Republic of Ireland V Belgium - Saturday, 23rd March 2024 - Friendly

[Razors left peg]

I'm blown away by the fact that Robbie Brady is younger than Kyle Walker. It was great to see him back in the team and whipping in free kicks. Would have liked to have seen him take the penalty, but ah well.

Why were there so many empty seats? I was watching on television in America with a seventy year old man who had never watched a football match in his life. He was extremely unimpressed and said he'll never watch again. Hard to blame him. Really tough to imagine someone paying money to watch it in person.

If you had got to 70 years old without watching a game of football chances are you're not the target audience for that game on tv or in the stands. For those of us that have an investment in it it was as enjoyable a friendly in March as you could hope for

[elatedscum]

Was absolutely freezing though. Jesus the wind…

Brady impressed me. Really progressive passing. I said before the penalty was taken that it was mental he wasn’t taking it. Management should have had that sorted. Bit of an opportunity wasted there.

Last penalty I can remember Ferguson taking for club or country was the one he missed vs Israel.

Coleman also looked in better condition than I expected. Collins was solid. Everyone did well without anyone being excellent… and we restricted them to a small number of chances. Szmodics a real bright spot.

Overall decent game of ball. People are right about the subs. Knight out wide didn’t work. We lost momentum taking off all the front 3 at the same time.

On to Tuesday, hopefully Obafemi gets some minutes…

[Nesta99]

Ferguson needed the goal, peno was a good opportunity, it backfired. But it was a friendly, if it was a competative game it would have been pre planned and experience, form etc would have seen Brady taking it no question. If picking up weighted ranking points with a win against a top 10 side and made a differnce to potential seeding then again you'd expect Coleman to hand the ball to Brady.

[elatedscum]

Ferguson needed the goal, peno was a good opportunity, it backfired. But it was a friendly, if it was a competative game it would have been pre planned and experience, form etc would have seen Brady taking it no question. If picking up weighted ranking points with a win against a top 10 side and made a differnce to potential seeding then again you'd expect Coleman to hand the ball to Brady.

Not sure about that. He’s maybe 50/50 at best to score given his penalty history and his form. And the missing the penalty hurts his confidence more than scoring it would boosts him

[irishfan86]

Friendlies are about learning things. Brady taking a penalty wouldn’t really give us any new information. Even though the ball didn’t go in, we learned a bit about how Ferguson performs from the spot.

[Dermobohs]

Friendlies are about learning things. Brady taking a penalty wouldn’t really give us any new information. Even though the ball didn’t go in, we learned a bit about how Ferguson performs from the spot.

While Brady’s passing and general play were excellent, I thought his set pieces added little. Never bought into the “ Brady is great at set pieces” thing, he’s no better or worse than anyone else. Wasted a couple too.
Having said that he was I felt very good as lwb

[pineapple stu]

Friendlies are about learning things. Brady taking a penalty wouldn’t really give us any new information. Even though the ball didn’t go in, we learned a bit about how Ferguson performs from the spot.

I'd rather have learned how we played with a lead, and maybe after prompting a reaction from Belgium.

But it's only a friendly, so not mad fussed either way. The slip was unfortunate.

[OwlsFan]

Was absolutely freezing though. Jesus the wind…

Brady impressed me. Really progressive passing. I said before the penalty was taken that it was mental he wasn’t taking it. Management should have had that sorted. Bit of an opportunity wasted there.

Last penalty I can remember Ferguson taking for club or country was the one he missed vs Israel.

Coleman also looked in better condition than I expected. Collins was solid. Everyone did well without anyone being excellent… and we restricted them to a small number of chances. Szmodics a real bright spot.

Overall decent game of ball. People are right about the subs. Knight out wide didn’t work. We lost momentum taking off all the front 3 at the same time.

On to Tuesday, hopefully Obafemi gets some minutes…

Beginning to think I'm getting too old for this in my 69th year, soon to be 70. Had the ar@e frozen off me for the duration with very little entertainment to be honest and you don't even get a rerun of any of the controversial moments on the big screen unlike the barstoolers. It's a joke that those who pay to see a game don't get replays unlike the rugby spectators and GAA ?? It is so insulting to the football supporter. All that came out of that game really (other than frostbite) that we didn't know already is that Szmodics looks useful. Omabamidele seems to have gone backwards but he was ok.

[CraftyToePoke]

"I was ready three or four years ago for it. Things have happened. To finally make it, have a debut here against a good Belgium team with my family in the crowd, I couldn't have asked for anything more."

Ireland's best chance fell to Evan Ferguson, who missed a first-half spot-kick after Arthur Vermeeren was penalised for handball.

It was a disappointing moment for the 19-year-old, but Szmodics has no doubt he'll shrug it off.

"I've missed penalties this season, it's how you bounce back," he said.

"Ev is a confident guy, a young lad that scores goals. I thought he was brilliant. That penalty miss will be nothing for him. I'm sure if we get one Tuesday and he's playing he'll step up again and he'll slot it."

"I think we employed what we wanted to do off the ball very well," added Szmodics.

"We showed aggression, we took them the other way, and we created chances which we knew we would do if we implemented the tactics John wanted to do. I think on another day we'd have got the win.

"The triggers, when the ball goes to the full-back we have to jump with aggression. There's no point jumping if we can't make it there or impact the play. I thought we done that well.

"Everyone pushed up as a team like a domino effect, so Belgium couldn't get through us, they went around us. I thought it worked well. We worked on it through the week and we implemented it quite well."

https://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/2024...in-the-making/

Bit of confidence / arrogance to him which we lack these days. Also in his play yesterday, there was a guy who started in L2 and is well used to proving himself and having to against more illustrious names. Gave a Belgian a totally unnecessary kick also which was super. Full marks so far, hopefully more to come.

[Colbert Report]

Irish TV coverage pointed to this friendly window games only being available as a double ticket, which for people travelling to Dublin, from down or up the country / out side the country, would have ruled Tuesday out, so they passed.

Who came up with that business model? Madness. The stadium looked to be at around half full on tv.

[ontheotherhand]

Who came up with that business model? Madness. The stadium looked to be at around half full on tv.

Check your avatar.

[CraftyToePoke]

Who came up with that business model? Madness. The stadium looked to be at around half full on tv.

Very tone deaf to people being able to afford both even if both were doable, which if you live outside of Dublin they aren't. Stand alone tickets for Tuesday are now available it seems so if it there were rows of empty seating on Saturday, Tuesday must be shaping up horribly for these muppets, & damage limitation is the order of the day. Belatedly.

You'd wonder where fan liason groups were on this ?
If there are any open channels ? Were they asked ?
Because a first year marketing student wouldn't have ballsed it up like this.

[jbyrne]

Who came up with that business model? Madness. The stadium looked to be at around half full on tv.

yes, totally stupid.
Its a lot to ask people to travel from hours away twice in a few days for two friendlies.
Also, you would bring a young child to a 5pm ko but maybe not the 7.45 evening swiss ko. I cant think of a single good reason for selling these two games as a package.

[Olé Olé]

They're selling individual tickets now for Switzerland I think? Shows how flawed the logic was in the first place. Forcing people to pay for two friendlies if they want or can go to just one is silly. I get it if there are two games and one is a high profile or important qualifier. People will pay and they might make off the lesser of the two games if they can or are willing.

Smart thing might have been to offer the individual tickets and the package of the duo of tickets with a slight discount.

[Jd2793]

collins as the 6 should be binned off on this clip alone. if hes struggling with the game being played in front of him I dont want to see what hes like on the half turn with 3 midfielders and a forward pressing him.

[backstothewall]

Thoughts on the Belgium game.

It was freezing.

I really liked the 3-4-3 O'Shea went with. I've thought that's potentially our strongest system for a good while. Delighted someone gave it a go.

Regardless of his performance, playing Brady is a complete waste of time. He'll likely be retired by the time we have a competitive game. Manning or O'Dowda should have had the opportunity.

Delighted to see Coleman back, but something similar applies. Festy should have had much longer than he got.

Smallbone and Szmodics both did well.

[pineapple stu]

Regardless of his performance, playing Brady is a complete waste of time. He'll likely be retired by the time we have a competitive game.

He's just gone 32 and we have competitive games in September?

Festy should have had much longer than he got.

You might be in a minority on that one!

[Razors left peg]

Festy is a weird one to me. He's continuously played in a more forward role in the Ireland set up but more defensively at his clubs. He's only a kid and is a fantastic athlete, he's definitely worth more looks in the future but he was very poor when he came on against Belgium

[JR89]

Thoughts on the Belgium game.

It was freezing.

I really liked the 3-4-3 O'Shea went with. I've thought that's potentially our strongest system for a good while. Delighted someone gave it a go.

Regardless of his performance, playing Brady is a complete waste of time. He'll likely be retired by the time we have a competitive game. Manning or O'Dowda should have had the opportunity.

Delighted to see Coleman back, but something similar applies. Festy should have had much longer than he got.

Smallbone and Szmodics both did well.

Kenny used that system quite a few times.

[irishfan86]

Festy is a weird one to me. He's continuously played in a more forward role in the Ireland set up but more defensively at his clubs. He's only a kid and is a fantastic athlete, he's definitely worth more looks in the future but he was very poor when he came on against Belgium

Some players struggle with spatial awareness. When the game is in front of them while playing as a defender, they can do well by advancing play by dribbling or passing, as we’ve seen Ebosele do at Udinese.

But when the ball is behind these types of players, they don’t really know where to go, what kinds of runs to make, etc.

Sometimes coaching can sort that out. Other times, they’ll just be limited and maybe play at a lower level. I think if we are going to use Ebosele it should be exclusively as a wingback/fullback and not further up the pitch.