2023 UEFA Under-21 Championship

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Originally Posted by NeverFeltBetter

Kept on eye on this game tonight, thought Ireland were set-up way too defensively in the first half, when they came out of their shell in the second Israel looked really vulnerable, they were there for the taking with a bit more of a forward-thinking mindset. Azaz an exciting looking player. Never like teams accepting a shoot-out during ET, that what it seemed like to me tonight. Penalties dreadful, suspect little work was done on the training ground before hand to prepare for them, and you can't get away with that in 2022.

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I think Crawford said they practiced them in Ireland but not since they went to Israel, in case spies were watching.

Despite whatever 'practice' was undertaken they were up there with the worst set of pens I've ever seen.

Crawford didn't back the players over these two legs, playing safety first defensive ball. It worked away to Sweden but to me at least Israel looked suspect at the back (keeper aside) so the conservative tactics were the wrong call for me.

Hopefully Mohan comes in, I have my criticisms of the way he selects squads (a bit of Noel King about him in this regard imo) but as a coach he would easily be the 2nd best u21 coach we?ve had behind Stephen Kenny.

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