On that topic, I thought this was an interesting article by Miguel Delaney - https://migueldelaney.com/2014/10/08...mpression=true
It's 6 years old now, and I'd say not a lot has changed in that time. The national underage leagues go to u13 now, but I think some players prefer the old clubs still.
But the comment there about how Irish players don't fare well in England because of their poor coaching probably helps explain why so few players have come through in recent years. It's a huge issue
we must be doing something right given the relative success of our underage teams the last few years. mostly home grown players too. covid and kenny going to the seniors cost our u21s qualification
We have to face reality whilst we say football is the most played game in Ireland are many of the more talented youngsters particularly outside of Dublin still picking GAA first and Rugby is also a lot more popular regionally than it used be .
In most other countries football is by a country mile the chosen sport of the most talented youngsters . Where would we be If we didn’t have the sons and grandsons of the Irish that emigrated to England who wouldn’t have GAA or much rugby as a distraction .
Too much competition in this country for talented youngsters who are good at 3 or 4 sports .
It will come right eventually because at least most of the better underage players are going to LOI underage set ups earlier.. but it'll take a decade to come to fruitionOriginally Posted by jbyrne
A bigger change may come from Brexit, with players not moving now until after 18, and the new coronavirus limits on spending at League 1 and 2 clubs in England
I say we end this process unless he resigns, he must play only the kids, to get capped gain experience, yesterday was unacceptable result and performance
so ditch coleman, egan, randolph and to a lesser extent browne? could also make a case for doherty and brady if he can get his full fitness back. we dont have anywhere near a team of promising "kids" yet
Not sure that's true. Kenny's 21s post in Iceland which was a poor result.
the thing is the motivation , and the pandemia, the senior players may retire sooner, It is a plausibleb scenario, if hes gonna built for the future, lets keep egan coleman randolph and mccarthy and the rest under 26 years old
not just the loss of kenny as manager. lost players to the seniors for vital qualifiers due to covid. in any event it was our bests 21s campaign in ages. u19s finals appearance in 2019 too
Last edited by jbyrne; 28/03/2021 at 7:34 PM.
Well said! (Mark1234)
I've been thinking about the number of LOI 'stars' who went to Britain as adults and didn't really succeed: Forrester, Towell, Boyle, McMillan, Burke, etc. It seems now that even those who get to play regularly in the EFL Championship are lacking in some of the technical skills. So bringing in coaches at 'grass roots' level, from countries where close control, keeping the ball down when shooting, and dribbling (remember that?) are valued, would be a major step in the right direction.
Last edited by Demesne Lad; 28/03/2021 at 7:45 PM.
thanks for the clarification on this. Of Kenny's 44 substitutions, the average time has been on 70 minutes, although the three injury enforced substitutions (Long V Wales on 24m, Egan V England on 13m, and Doherty against Luxembourg at half time) skew this a little. The only ones that have made any sort of impact on the game were Robbie Brady against Bulgaria, and Collins and Long against Serbia.
Whatever Kenny's Plan A has been, it hasn't been working, and of all the changes he's made, only three have made any kind of difference to the game.
My vision is of a poor village in some South American country with 7 and 8-year-olds playing football. It was from those type of beginnings that every megastar from Pele to Alexi Sanchez was produced. And it took, crucially, the involvement of some parent/coach who taught these kids the skills of the trade. There was no money involved and little or no facilities. I think you get the picture. Why can't we reproduce that in Ireland? We can't produce it because there is no one in Ireland, that I know of at least, with those type of skills to teach to kids that age. So we need to import them and pay them rather than wasting money FAI style.
Maybe we need street football again. Is that possible ?
Was the performance really any worse than, say, Gibraltar at home under Mick? All much of a muchness really. And Mick had a better starting XI to pick from. The result shouldn't really surprise any of us. Coleman (and Bazunu) was absolutely right saying the players lacked the courage to want the ball. There were times early in the Serbia game where the players seemed to trust each other, take some risks and pass to each other in tight positions in an attempt to break the press. I thought the signs were bad in the Lux game after only 5 minutes. Everything looked slow and laboured and nobody seemed to want to take charge. It's something we've discussed for years here, players like Hendrick shouting for the ball knowing at the same time he had put himself into a position where no pass was available.
Clearly Kenny has to take the flak here too. You have to order the players to take risks (even if playing one/two touch football shouldn't be considered risky) and if they don't respond you yell at them from the sidelines to start doing it. Kenny is very passive in-game and his substitutions were weird. We finished the game with Coleman and Stevens in a back 3, where each should have been given license to attack - it's what they do best. Why have 3 at the back when at the same time you are neutralising the very thing it's supposed to allow?
And individual performances were awful. I like Stevens a lot but at times in the first half you'd swear the touchline was something he was unfamiliar with. He had a similar awful start vs Switzerland but grew into the game. Browne, a good player, was all over the place. Poor control, poor passing.
If I was manager now I'd tell each and every one to show the Giles "moral courage'. Tell them you'd rather they made mistakes trying to do the right thing rather than play mistake-free football that yields a slow predictable build up with no pressure. Break the game into ten minute blocks and see if they can complete each ten minutes the right way. Like said above, "street football". We used to play on the road and sometimes it wasn't about scoring. It was about showing off, making your pals look stupid chasing the ball, and humiliating them by walking the ball into the goal instead of a pot shot from 10 yards (a long distance in street football!).
Wow; Spain were lower-ranked than us in 1993
The Eloratings site gives us as the side who've declined most in the world in the past 12 months - down 116 points.
Libya are are next worst in that period, down 109, followed by the North down 103 and Slovakia down 100.
That was my first reaction too! I had to double check it on fifa's site, but it's true: https://www.fifa.com/fifa-world-rank.../men/rank/id3/
(select 23 September 1993 in the drop down box)
Well soon enough we won't have to worry about losing to lower ranked teams.
Damn near everyone was lower rated than us back then. I think it was 1992 when we peaked at #4 on earth. Big Jack had a good team available to him, but he worked wonders too.
You can't spell failure without FAI
Spain used to have a weird thing going on between the Real Players and the Barcelona Players and the National Team and was the National Team the b all and end all to these players in any case. Liverpool’s players in the 70’s and 80’s was much more to the Club than England. Something Alex Ferguson learned from and used at Man Utd. Spain were a really under performing international team until the relatively recent teams that we all know. It wasn’t “ only / if “ the Players were good enough it was whether the Players really wanted to do it for Spain and especially considering where ( which clubs ) a lot of the players were coming from.
Did England actually take international football all that seriously until near the 1960’s ?
Spain probably did not until much later.
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