Should Trapattoni manage Ireland for the 2014 World Cup Campaign?

[tricky_colour]

Forget about player rumours and tactics for the moment. Selecting Given, Whelan, O'Shea (at right back) Ward and Keane for all three games was a bizarre decision. They all had very poor tournaments and yet all 5 started every game. Thats poor management. And whats worse MickMacs comments about us going to enjoy 2002 or Traps comments about playing the team that got us to 2012 regardless of their form.

I think that might have been a bit of clever psychology by Mick.
1) Make the opposition think you are not a serious threat.
2) Helps the players relax, there is enough pressure on them already, put to much on them and they may just crumble beneath
the pressure and freeze on the day. That is what may have happened with Trap, I think he said himself they played with fear, and that
may have been fear of him perhaps, or just the weight of expectations.

I remember seeing the players in the tunnel before one of the matches, seriously, they looked like they were about to be fed to the lions!!

But whatever we had the real group of death.

[back of the net]

I remember seeing the players in the tunnel before one of the matches, seriously, they looked like they were about to be fed to the lions!!

But whatever we had the real group of death.

Was it in the tunnel before the Croatia game by any chance tricky? I was in the pub in Toronto watching it and when the camera went into the tunnel where the teams were waiting, it showed Given, Duff, Dunne and Andrews. I turned to my mates and said they look like they have the fear of god in them especially Dunne. They looked fierce nervous.

Trap has blamed nerves and fear for our performance in the euros and to a big extent I completely agree with him.
That does not mean I am condoning his tactics or selections, but we way underperformed , shockingly so.

Beaten by the better teams, definitely so.....but we drastically underperformed to our abilities.

Dont think I have ever seen Dunne play so bad, one of our better more experienced players.

We are better than what we saw in Poland.

[mypost]

I don't understand your point. Just because they're out doesn't mean their anything to aspire to? Just because they're out means they're not role models? And shouldn't we have alternatives?

The point is that all the alternatives didn't work either. We achieved our goal of getting to the Championships. The final line up shows what we were up against.

I think we should aspiring to be Croatia/Greece/Denmark/Ukraine. Able to act/react, playing to their potential, giving their fans a couple of moments to cheer about.

Ukraine have Shevchenko, we had Shane Long. Croatia had Modric, we had Glenn Whelan, Italy had Pirlo, we had Keith Andrews. The calibre of player of the opposition was something we don't have at this time. We can aspire to be as good as them, when we have the players to match their abilities.

And of Trap? He did make us hard to beat in qualifying, which he deserves some credit for. Other than that he's done nothing for this team.

In fairness, qualifying for the finals with what we have, was an achievement in itself.

[back of the net]

The point is that all the alternatives didn't work either. We achieved our goal of getting to the Championships. The final line up shows what we were up against.



Ukraine have Shevchenko, we had Shane Long. Croatia had Modric, we had Glenn Whelan, Italy had Pirlo, we had Keith Andrews. The calibre of player of the opposition was something we don't have at this time. We can aspire to be as good as them, when we have the players to match their abilities.



In fairness, qualifying for the finals with what we have, was an achievement in itself.

Agree with alot of your points Mypost but , was it an achievement to qualify for the finals?

I would view us as better than slovakia and every other team in our Qual group bar Russia.
So that leaves us with second place , and if Trap had been a bit more attack minded especially at home to slovakia and we should have beaten them away , would that not have left us in a position where we would have been serious contenders for the automatic highest runners up qualifying spot which sweden got.

When the Qual draw was made, I was expecting us to be at least challenging for that spot. But due to some bad tactical decisions we prevented ourselves from competing for it.

That kind of leaves me thinking that it actually wasnt as great an achievement to qualify from our group.

[mypost]

Agree with alot of your points Mypost but , was it an achievement to qualify for the finals?

I would view us as better than slovakia and every other team in our Qual group bar Russia.
So that leaves us with second place , and if Trap had been a bit more attack minded especially at home to slovakia and we should have beaten them away , would that not have left us in a position where we would have been serious contenders for the automatic highest runners up qualifying spot which sweden got.

When the Qual draw was made, I was expecting us to be at least challenging for that spot. But due to some bad tactical decisions we prevented ourselves from competing for it.

That kind of leaves me thinking that it actually wasnt as great an achievement to qualify from our group.

This one was a great achievement. We hadn't qualified for anything in 10 years. We hadn't qualified for this in 24 years. Germany haven't always qualified by winning their group, nor have France, nor have Italy, nor have England. It doesn't matter how you get there, as long as you get there.

[back of the net]

This one was a great achievement. We hadn't qualified for anything in 10 years. We hadn't qualified for this in 24 years. Germany haven't always qualified by winning their group, nor have France, nor have Italy, nor have England. It doesn't matter how you get there, as long as you get there.

Agreed on it doesnt matter how you get there once u get there, but there is a part of me that feels we didnt get the results in our qual group that we should have been getting and therefore avoiding the potential agony of the playoff which we are all well used to at this stage

[mypost]

If it doesn't matter, why bring it up?

Germany won 15 games on the trot, but are going home empty-handed today again. Sweden took the best runners-up spot, yet were the next team eliminated after us despite having all their games in the one place. Getting there is the important part, and bar the Russian home result, I was happy enough with our other results. Without them, we wouldn't be in Poland.

[jbyrne]

And of Trap? He did make us hard to beat in qualifying, which he deserves some credit for. Other than that he's done nothing for this team.

we were a complete and utter shambles when Trap took over. in his first campaign he drew with Italy twice and was only cheated out of the WC finals. That performance away against France was better than anything id seen away from home in 30 years supporting the team. He then managed us to qualify for the Euros. You can discuss the quality of our group all day but we were third seeds and we hadnt qualified in 24 years, often with far better players than we have now. Id say he's done a fair bit for our team to be honest

[back of the net]

If it doesn't matter, why bring it up?

Germany won 15 games on the trot, but are going home empty-handed today again. Sweden took the best runners-up spot, yet were the next team eliminated after us despite having all their games in the one place. Getting there is the important part, and bar the Russian home result, I was happy enough with our other results. Without them, we wouldn't be in Poland.

I mean in the sense of we were lucky to be drawn with Estonia in the playoff , if we had gotten one of the stronger nations who were 2nd seeds in the pot then we may well have been staying at home this summer.

We should be beating slovakia at home and we should have been gunning for the automatic second place qualifying spot and not relying on a kind playoff draw. If the playoff draw wasnt so kind to us then Trap could very well been out of a job come last november. I dont think it was a great achievement to finish ahead of slovakia, macedonia, andorra and armenia. An achievement ,yes but not a great one.


Were you happy enough with the performance and result against slovakia at lansdowne?

I give alot of credit to Trap for making us organised but his tactics against teams at home that we should be beating are worrying and potentially could cost us in the WC quals if he doesnt reconsider them

[mypost]

I mean in the sense of we were lucky to be drawn with Estonia in the playoff , if we had gotten one of the stronger nations who were 2nd seeds in the pot then we may well have been staying at home this summer.

I've already covered the issue in an earlier post.

We should be beating slovakia at home and we should have been gunning for the automatic second place qualifying spot and not relying on a kind playoff draw.

Russia should have beat Slovakia at home. Russia should have won in Armenia. Slovakia should have won in Armenia. Armenia could have got a result in Russia. Everyone dropped points they should have won at some stage in a very competitive group. That's the way it goes. Fortunately, we got over the line, so it doesn't matter in our case.

Were you happy enough with the performance and result against slovakia at lansdowne?

Wasn't bothered by the performance. The result kept us in qualifying contention and gave us the head-to-head advantage over the Slovaks thanks to our score draw over there. 2 vital points that helped get us to Poland.

[Stuttgart88]

I was delighted to get there, absolutely thrilled and it fully warranted whatever means it took. Trap deserves credit and I was happy to give it to him throughout qualifying.

But that's not to say we can't look at our weaknesses and see if they can be improved.

At times in the last 2 years we have too far easy to play against and especially in the recent past. We can romanticise Talinn all we want but the truth is that even after they went down to ten men they ran the show for 30 minutes until Walters scored, more or less out of the blue.

We were all happy with the Bosnia friendly win, but let's not forget we gifted them a one-on-one in the last minute. We played well in parts in Budapest but also gave away 2 or 3 gilt-edged chances. We then took this habit into the Croatia game and our luck ran out, just as it did at home to Russia.

So that tells me, this "hard to beat / we keep clean sheets" stuff isn't as robust as we think it is. I'm not going into the minutiae of potential personnel changes / shape changes / tactical changes but a completely reasonable conclusion to draw is that we must do something to cure these deficiencies whilst retaining our strengths. I have ideas as do others here, but Trap & Tardelli between them should recognise this and address it.

I'm not disagreeing with jbyrne at all, just adding an extra angle. I think mypost is seeing things in a totally binary way though, it's either 1 or 0, but there's no possiblity of anything in between.

[back of the net]

Russia should have beat Slovakia at home. Russia should have won in Armenia. Slovakia should have won in Armenia. Armenia could have got a result in Russia. Everyone dropped points they should have won at some stage in a very competitive group. That's the way it goes. Fortunately, we got over the line, so it doesn't matter in our case.



Wasn't bothered by the performance. The result kept us in qualifying contention and gave us the head-to-head advantage over the Slovaks thanks to our score draw over there. 2 vital points that helped get us to Poland.

I disagree with you on this, Its not about what Russia did or could have done or any other team , it is about what we should have done and be doing in future games so that we dont have to worry bout our results against other teams / head to head advantages to allow us to qualify.


We should be beating the weaker teams at home and we should be doing it without making ourselves suffer. Trap has to realise this, or else in reality , luck may not be on his side as much as it was in our last campaign

[ArdeeBhoy]

We're largely 'rubbish' or pretty mediocre at home.

Most of our recent creditable results were earnt well beyond D4. To the extent I'd like us to go back to Croke for the very big games, eg. Germany, as we played a little better there.

[mypost]

Its not about what Russia did or could have done or any other team , it is about what we should have done and be doing in future games.

In the case quoted, it is. We have never had a perfect campaign, very few teams do. Points will always be dropped somewhere along the line. We went into the playoff second leg 4-0 up, with the job done, and people here were whinging that the second leg was an anti-climax. So you can't have it both ways.

We should be beating the weaker teams at home and we should be doing it without making ourselves suffer.

We beat the weaker teams at home, and got the results we needed in most of the other games. Germany won all their qualifying games, and didn't have to worry about such minutiae as head-to-heads and playoffs. It's all rather meaningless for them now.

[Stuttgart88]

Everything in life is meaningless when the day of reckoning comes.

I have to say I'm utterly startled by your refusal to accept any merit, not even the merest scrap, in the views that botn or I have posted in the last few posts.

[back of the net]

In the case quoted, it is. We have never had a perfect campaign, very few teams do. Points will always be dropped somewhere along the line. We went into the playoff second leg 4-0 up, with the job done, and people here were whinging that the second leg was an anti-climax. So you can't have it both ways.



We beat the weaker teams at home, and got the results we needed in most of the other games. Germany won all their qualifying games, and didn't have to worry about such minutiae as head-to-heads and playoffs. It's all rather meaningless for them now.

Again I dont care how germany or other teams do. All i care about is my country and i dont want my country having to rely on other results going our way when we should not have to

I realise there is no perfect campaign but even against macedonia at home we were somewhat lucky, against slovakia at home we were absolutely bloody awful. We invited a team onto us who are below us imo and we were lucky not to be beaten.

When do you think the luck will run out? Because if Trap doesnt learn from his errors then our luck will run out and summer 2014 will be a quite one for us.

[paul_oshea]

This one was a great achievement. We hadn't qualified for anything in 10 years. We hadn't qualified for this in 24 years. Germany haven't always qualified by winning their group, nor have France, nor have Italy, nor have England. It doesn't matter how you get there, as long as you get there.

And it doesn't matter how you got there, when you get there all that matters is how you perform. You are only as good as your last game.

[paul_oshea]

we were a complete and utter shambles when Trap took over. in his first campaign he drew with Italy twice and was only cheated out of the WC finals. That performance away against France was better than anything id seen away from home in 30 years supporting the team. He then managed us to qualify for the Euros. You can discuss the quality of our group all day but we were third seeds and we hadnt qualified in 24 years, often with far better players than we have now. Id say he's done a fair bit for our team to be honest

We weren't cheated out of a finals, we were cheated by a goal, that had we not conceded for the whole 30 mins of extra time, we would have gone through to penalties. Cheated out of the WC finals is not correct. Either way we needed to score, whether or not Henry cheated, to guarantee qualification to the finals. We could well have done an england and lost out on penalties, or done a spain 02.

[shakermaker1982]

GERMANY - OUT
PORTUGAL - OUT

Failures the lot of em.

I love Mypost's logic at times.

[paul_oshea]

MyPost thinks that every team should win it. All 16 teams should win, otherwise they are all failures, bar the actual win.

Posting at night does things to people, do you think because he posts when everyone else doesn't this is why our logic, and his logic are polar opposites. When you think like a robot, you act like a robot.