Heimir Hallgrímsson

[Acornvilla]

Oh they can all still go through - I think law of averages is two out of three will be the max - but still, players who struggle against Icelandic or pre-season Gibraltar club teams are a heck of a way off national team consideration

I don't disagree, not results or performances that would make anyone take notice, but are there individual players in the teams who we can hope for a lot more from, I'd imagine so, that's kind of been my point in general. The Derry result is cat thou

[Eirambler]

I'd say there's plenty of space in the manager's calendar around that time for year for something like that. Whether it will have much long term benefit is open to question, but it's unlikely to do any harm. There's only so much benefit you can get going around England watching games week on week, missing a couple of weeks of that in January is unlikely to be much of an issue. And there's only so much match preparation and opposition analysis you can do also, it's a long time from November until March.

That the last guy couldn't successfully run a team had nothing to do with how much time was available to him, that was just a pure ability issue in that he didn't seem to have any. The downside of the proposal though is that the gap from the domestic league to the senior squad is potentially just too wide for anyone to successfully bridge it. But a game during the January transfer window might if nothing else give players a useful opportunity to increase their chances to move on to a better league at a time of year when clubs are on the lookout for reinforcements.

[Olé Olé]

Paul Rowan has had a fairly woeful performance in his column during the 9 month manager search.

I was interested to see what he would provide now the void was filled.

"New Ireland manager to continue his dental work" is the angle on the front of The Times sport section. Pitiful.

[EalingGreen]

Is it not more like a full international, but just capping domestic based players, like they do in Scandinavia? So the game would be something like Ireland v Iceland with full caps awarded, but with only players based domestically in Ireland and Iceland being involved and presumably a much reduced ticket price to get a crowd in.

Sweden played Estonia in a game like this in January this year, they played Iceland in a similar game in January last year. Many of the players involved will never win caps outside of those January games, but it's a common thing in that part of the world to play the games and award caps to the players.

Like the LOI, those countries have a summer league, so need match practice to prepare players for competitive, international qualifiers in the Spring.

However many of those other countries' international squad players play for domestic league teams, and so need such games at that time of year, which is where they differ from ROI squads.

[EalingGreen]

Interesting to see how Craig Bellamy has addressed previous claims of bullying against him:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football...s/c6p26yp1dp4o

[liamoo11]

Interesting to see how Craig Bellamy has addressed previous claims of bullying against him:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football...s/c6p26yp1dp4o

That is interesting. My under 14 girls team were swearing like docker s tonight so I feel his pain

[JR89]

HEIMIR HALLGRÍMSSON WILL meet John O’Shea in Waterford today as he aims to convince him to become his assistant manager.

And the new Republic of Ireland senior boss says that it “makes sense to me” that there will be a path for O’Shea to eventually take his job on a permanent basis.

Hallgrímsson admitted that it “takes a good character” to consider returning to the role of assistant after the former Ireland and Manchester United defender took charge on an interim basis for the last four games.

The Icelander’s surprise appointment was confirmed by the FAI after a 230-day search last Wednesday, with his contract running until the end of the 2026 World Cup qualifying campaign.

After initially chatting with O’Shea on a video call, he says he will drive to meet O’Shea today to thrash out a deal.

Hallgrímsson cited how his own route into international management with Iceland was similar, initially working as Lars Lagerbäck’s assistant for the 2014 World Cup qualifying campaign before becoming joint-coaches when they reached Euro 2016 and then taking sole charge for the successful 2018 World Cup campaign.

“My way into national team coaching was exactly like that and I think the assistant coach should be the one that carries the knowledge to the next cycle and they (the FAI) have obviously shown that they believe he is going to be, or is good enough to be the coach,” Hallgrímsson said.

“So I think it’s a no-brainer, whatever happens back to me, I always say the same thing, I want to leave the shirt in a better place when I go, and to have a guy that has been doing the things with us is probably always the best one to take over, if you want continuity, growth and development.

“That kind of makes sense to me but it’s always difficult to have been the head coach and then stepping down to be assistant coach. That takes a good character to do that.”

Hallgrímsson says O’Shea is “the most important guy for me” and will “start with him and take it from there” as he puts his coaching staff in place, but as of yet he is unsure of the Waterford native’s intentions.

“I think it’s better for me to talk about it after we speak but if he wants to meet probably he’s considering. I think it’s more positive than negative.”

Not totally against the idea of succession plans. Think it's always a good idea for Irish coaches to be involved with the national team. Even if said coach doesn't directly replace the manager in the end

But not a fan of all this talk about O'Shea being involved given how hard some pushed

https://www.the42.ie/ireland-manager...37090-Jul2024/

[Razors left peg]

Get Barry Murphy instead of O'Shea if they want a successor path

[Eirambler]

This is the masterplan of an evil genius basically - if things aren't going well the support base are a lot less likely to start calling for Hallgrimsson's head when they know that John O'Shea would most likely be the replacement!

[Acornvilla]

I really wish they asked John what he thought about all this first tbh.

[Eirambler]

I don't think they need to - it seems clear that O'Shea is happy to hang around as long as it takes to get any kind of role in the setup. I doubt he's overloaded with other offers in truth, at least not any good ones.

[Acornvilla]

I don't think they need to - it seems clear that O'Shea is happy to hang around as long as it takes to get any kind of role in the setup. I doubt he's overloaded with other offers in truth, at least not any good ones.

I don't disagree, but I just think it's a bit weird and/or disrespectful and unprofessional to be so wildly speculating when they could just have already had the conversations internally. Maybe he's indicated he's on the fence and it's a bit of a public charm offensive, I don't know. Whole thing just feels unnecessary. I don't really have a strong feeling about whether he should actually get the job or not!

He might have realized he does want to be a manager and that he needs to go actually do it to improve tbf

[Stuttgart88]

Going after O'Shea with such zeal seems a bit odd to me. It seems like HH is trying to appease the FAI rather than being his own man trying to bring in his own ideas and methods. On the other hand you could see it that he is happy enough in his own skin and confident enough in his ability to lead that he can make the project work without needing his own staff involved.

[Eirambler]

I don't disagree, but I just think it's a bit weird and/or disrespectful and unprofessional to be so wildly speculating when they could just have already had the conversations internally. Maybe he's indicated he's on the fence and it's a bit of a public charm offensive, I don't know. Whole thing just feels unnecessary. I don't really have a strong feeling about whether he should actually get the job or not!

He might have realized he does want to be a manager and that he needs to go actually do it to improve tbf

That would go against all evidence to date though.

Two things are potentially being put in place here. Firstly, the scene is being set for our next manager to be a manager who has never managed a professional team before. The last time we tried that we ended up with the second worst manager in our history.

The other thing that is being put in place is a situation where the next manager is potentially being selected years in advance of him actually taking on the job. The last time we tried that we ended up with the worst manager in our history.

By all means offer O'Shea a coach role if he wants it and HH wants it too. But it should come with zero guarantees of any future promotion. And possibly the advice that his best hope of being the manager in future is to go out and get some senior management experience outside of the Ireland setup.

[Eirambler]

Going after O'Shea with such zeal seems a bit odd to me. It seems like HH is trying to appease the FAI rather than being his own man trying to bring in his own ideas and methods. On the other hand you could see it that he is happy enough in his own skin and confident enough in his ability to lead that he can make the project work without needing his own staff involved.

I do wonder if the fact that HH comes without his own coaching team played a significant part in Canham's interest. There was a suggestion (from Kilbane) that at least part of the issue with Carsley was that he wanted assurances about getting his own team in place and they failed to agree. There were similar suggestions with Poyet. Then the FAI finds Hallgrimsson and he's happy to sign without a coaching team in place so the association can offer him the full manager salary budget (€550k) without having to commit any set amount to coaches. Then just offer him the likes of O'Shea on the cheap after the contract is signed.

[pineapple stu]

Going after O'Shea with such zeal seems a bit odd to me. It seems like HH is trying to appease the FAI rather than being his own man trying to bring in his own ideas and methods. On the other hand you could see it that he is happy enough in his own skin and confident enough in his ability to lead that he can make the project work without needing his own staff involved.

Who was on the coaching staff at Jamaica? Wiki has a list of locals, including Darren Moore (the Port Vale manager) as head coach, but I don't know if that's updated since Hallgrimsson left. Seems very quick to have done it though, in which case he doesn't seem to have had his own crew there.

It does seem a bit unusual to fly completely solo and work with whoever the FA decide though.

[Acornvilla]

Who was on the coaching staff at Jamaica? Wiki has a list of locals, including Darren Moore (the Port Vale manager) as head coach, but I don't know if that's updated since Hallgrimsson left. Seems very quick to have done it though, in which case he doesn't seem to have had his own crew there.

It does seem a bit unusual to fly completely solo and work with whoever the FA decide though.

I think the goalkeeping coach was Icelandic, but everyone else was Jamaican, I can't remember where I heard/read this thou tbh, it might have been on the interview with the Journo on RTE

[zero]

Kind of hoping O'Shea says no to be honest. If he wants to become a manager, find a job managing someone... if that means dropping down the divisions or even looking at a job in the LOI then so be it.

Also it's not quite correct when HH says he took this path - he had several years managing in Iceland before becoming involved in the national team setup.

[JR89]

I think the goalkeeping coach was Icelandic, but everyone else was Jamaican, I can't remember where I heard/read this thou tbh, it might have been on the interview with the Journo on RTE

Goalkeeping coach was Icelandic and there was a performance coach that was German. Hallgrimsson worked with those two while with Iceland. His assistant was Swedish guy John Wall but only started working with him at Jamaica.

[Eirambler]

What I'm taking (hoping) from this is that Hallgrimsson is a very hands on international manager that organises everything from training to tactics to opposition analysis himself and the coaches are basically just support to carry out his prescribed requirements rather than taking a lead themselves. So a job that nearly any certified football coach could do.

Pretty much the complete opposite of the Martin O'Neill approach (leave everything to the coaches, then rock up an hour before the game and announce the team and formation).