QuoteGreat read. Got goosebumps thinking about those games. Wonderful tournament.Originally Posted by DeLorean
Fixed that.That all sounds suspiciously like 2006 to me.
Everything else was spot on.
And I was Italian for that month.
Watching them cheat Oz as well was depressing too.
Great read. Got goosebumps thinking about those games. Wonderful tournament.
DID YOU NOTICE A SIGN OUTSIDE MY HOUSE...?
I keep thinking 2010 when I remember that WC... it just doesn't seem like 7 years ago!
There's little comparison with the quality of the 2012 opposition, Spain, Italy and Croatia and what we got at WC2002 Germany, Cameroon and Saudi A. Even a Trap managed team probably would have got us to the last 16 in 2002.
But there's no denying that we were the 'least prepared to meet the challenge' minnow team at the 2012 Finals. There was just no chance with our style/approach that we would ask some questions of our opponents, unlike similar standard teams, Denmark and Sweden in their groups.
I didn't express an opinion on that game. And I'm not sure why you did given your seemingly-irritated follow-up...
No need to partake in or prolong the discussion with an historical retort yourself if you've an issue with delving into the past.Can't see what this has to do with future campaigns.
Anyway, what's the harm? People look towards and prepare for the future by reviewing and learning from the past. The frivolous, or perhaps superstitious, amongst us seem to be of the belief that we might be owed some future slice of either good or bad luck based on past fortune. I don't tend to take such talk seriously. When Fixer says Kilbane "should have" scored in Amsterdam, as if to suggest a stroke of bad luck had its say as he ran clean through on goal with just Van der Sar to beat before dragging his scuffed effort wide of the post, I can't agree. We'd love him to have scored, sure, but why should he have? If he should have, why didn't he? It's just fantasy-talk. He wasn't trying to miss on purpose. He lacked not "luck", but composure and ability in the circumstances. A better finisher would have scored.
He should have scored because he was well capable of scoring from that position. He made a mess of it. There was no bad luck element.
On another day he would have scored. And on another day, that shot wouldnt have taken a nasty deflection and looped over Kelly.
So I don't think it was luck that saw us through that qualifying campaign. We played well and managed to get past the smaller nations professionally and without much hassle really.
In the second play-off game in Iran I remember Ali Daei having an effort in the first half and then a couple of good saves in the second half. Connolly also hit the side netting. So Iran didn't choke. We stood up and showed our resolve. And we deserved it.
Folding my way into the big money!!!
"There were people running on to the pitch hugging each other.... what are ye hugging each other for?!"
The fact remains that Kilbane bottled it. Whether nerves got to him at that precise moment, who's to know? He may have scored the chance if it were at home and against inferior opposition, but that's ultimately irrelevant. The shot for the second goal may never have come in had we been better organised and collectively positioned to prevent it. It was typical of our throwing away of games late on. Nevertheless, we did deserve qualification; not doubting that at all.
Just watched the highlights there again. A long time since Ive seen them. We did play some lovely stuff that night and Killer showng his pace and swinging in a couple of left foot beauts.
I thought you were off the drink Ronnie?
"No, I drink to help me mind my own business....can I get you one? (c) Ronnie Drew
Robbie scoring against the Dutch? I thought he doesn't score against any of the top teams!
Forget about the performance or entertainment. It's only the result that matters.
The measure of a "top team" is whether Robbie Keane scored against them or not.
The Dutch weren't a top team then. Sure they didn't even qualify for the World Cup that year!
It's a bit like the original Catch 22: he doesn't score against top teams and anyone he scores against can't be a top team.
How about, they were not allowed to be a top team that campaign because Robbie Keane scored against them.
Even if Robbie had never scored consistently against the top sides of the international game (he has, of course), it's not as if any of our other strikers through history have. He's the best striker we've ever had by a long chalk and a living Irish footballing legend.
Suppose these were his biggest goals (in terms of scoring against 'top' sides)...
Yugoslavia (H) Euro Qual 2-1 (Yugoslavia went on to top the group and reach the quarter finals of Euro 2000 where they lost 6-1 to Holland).
Turkey (H) Euro Qual Playoff 1-1 (Turkey went through on away goals rule and reached the quarter finals of Euro 2000)
Holland (A) WC Qual 2-2 (Holland had just reached the semi finals of Euro 2000 and should really have made the final)
Germany (N) WCQ 1-1 (Germany went on to reach the final, Brazil's Ronaldo the only other player to score against them in the tournament)
Spain (N) WC (High pressure penalty, Spain went on to lose quarter final)
Italy (A) WCQ 1-1 (Yet another late equaliser, this time against the World Champions)
France (A) WCQ Playoff 1-1 (Tied up the playoff against the previous World Cup runners-up)
Russia (H) Euro Qual 2-3 (A penalty which he won himself, Russia went on to top the group and flopped at tournament)
Important goals but probably not classed as 'top' opponents...
Iran (H) 2-0 (WC Playoff)
Saudi Arabia (N) 3-0 (WC)
Israel (H) 2-2 (WCQ)
Estonia (A) x2 4-0 (Euro Qual Playoff)
Sweden (H) 1-2 (WCQ)
Could add a load of goals scored against minnows which were important, anybody from Macedonia's level downwards (who I wouldn't consider minnows at all!)
Decent opposition but only friendlies....
Czech Rep x2
Russia
Denmark x3
Holland
Croatia
Sweden
Colombia
Norway
That's 25 goals accounted for. Still enough to make him our highest scorer. He has scored 29 non-friendly goals, 32 if you include Carling Nations Cup.
We're seriously going to struggle for goals without him.
Last edited by DeLorean; 09/10/2013 at 9:35 AM.
I enjoyed this article by Miguel Delaney today. This is probably the best thread for it.
http://www.examiner.ie/sport/soccer/...ra-245719.html
No limits in a bold new era
Wednesday, October 09, 2013
By Miguel Delaney
In Iceland, they’re suddenly attempting to play down expectations.
“We’re a small country, with just 320,000 inhabitants,” Cardiff City’s Aron Gunnarson recently explained. “We need to be realistic.”
The exact reality, however, is that a nation of that size currently sits in second place in Group E, having last month claimed a 4-4 draw away to leaders Switzerland. It’s quite a transformation, given that Iceland were ranked 131st in the world just over 16 months ago.
That remarkable rise reflects something of an increasing mobility in international football. Because, as the 2014 World Cup qualification campaign starts to properly close out this weekend, it’s worth considering how unexpectedly open it all is.
Iceland are directly competing with: Slovenia, who are themselves the smallest European country to have ever reached a World Cup; Norway, who are aiming for their first qualification in 14 years; and Albania, who are hoping for their first qualification ever.
Bosnia-Herzegovina find themselves in the same mindset as the Albanians, if not quite the same position given how they lead Group G, while Hungary are looking to end a generation of failure to make a first tournament since 1986.
In other words, there is a true sense of freshness and variety about this campaign. That is best represented by the Belgians, who are not just looking to end their own 12-year absence from the top level, but also to topple many of the teams that dominate. Like their play, it all feels so vibrant.
Even if many of the struggling major nations reassert their strength this week, the persistent feeling is international football no longer has any actual baseline quality. It has never been less fixed. There has never been so much fluidity to the ability of the countries.
Of course, the articles about how the international game has fallen behind the Champions League since 2000 have long been written. While the major tournaments used to be the barometer for the entire game, they are now just barometers for how far Uefa’s elite event is ahead of virtually everything else.
No individual nation can match the concentration of utter quality the modern super-clubs enjoy. It was something Jose Mourinho argued on Friday as he noted even Belgium’s reliance on players like Kevin De Bruyne. “Normally national teams don’t have as many options as big clubs have. If you go from team to national team, it looks like Brazil and Germany have dozens and dozens and dozens of good players. And all the other countries are struggling for quality players and their options are limited.”
The Spanish media that ultimately developed such a poor relationship with Mourinho might dispute that one too, but there is a legitimate point there.
If Euro 2004 set the template for how mid-tier teams like Greece could compensate for their flaws, and Euro 2008 illustrated how nations such as Spain had managed to distil all of their qualities, it was Euro 2012 that pointed to a more winding middle path between these two extremes.
After a decade of generally dull tournaments where only a few teams attempted something more expansive — of which the 2010 World Cup was a nadir — the greater attacking openness in Poland and Ukraine appeared to predict this current situation in the European qualifiers.
It was also something that perhaps only exaggerated the issues at the end of Giovanni Trapattoni’s era.
While Ireland were rigidly trying to stand their ground, the rest of Europe has been swirling about rather chaotically. The majority of team cycles don’t even last the traditional length of four years. Within two, status can drastically change. You only have to look at how Croatia have wavered between 2006 and now, going from contenders to failing to qualify for 2010.
Short-term alterations seem to have a disproportionately large effect.
Part of the issue is undeniably the utter lack of countries looking to the long term. If you survey the world game, Spain and Germany are the only two federations to have undertaken radical overhauls of their infrastructures in the last two decades, making it no coincidence they lead the way with football to rival the greatest club sides.
Holland have also kept steady while Belgium consulted such nations in altering their own coaching. Even some in Brussels, however, point to a certain amount of basic luck in gathering a generation as good as one that features Eden Hazard and Christian Benteke.
Harry Redknapp also offered a telling point amid the more self-serving revelations of his recent autobiography extracts.
“You’re watching a tournament thinking, ‘Hang on, he was at Blackburn — he was useless,’ or ‘That bloke couldn’t get in West Ham’s team’.”
The point here is not some reductive view that only success in the Premier League matters. It is so many countries reflect the staggered quality of international football as a whole. Qualifying nations are often very incomplete.
Ireland saw this first-hand in the last double-header. A player of Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s admitted quality combined for the win with Anders Svensson — a 37-year-old who has spent the last eight years back in Sweden.
On Friday, the Swedes’ own crunch fixture further illustrates the issue. Their patchwork side will meet one of these once-a-generation collections of young talent in Austria, to decide second place.
None of this is to give Ireland a pass for the failures in the country’s infrastructure. It is that, until the FAI make the changes that they must, relative success remains somewhat navigable with the right short-term changes.
It is no longer that international football is either good or bad. It is that, right up to the semi-finals of any tournament, you will see a lot of both. Beyond the very best, there is no longer a set standard. Expectations should be more fluid than ever.
When i read that and think of all the eejits trying to downplay us all the time and that we are still not competing at the end of the campaign it really angers me.
especially the likes of murfinator and some of the older posters on here, if it can be done in countries like montengro, iceland, slovenia, boznia-herzegovina, belgium(granted they are a special case), there is no reason why a country with at least half of its players playing in the 1st or 2nd best league(yes better than spain as CD you were wrong just looking at real socidedad and the other spanish teams in europa league, swanseas 3-0 win) in the world should nto be competing to make all these major finals until the very last day at least, if not hte play-offs. Why are people so happy to live in/with mediocrity? I don't live my life that way and I don't think our team should be settling for it either, if you are happy to the average joe and be boring dont try and drag our national teams expectations down with you or impressing on others .
That's the main point for me, average players who can perform for their country, this co-relates to players who are better than average playing in the PL and we don't pick them or cant get the best out of them. We are in a far better position than a lot of other countries in face, but we are happy to settle for a lot less. Its so disappointing.“You’re watching a tournament thinking, ‘Hang on, he was at Blackburn — he was useless,’ or ‘That bloke couldn’t get in West Ham’s team’.”
I hope decisions are made quicker from now in with regard to managers overstaying. IT has never worked out for us letting htem continue on when a couple of major results have gone awry.
Last edited by paul_oshea; 09/10/2013 at 11:34 AM.
I'm a bloke,I'm an ocker
And I really love your knockers,I'm a labourer by day,
I **** up all me pay,Watching footy on TV,
Just feed me more VB,Just pour my beer,And get my smokes, And go away
It's all cyclical, chief...
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