Republic of Ireland V Croatia - Sunday, 10th June 2012 - Euro 2012 Group C

[pineapple stu]

Bloody hell. Staying up till 2:45am, drinking E10 pints to settle the nerves, and then that!

Strange game though. One - maybe two - freak goals (yeah, there was so much space for the first one, but still, as Real Ale said, try heading like that getting up off your knees again) and a goal I'd be interested on the offside implications of. Add in a clear penalty for us and yet...we got what we deserved overall. So far behind Croatia it wasn't funny. And to cap it all off, Italy played really well against Spain. I think we've actually got more of a chance against Spain than Italy; Spain are still the same ticky-tacky-crap side who'll have 82% of possession, complete 97% of passes and have two shots on target. Really, really frustrating side to watch because they could be unbelievable. But without Villa, they're a different proposition altogether.

Hard to see anything other than a couple of goal defeats in the next two games as well. But may as well enjoy them, cos it's going to be a long time till we're back at a major finals.

[mypost]

I must say I admire the likes of mypost and tricky who seem to have unfailing confidence in Trapatoni and his tactics, when the reality surely points to two more defeats in the remaining games. Would love, I mean LOVE to eat my words - but I can't see us getting a point in either game from here.

The reality is we were doing fine against Croatia until just before half time, which clearly should have been a free kick for us. There were 3 officials watching it. If they can't spot what happened, they shouldn't be there.

I have full confidence in Trap, because of what he's achieved elsewhere in the past, and by dragging our bunch of second rate players to within a handball of a WC spot, and to these finals. We're not there through our technical ability, but through our strengths, i.e. discipline, teamwork, and a refusal to cave in. Other countries don't have those qualities. If you want to go back to drawing in Liechtenstein, and conceding 5 in Cyprus for the sake of more "entertaining" football, there are other coaches out there for you.

The other reality is, we're one point off a qualifying spot with 2 games to go. We wouldn't throw the towel in that situation in the qualifiers, and we're not going to start now.

[geysir]

Hodgson has had England for 6 weeks & I was impressed with how they stuck to their shape.

It's boring, the type of football I hate but that kind of organisation would have got us a point last night.

There's very little difference between our shape and 'them', except the England back 4 were ironed out neatly along a slide rule, the midfield 4 just ahead of the back 4 along a parallel line. Our lines of 4 have been drawn along a country road with a few potholes.

[Stuttgart88]

There's a difference between our style of lining up behind the ball and the "organised defensive" set-up deployed by England, Denmark, Chelsea etc. that has yielded results recently. The difference is that the others also press the man on the ball, whereas we stand off. Croatia were allowed plenty of time to pick each other out and work the ball wide. At least Spain and Italy won't have Croatia's threat in the air. Jeepers, those Croatians were huge.

[OwlsFan]

Just back from the game. Overall I thought we did ok against No. 8 in the world. Was there a poll where 82% of people though we would qualify for the next round? Unbelievable.

With a modicum of luck we could have come out of that game with a 1-1 but when the opposition score three what I would describe as bizarre goals you will never get anything out of a game. When you don't get the breaks and you lose then everything is black, the players are useless, the manager is at fault. Such are the fine lines between success and failure. Goal one huge deflection off the back of O'Shea puts the ball on the player's head who slips but manages to steady himself and Given unsighted. Ireland fight back and equalise. Goal two we all know about (possible offside but foul on Ward). Goal should NOT stand. Goal three hits post and not going in until Shay heads it in. Such are the margins between 1-1 draws and seemingly outplayed losses.

The Croatians were better yes, did any of us expect anything different? But I didn't think the gap was as big as at the Aviva where they were the far superior side. We didn't play well but we did bring the Croats down to our level which is what we do well.

Saw some of the Panel discussion about us giving the ball away by the hump upfield. Their first goal was caused by some Gilesean inter-play by the back 4 resulting us in losing the ball in our own half and......the EXACT sort of thing Jack and Trap always tried to eliminate. I have heard Giles say in the past what have we to lose by such play - have a look at that goal Mr. Giles. A back 4 of O'Shea, Ward, St. Ledger and Dunne are not suited to Gilesean play from the back just as Mick Martin wasn't all those years ago in Switzerland (I think - some foreign field anyway). We have no Moderic to come back and collect the ball from them.

No luck then in the first game. I am sure that Trap was castigated for the Cox substitution but we could have brought Messi on at that stage and I am not sure we could done much to get the game back but if the peno had been given, who knows. It was a strange decision though. Since we score many of our goals from set pieces, Hunt is the best deliverer of a dead ball so I thought it might have been him to come on.

Well done to the Irish supporters. Excellent support and great rendition of the athem. SOngs are getting terribly stale though. "We all dream of a team of Gary Breens" and "Oh ah Paul McGrath".

Spain - something in my bones tells me that this could be THE performance of the Trap era (alongside Paris). Team down and out, public on its back - who knows but there could be something special.

[shakermaker1982]

There's very little difference between our shape and 'them', except the England back 4 were ironed out neatly along a slide rule, the midfield 4 just ahead of the back 4 along a parallel line. Our lines of 4 have been drawn along a country road with a few potholes.

The English players stuck to their roles unlike our mob. No instances of two players running towards the one ball and leaving a man spare behind (Ward and McGeady). Discipline was exceptional. Credit to Hodgson. Boring to watch but hard to beat.

[shakermaker1982]

I watched the game on ITV but keep seeing mentions of Ward getting fouled for the 2nd goal (owlsfan mentions it again there in post above). When was this? I've not spotted it myself.

[jbyrne]

Watched chunks of the game again today with more sober eyes. It struck me how nervous or edgy our players were right from the off. Perhaps they were overawed a little with the occasion and atmosphere.

i was only watching from the stands and my knees were knocking at the spectacle of the noise, colour and size of the Irish support. Looked at the match last night and the players faces during the anthems told how uptight and nervous they were. a big support like we had Sunday can increase pressure as well as being a 12th man. I thought the pressure showed from kick off and the early goal was the last thing we needed on the back of that.

heading back out to poland again in the morning and hanging on to the hope that we have a massive improvement on Thursday and that the Italy match can still mean something.

cant knock the players effort at all but i think 2 or 3 are not fully fit. for thurs I would like to see walters for doyle (likely), Kelly for ward (some chance) and mcclean introduced on the left after an hour (no chance)

[jbyrne]

I watched the game on ITV but keep seeing mentions of Ward getting fouled for the 2nd goal (owlsfan mentions it again there in post above). When was this? I've not spotted it myself.

RTE showed it quite well that his foot was hooked by a croation player just as he is about to kick the ball.

why are some saying Jelavic wasnt offside? wasnt he a good yard off from the Modric (?) shot? he then made no attempt to get back onside and thus benefited from being in an offside position when the ward kick landed in front of him.

[geysir]

The English players stuck to their roles unlike our mob. No instances of two players running towards the one ball and leaving a man spare behind (Ward and McGeady). Discipline was exceptional. Credit to Hodgson. Boring to watch but hard to beat.

Well I did mean (but maybe not express) that it took discipline to manage what England did and our shape was haphazard like a country road.
The obvious similarities are with the tactics and formation the difference is with discipline and execution.

[geysir]

why are some saying Jelavic wasnt offside? wasnt he a good yard off from the Modric (?) shot? he then made no attempt to get back onside and thus benefited from being in an offside position when the ward kick landed in front of him.

Here's one explanation on this very question, see what you think of it.
Was Jelavić's goal offside?

[Zizou]

Thought we looked like a League of Ireland team when they play in Europe. Totally and utterly out of our depth. So poor on the ball it's actually depressing. And that was against Croatia, not Spain, Germany or France. We are the worst team in the tournament. Fact. After 10 years of waiting and hoping this is the biggest let down in my 26 years watching Ireland.

[osarusan]

why are some saying Jelavic wasnt offside? wasnt he a good yard off from the Modric (?) shot? he then made no attempt to get back onside and thus benefited from being in an offside position when the ward kick landed in front of him.

Here's a post from somebody on another forum.

Note there is no such thing as “active” and “passive [offside] position” in the Laws of the Game, those are just jargon terms. For an offside to be called, the player must be “involved in active play” by one of the three exactly defined activities listed.



A player in an offside position is only penalised if, at the moment the ball touches or is played by one of his team, he is, in the opinion of the referee, involved in active play by:

interfering with play or
interfering with an opponent or
gaining an advantage by being in that position

Now, we would assume that Jelavic definitely met the third criterion as he clearly gained an advantage by being in the position. However, the other poster clarifies further.

We are talking about the last point in this case. And, in the official interpretation of the Laws of the Game (p. 102), it is defined thus:

“gaining an advantage by being in that position” means playing a ball that rebounds to him off a goalpost or the crossbar having been in an offside position or playing a ball that rebounds to him off an opponent having been in an offside position

The referees obviously decided the Irish player has played the ball, therefore, this was not an offside. And I would say this was a correct decision, given the time it took the ball to pass through the defense line – it was not a quick rebound, the ball stopped there for a second. (But I could not find a close-up video of what exactly the Irish player did with the ball.)

I haven't gone to the trouble of consulting a rulebook to find out if the quotes are accurate, but if they are, I can understand the decision.

EDIT: Geysir has linked to the same source, I see.

[Charlie Darwin]

Thought we looked like a League of Ireland team when they play in Europe. Totally and utterly out of our depth. So poor on the ball it's actually depressing. And that was against Croatia, not Spain, Germany or France. We are the worst team in the tournament. Fact. After 10 years of waiting and hoping this is the biggest let down in my 26 years watching Ireland.

You've clearly never watched a League of Ireland team in Europe. They all play far better football than this Irish team.

[Stuttgart88]

Agree with a lot but not all of Owls Fan's view.

The songs are fine. Where was the eirebhoy favourite though, the St.Pauli "Because that's the way we like it" one?

We have ridden our luck in similar games before, even last Monday against Hungary. We always ship chances and always rely on a save, tackle or miss. The clean sheet record is misleading. What was galling was that Croatia barely had to work for their chances and we failed to keep them away from our goal.

The first goal was just surreal, and the others had a decent bit of luck thrown in.

I don't agree re-Cox though. He was stuck out left most of the time which in my view is a daft use of his ability. Hunt or McClean would have been miles better - both for dead ball delivery and also the ability to win fres. In hindsight, I think Liam Lawrence has both the style of game and physical ability to have taken on Croatia. Their physical superiority was telling, not just their technique.

I also have this strong feeling that Spain will be one of the great nights, based on nothing rational whatsoever, just my bones. I think we were caught by stagefright a bit on Sunday.

[jbyrne]

We are the worst team in the tournament. Fact. After 10 years of waiting and hoping this is the biggest let down in my 26 years watching Ireland.

we are in a savage group and I have no doubt we would cope far better against greece, czech rep, poland and possibly even denmark.

if you are being let down so much you obviously had unrealistic expectations before sundays match.

[legendz]

we are in a savage group and I have no doubt we would cope far better against greece, czech rep, poland and possibly even denmark.

if you are being let down so much you obviously had unrealistic expectations before sundays match.

Agreed, if we were in Russia's group, bar Russia, I'd expect us to compete reasonably well. Same could possibly be said of Group D though a bit tougher. Groups B & C were by far the groups we wanted to avoid but didn't landing in group C.

[Stuttgart88]

We probably are the worst team in a competition of mainly very strong teams. Hardly a disgrace. We need to play to our best to compete at this level, unfortunately we froze until it was too late. I'd say we defintely have the worst technical ability. Maybe that is a disgrace of sorts.

I think at one point we were involved in the ugliest move in Euro Championship Finals history, on about 85 mins when we hoofed it up, a Croatian sliced his clearance Kenny Sansom-style up onto the penalty spot and there was a GAA like free for all to win it as it landed. It was almost funny.

[geysir]

Goal one huge deflection off the back of O'Shea puts the ball on the player's head who slips but manages to steady himself and Given unsighted.

I don't know, I'd put it down to Shay in the end - when he did react, his dive looked sluggish, he looked old all of a sudden.

[CMcC]

The English players stuck to their roles unlike our mob. No instances of two players running towards the one ball and leaving a man spare behind (Ward and McGeady). Discipline was exceptional. Credit to Hodgson. Boring to watch but hard to beat.

It does help that Hodgson can work with a back four and midfield players that have a level of talent and quality that we can only dream of.