Impressed with Noel King so far. Seems to be doing a lot of things right and talking sense (plus we can understand what he's saying)
Delighted the job didn't fall to Don Givens who has as good a track record of falling out with players as Trap
I'm not sure this is quite right. As a "finishing school" of sorts, the English system has a good record of taking really talented, really technically-gifted players and making them better. Many of the better players in the English leagues received their education elsewhere before finishing their education in England at 16+, just like the Irish kids do. The difference seems to be that fewer Irish kids are of a good enough standard to compete with those kids. That's something we can change without reference to England, in my opinion.
Impressed with Noel King so far. Seems to be doing a lot of things right and talking sense (plus we can understand what he's saying)
Delighted the job didn't fall to Don Givens who has as good a track record of falling out with players as Trap
Folding my way into the big money!!!
To ours, of course. To the rest of Europe. Not a chance
It's not just a finishing school though, the bigger (and best, to be fair) schoolboy clubs in Ireland are priming players for England (and England only) from the age of about 11. Jack Wiltshire's comments during the week that "we're English, we tackle" is pretty easily transferabel to how Irish football views midfield play too.
I'm not offering any solutions here, I'm just pointing out that there will be no silver bullet for the Irish national team's ills
54,321 sold - wws will never die - ***
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New blog if anyone's interested - http://loihistory.wordpress.com/
LOI section on balls.ie - http://balls.ie/league-of-ireland/
But the English academies are picking up technically-gifted players from all over the world. They're ignoring Irish players because they're not good enough. You can't say the schoolboy clubs are priming players for England when they're doing an increasingly bad job.
Folding my way into the big money!!!
St Ledger must be out in the cold.
When Germany played that friendly at Lansdowne Rd before WC90, apart from Liam Brady's substitution the only other notable thing was Germany kept trying to pass the ball across the back 4 /midfield and kept missing.
Typical technically-deficient Germans.
My first Ireland game. My ma brought me down to Dun Laoghaire on the pretense that we were collecting my da from work. Instead I was dispatched from the car to him and he brought me down to the DART and into the game. Still have the scarf. "Ireland - The Team That Beat The Brits".
I couldn't believe it.
The buzz, the atmosphere, the noise, the everything. Gripping my da's hand as tightly as possible with as big a smile on my face that a young lad of 7 is capable of.
One of the best evenings of my life and I've never lost the bug even once. And I still think we can win tomorrow!
If the Germans were any good at football they would have won something since they fluked Euro 96.
There's something missing in their dna, if that's the best they can do with a population of 80 millions.
Overhyped moneylenders.
Irish Times suggesting Damien Delaney likely to start.
Keane emerging as a doubt. This will certainly be an interesting team selection. I don't envy King.
I've just deleted the team I'd pick because while typing I've thought of about 3 alternatives I'd equally like to see.
The first match I remember properly is us beating Hungary 2-0 at home. I was 6. Ireland always won, until Italy beat us. And even then it was a glorious defeat. The optimism was bet into me. And anyway, it's 11 v 11 and anything can happen on the day. That's the glory of football. (See Ireland v Holland 2001 for reference)![]()
I think people might be overreacting to that Low article. He never calls us a pub team, he accurately appraises our strengths and weaknesses. He says we're likely to play a high tempo game, lots of aggression and commitment, and to press the Germans hard. That's pretty much what most people here are hoping for, apart from the extremely deluded few who expect us to play like Spain with the addition of Andy Reid to the starting lineup.
"DNA", like so many other things, has a completely different meaning in football. He's not saying the Irish people are genetically predisposed to mucking up 5 yard passes, he's saying that forever reason, that's the sort of player we produce, and to be fair, with the youth setup we have, it kind of is.
King makes reference to how Trap treated players who were undisciplined and turned up when it suited them.
And then treats players who always turn up even when injured and gave 100% in every Ireland game, the same way.
Delaney and Kelly ahead of St Ledger at CB? What's King playing at?
Who mentioned Kelly?
And when did Delaney not turn up?
And when did King make those references?
I think I'll watch that Italy total humiliation of Germany at Euro 2012, again. They were made to look genetically deformed that day.
Germany, the super team, went out like a bunchy of wimps.
At least we made Italy work up a sweat.
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