QuoteYou must have missed as i say's post, directly above yours.Originally Posted by eirebhoy
As for the rankings, no change since yesterday.
In fairness, you should have said "There's an element of the Irish public that I cannot stand". You certainly won't hear IRA chants at an Ireland game. Anyway, lets try to keep this on topic (FIFA rankings).
You must have missed as i say's post, directly above yours.
As for the rankings, no change since yesterday.
The Englishmen came over in the year 2005
But little did they know that we'd planned a wee surprise
Sir David scored the winner, and Windsor Park went wild
And this is what we sang...
Which of the following points, if any, are contentious in people's opinion?
- Ireland's decline in the rankings is deserved because competitive results have been poor since WC02. On the other hand Northern Ireland & Scotland's rise up the rankings accurately reflect improved results after a period of very poor performance.
- Football is not a science. At 2-2 Raul missed a sitter against Northern Ireland and later the Spanish defence completely missed a goalkeeper's kickout for Healy to score. Likewise, Henry hit the inside of the post against Scotland and Scotland's only goal came from a poorly defended set-piece. When Ireland played France at Lansdowne Andy Reid hit the post & Henry's 25 yarder went inside the post, not against it like in Scotland. What I'm saying is that each of those 3 games could have gone either way, or finished as draws. Our most famous recent(ish) result - Holland in 2001 - was a travesty. Our draw in Lisbon was fluke, our draw in Amsterdam was the least we deserved. And so on.
- There's further merit in Scotland's rise because in the last 12 months they've had very creditable results away from home. You could add their 1-1 with Italy and a narrow defeat to Italy away as creditable too. You can also add Northern Ireland's 0-0 in Denmark, but our away draws in the last group were just as creditable and there's no shame losing 1-0 in Stuttgart (despite justified criticism of the selection & the performance of certain players).
- I think that no categoric conclusion can really be drawn other than Scotland & Northern Ireland are now capable of competing against good teams, especially at home. The real picture will be revealed at the end of the groups though.
- Pathetic as Ireland's defeat in Cyprus was, if Ireland had lost 3-0 at home to Iceland that would have been met with even more derision.
- Ireland's decline is not terminal. It can be reversed and soon if we get good results against Wales & Slovakia, and maybe a surprise home win at Croker against Germany.
- On an individual basis, most club managers would prefer to have more of Ireland's players than Northern Ireland's or Scotland's.
- There are lessons to be learnt from the relative success of our neighbours.
- Applying these lessons could well reverse Ireland's fortunes, at least to the degree where we can at least make a good go at qualification.
Last edited by Stuttgart88; 19/10/2006 at 1:38 PM.
And I'm sure if 30,000 people were singing The Fields of Athenry on O'Connoll street you'd hear the add ons too!You must have missed as i say's post, directly above yours.
As for the rankings, no change since yesterday.
agree about your scienc-y point as in it really is the case now that any team in europe can beat any other team on any given day however in relation to our campaign for wc 2002, we had a really strong team.
i dont think our 1-1 in lisbon was a fluke. holland scored a cracker and neither team had many clear cut chances. the 1-0 win in dublin against dutch was lucky but in the end we took our only chance and they didnt take any of theirs.
as for france 0-1 at home, we could have played for 5 hours and not scored a goal. this was a brian kerr team.
The north have spirit now, and as much as it used to annoy me listening to sky news go on about the great spirit in our camp 5 years ago (as opposed to the good football we were playing), you only realise how important that sh it is when its gone. If we can get that back things will improve.
I
Maybe you're right about Lisbon. It wasn't exactly a "watch from behind the sofa" job but I never saw us getting back in the game after they scored. Robbie had a chance to deflect a shot into their goal late in the first half I think but that's all i can recall.
I think we could easily have drawn to France at home and if Reid had scored or we'd been awarded a good penalty cliam it might have been a famous night. Morrison narrowly missed in the first half too I think. Once France scored that was it I agree.
The North are saying now that they just love getting together. I bet the Scots are the same. It used to be like that for us & it still should be.
I agree Stuttgart88.
The whole WC '06 qualifying campaign was frustration incarnate. Some people blame the French goal, others the Israel games which were basically thrown away. The team seemed to lack belief. That was the missing ingredient - belief.
I mean, we had qualified for WC '02 out of a group that included Holland and Portugal. Without our best player we almost made it to a Quarter Finals against South Korea. We did play well..I remember Ian Harte was off form, and missed 2 penalties in that Spain match. So near and yet so far. Thats the way it goes.
I seem to remember Euro '04 group looked fairly easy, and Switzerland and Russia came along and ruined that party. The confidence was shattered..the only way was down. If it had been Italy, say, or Germany that beat us..not good.. but Russia and Switzerland?
A new manager would bring a positive influence back to the squad surely! But we got the less than positive managerial influence of Brian Kerr, a conservative, uninspired choice. Draws galore, and bye bye WC '06. Down we go again.
We needed someone with vision, some with guts to inspire confidence..and we got Stan "The Gaffer". With injuries galore (including Shay Given) and poor defending - down we fall.
I can only hope Robson can help inspire some confidence and positive thinking in the team, a winning mentality. He'll need to inspire Stan too. I think we will fall to close to 70 in the world rankings, before we can hope for an upturn. Euro '08 is gone, forget it. I hate to say that, but they are not capable of achieving a miracle at this time. The team will need some serious work mentally, and physically, before they can hope to become a force on the world stage.
Last edited by Prof Hoffman; 19/10/2006 at 2:27 PM.
Does the following contention have any legs?
In Jack's era international football was more glamourous than domestic football. Our players all played for big English clubs which were banned from Europe from 85 onwards (until when? 90 or 91??). International football was these players' only chance to compete in an international context.
These days with 4 teams qualifying for the CL, and another half dozen or whatever for UEFA, international football no longer is the only chance for these players to compete internationally. And even those players in teams that can't make any form of European football are playing for their lucrative careers fighting relegation. These days avoiding the drop is the only ambition shown by some clubs.
Therefore, maybe it can be argued that players from The Championship or Hearts or Hibs or wherever are just hungrier for the different angle that international football offers them? Maybe internationals are a tedious break in an otherwise exciting routine for some of our players? For others it's an exciting break in a tedious routine.
Last edited by Stuttgart88; 19/10/2006 at 2:13 PM.
The Murphy comment was one of two things:
1. A gag, pure and simple. An example of this is the old one doing the rounds at the moment about the kid in the custody battle, who doesn't want to live with his da because he beats him. When the judge asks, what about your ma, he refuses this, since she beats him worse. And the grandparents are out, since they beat him worst of all. So the judge passes him over to the custody of the FAI... (Yes, I know it's weak)
Anyhow, this gag is not about child abuse, rather it's about the FAI. Whereas, if Murphy was making a joke, it was in poor taste if it was at the expense of NI fans by unfairly maligning them.
2. Alternatively, Murphy might have been making a serious allegation about NI supporters' sectarianism, which he's entitled to do, in this case by the use of "humour".
However, on this last point, I simply do not believe that he happened to be walking past Windsor Road [sic] over 6 years ago (the last game v Malta) and heard the chant alleged, from a crowd of 8,000 - it doesn't even "scan" in the way such chants invariably do. In fact, it was a "nothing game", against entirely unremarkable opponents, played in front of the genuine supporters who have never indulged in this sort of behaviour in the three and a half decades I have been attending Windsor Park. (Invariably, when this sort of crap does occur - hardly ever these days - it is from a gang of casual hoods who turn up for the occasional "big" or contentious, game, where they will get an audience)
But whichever it was, Donal, you are being entirely disingenuous by first making the claim of "sectarianism", then attempting to pass it off as someone elses "joke" when challenged.
As for our getting "worked up", I for one am sick to the back teeth of this sort of casual guilt by association that I have to suffer solely from the fact that I am an NI supporter. This is especially so when it comes from people who haven't been to Windsor Park in years (if ever) and whose "knowledge" of the facts invariably stems from what "the bloke in the pub" told them he "saw", or a throwaway comment from some second-rate comic, or from grievances at events which have long-since passed, or the rantings of extremist policians and agitators with an agenda.
And you are not absolved of responsibility for your slur of the fans by the fact that you also posted that our team is playing well at the moment - these hardly cancel each other out. (Besides, it's pretty bloody obvious that we're doing well, to NI fans more than anyone else)
For the record, no-one amongst the NI support would claim that we are entirely devoid of occasional bad behaviour by a section of our support. However, through a great deal of hard work on many peoples part, we have managed to eliminate 99% of what formerly went on and are working hard to eradicate the last dregs.
As such, our fans are now widely recognised and acclaimed by independent and qualified observers as being amongst the "best" in Europe, dare I say it, up with the likes of the fans of the ROI, which is high praise by anyones standards.
Great post Ealing. Fair play.
In Trap we trust
I am not Ealing Green. I said in my post I didn't like that element of Northern football and added a joke by Colin Murphy about it. And, as you and two other Northern posters have noted several times, it was just a gag. For a gag, you're taking it awfully seriously.
And while I'm sure it's the minority for Northern Irish support, you say yourself that there remains a sectarian issue.
And as for this:
What slur? The sectarian thing? But there is a sectarian issue there. It's not a slur if it's true, according to libel law.
I was pointing out that I have a lot of time for where the whole thing is going, it reminds of what we were like a few years ago. Don't worry, I won't be bothering to post that again.
To save space, I'll not repeat the list, just state that I thought all your points were entirely valid.
However, I would take issue with one minor point - i.e. the Cyprus/Iceland comparison.
I was at the Iceland game and although it was an absolute shocker of a result, in some ways, it wasn't that bad a performance. By which I mean, in the opening 10-15 minutes, NI actually opened brightly. They were then hit by two defensive errors in quick succession, expertly finished by Iceland, which knocked us back on our heels. In the ensuing play, Gudjonnsen, the one truly world-class player on the pitch, took advantage of our deflation (and slack marking), to run the game, culminating in a fine individual goal from him just before half-time, which killed the game as a competition. Consequently, a section of the fans booed NI off the pitch.
However, with a couple of substitutions, the team salvaged their self-respect in the second half by taking the game to Iceland (admittedly, Iceland were content to sit back), so that we even got a half-hearted chorus of "We'll support you ever more" from the Kop.
And if you look at the statistics re. possession, territory, chances etc, you might have expected NI to have won 3-0! Which is not to say that we should have: we got exactly what we deserved from the match, which was nothing (and a deserved boot up the arse).
Nonetheless, coming off the pitch, most of the players could say that despite how badly they had performed, at least they had tried hard.
By contrast, from what I've read and seen of the Cyprus match, the discontent stemmed from the fact that so many of the players appeared to have "thrown in the towel", long before the finish. And considering the reputation of the players (individually higher man-for-man that that of the NI players), such a failing is even more inexcusable.
I think the other thing which emerges from the comparison is that for NI, the Iceland game can be seen as a "blip", in the course of nearly three years of steady, if slow, progress. And the shock was quickly alleviated by the way this progress was manifested in the next three matches.
Whereas, it can be argued that the ROI has been in steady, if slow, decline over the same period. As such, where this is due to the loss of some exceptional players, even due to managerial failings, this might just be accepted.
However, if the team also displays a lack of pride and effort, then that is unforgiveable, since even the lowliest team can put in 90 minutes effort.
Of course, the ROI players went some way towards salvaging their reputation by their effort versus the Czechs, by all accounts. However, I remember a similar reaction from NI each time we suffered a similar debacle in the past.
It is important not to forget that 100% effort should be the "default setting" from any international player, not least because the opposition will normally be displaying the same.
Consequently, if there are deeper, more fundamental problems with the ROI team rather than simply one of motivation, then these problems may not be fixed anytime soon. (At least, not whilst Martin O'Neill is still at Villa!)
Anyhow, you'll "do" San Marino, come what may!
I think what Stuttgart88 was basically saying, that if Iceland was in our group and came over to Lansdowne winning 3-0, the calling for Stans head would have been just as strong as the 5-2 Cyprus debacle. If they played with more pride and passion the way NI did, believe it or not people might have been more worried! "They played their hearts out and still got hammered!". The old Lansdowne fortress is long gone. Maybe the new one will be better.
I have to say I was surprised by the Iceland result, especially after you won away in Finland in August, albeit a friendly. And yes, there were no redeeming features in our game against Cyprus whatsoever, whereas if you say so I can accept that maybe 3-0 wasn't a fair outcome, probably like Wales didn't deserve to lose 5-1 at home to Slovakia.
For the record, when I saw NI vs Spain on TV all I could see was a bunch of young lads in green singing and thoroughly enjoying the way a thrilling game was unfolding. My NI mates, generally middle class / white collar types are proud as punch of their team and feel much more like it belongs to them again because the sectarian thing seems to be being kicked for touch.
By and large I think both teams in Ireland have very good support and long may it last.
Yes, regardless of the performance the result would have been met with even more derision.
Pardon my old age eirebhoy, but I miss your point completely.And I'm sure if 30,000 people were singing The Fields of Athenry on O'Connoll street you'd hear the add ons too!
Please elaborate.
The Englishmen came over in the year 2005
But little did they know that we'd planned a wee surprise
Sir David scored the winner, and Windsor Park went wild
And this is what we sang...
percentage of Irish football fans that would sing the add ons pretty much = the percentage of the Irish public that would sing the add ons. The fact that a few Irish fans would sing add ons says nothing about Ireland's support. I'm sure a few U2 fans do aswell.
Last edited by eirebhoy; 19/10/2006 at 8:04 PM.
Oh, right - thanks.
Earlier you said:
"You certainly won't hear IRA chants at an Ireland game"
No need to drag it out any further.
The Englishmen came over in the year 2005
But little did they know that we'd planned a wee surprise
Sir David scored the winner, and Windsor Park went wild
And this is what we sang...
Frankly this is a bit of a hateful debate of which no good will come - I' m sorry I posted on this topic at all. And I certainly could do without a debate on rangers openness to signing players from the Republic.
not exactly hateful but not exactly relevant either. rangers as a club have never contributed anything to ROI football but the people who boo rangers players that play for international teams at games are just tools, we all know this but to have any discussion about rangers and ireland is frankly boring.
I
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