Dunne v Materazzi????Originally Posted by Ciaran
Robbie v Toni (frankly me v Toni!)
Finnan v Panucci?
So as a minimum can you tell me the 4 Italian central defenders better than Dunne?
Anyone who thinks the italians will be some kind of walkover would do well to go and watch the tape from the first half of the friendly we played against them in August 2005. They played their first XI in the first half and then made a load of substitutions at half time wich disrupted their flow but that first half was one of the most one-sided halfs I have ever seen. They scored two but it could easily have been five or six by half-time.
I dont think anyone here is suggesting that the Italians will be a walkover in anyway at all, just that they are not an unbeatable superpower in the world of football at this time
Its really not that complicated!!!
there is a terrible trend to overrate Irish players and underestimate foreign players on this messageboard.
Ireland will do well to take points against the current Italian team and player for player they have better than us in every position. Concentrating on taking as close as is possible to maximum points against the minnows and Bulgaria is more important (in my opinion) than arguing over whether Italy are better than us.
I personally wouldn't rate Duff over Perrotta. Perrotta didn't have the greatest of tournaments but he's still a good player IMO. If Duff could get back to his best he would easily get in to the Italian team though. Besides, a few of those players don't even play in the same position: McGeady and De Rossi are totally different players for example.
My concerns are global. I reject absolutely revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method, is love. I love you Sheriff Truman.
Absolutely - we should never have come within seconds of drawing with San Marino and getting hammered by Cyprus ... the biggest challenge for our new management team be avoiding those sorts of results in our next qualifying campaign. If - and it is a very big 'if' - we get anything off the Italians then that's great. But we should be focussing on the weaker sides in the group because that's where we have far more realistic opportunities.
Dunne is better then Chiellini for me and to suggest Toni is better then Keane is frankly laughable.
Duff at this monet in time isn't better then Perotta either, it's very debatable whether Duff should even be in opur starting 11 without getting some gametime under his belt and proving that he hasn't totally lost what made him special following his injury.
In any case, direct comparisons like that miss the point entirely, it will come down to whether our team can become more then the sum of it's parts. Our record against top sides is not bad, we rarely get beaten in competitive games although on the flip side we win even less of them, it's generally a draw or a tight defeat. With a proper manager in charge there's no reason for me why we can't improve that record. Italy always do enough in qualifiers but they always have wobbles over the course of the group (Faroes for example despite winning 2-1). As others have said it's the smaller nations we need to improve against, it's not the results against the tradional powers that have cost us in recent qualifying groups.
Dunne, Keane and a fit Duff.
Forget about the performance or entertainment. It's only the result that matters.
I still am convinced we got Italy at the right time, and i think some people on this board may be slighly over rating them as a team. Individually yes they are excellent, but as a team they rarely looked top class in their qualkifying group and only impressed in patches in their group matches aganst Romania and France. But looking again at all the first seeds, the draw could have been easier for us
1st Seeds: Greece, Portugal, Holland, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Croatia and the Czech Republic.
When you look at that again, its hard to see a tougher place to go than Italy. However they do have a knack of making things a little difficult for them in qualifying. In recent years i remember them dropping points in Lithuania, Georgia, Wales, Hungary,Slovenia, Scotland and Norway. there away form has always been a little suspect. We have to believe we can get three points from them in Dublin, then getting anything in Italy would be a massive bonus
I'd rather go to Italy than Spain or Holland at the moment to be honest. I think this tournament will have given both teams a huge boost in confidence, and the way both teams play, well suffice to say I don't think we could handle them
Those bottom 4 can not be compared, they play differently, only similar players can contrasted.
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