 with Hoolahan. Encouraging and refreshing in one sense, but also worrying that he sees one player, yet untested, as key to any formation change. Trap has form in playing players in odd ways (McClean in Serbia...) too, so I'm limiting my expectations somewhat.
I think Trap is aware of the criticism of his action / inaction in the last game and is being quite clever with talk of tactical change, which he may not even follow through with if Pilkington isn't fit, or "has the trouble with the wife".
I suppose he's being asked if he's going to try out new systems. Obviously he has to be seen to be open to the idea, even though he probably isn't. He might throw a few token experimental moves in the friendlies alright but I'd imagine we'll be back to basics for the qualifiers.
Fahey as a holding midfielder of sorts, was one of Trap's weirdest ones.
Strange that Trap launches this latest "evolution" in Carrick on Shannon.
He gave sound advice to Pilkington "he will have many opportunities to go on honeymoon,” implying that there is a higher calling, playing for Ireland in a Euro qualifier.
I was in Wembley that night and nearly sure it was close to the end as well. Can’t forget it myself. Talk about the goal at his mercy and normally a great finisher in those positions for club and country. What i also remember from that night was Paul McGrath’s performance. I felt that was his best performance in green that night.Quote:
Originally Posted by DeLorean
Not sure I've seen that incident since -Quote:
Originally Posted by Stuttgart88
(1:40 in)