Irish football - punching above its weight since 1986.

kilkennycat2004

Bad as the second half performance was last night we are still well in contention unlike our Northern neighbours along with Wales & Scotland.
Since 1986 with one exception Ireland have finished either first ot second in the european & world cup qualifier groups. This record compares favourable with literally all other countries.
Sometimes in criticism of players & managers we tend to forget this.
Even the feat of only using 3 managers in almost 20 years big jack, mick & now brian kerr it shows how change for change sake employed by other nations doesn't work.
A break now till March but once again the 2006 World Cup place or at worst qualifier play-off is well attainable.
Credit where its due.

yom 1

well said

fair enough we should have put more past the faroes last night
but at the end of the day we got the three points
we really have to be happy with 8 points out a possible 12
considering we had France and Switzerland away

So far so good
now we have to make sure we come away from Isreal with a win
and that would really open the group up for us

Illkillya

I don't think that it was well said... what exactly do you consider to be "above our weight"? You compare us to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland... is this what you would consider our optimal standard? I would rather compare us to England.

If we're ranked 14th? in the world, and have almost always finished 1st or 2nd in our qualifying groups since 1986, why should we be cheering about how we're better than Northern Ireland and Wales?

I don't think anybody is proposing change for the sake of change. For the most part, in criticism of players and managers, we do not forget this the respectable overall status of Irish international football, moreso it is irelevant. If the Irish goverment improves Ireland's economy overall, they still must be criticised for neglecting healthcare; and similarly if the Irish football team finishes in qualifying places it still should be criticised for poor decisions and performances which lead to struggling against the likes of Malta. I completely agree with you when you say "credit where credit is due", but at the same time, criticism where criticism is due. Do not settle for "better than our Northern neighbours".

Your post would be justified if the public were being overly critical of the greater picture, and unhappy with the current setup of the Irish team... but as the demand for tickets against the Faero Minnows indicates - that is not the case. As far as I can see, there is a very positive feeling about the Irish team at the moment, and people recognise that a place and a good campaign in WC 2006 is attainable.

eirebhoy

kilkennycat2004 wrote:

Since 1986 with one exception Ireland have finished either first ot second in the european & world cup qualifier groups.[/B]

I think came 2nd in every group for 8 consecutive years, Pigman pointed that out a while back.

yom 1 wrote:

now we have to make sure we come away from Isreal with a win

I'll be very happy with a draw. They're record in Israel over the last 30 games is 20w 6d 3l including wins over Argentina, Poland, Turkey 4-0, Estonia 7-0 and Austria 5-0. The 3 teams that beat them are Denmark, Norway and Sweden, maybe Kerr could adapt a Scandinavian style of play.

Kone

eirebhoy wrote:

I'll be very happy with a draw. They're record in Israel over the last 30 games is 20w 6d 3l including wins over Argentina, Poland, Turkey 4-0, Estonia 7-0 and Austria 5-0. The 3 teams that beat them are Denmark, Norway and Sweden, maybe Kerr could adapt a Scandinavian style of play.

A draw would do, a win would set us up nicely.

I knew it was going to be a tough game but looking at those results I am getting worried!

Pigman II

I don't think it's fair to infer it all just started with Jack Charlton in 86. Ireland have had plenty of decent teams (and near misses) down the years

WC1958 we went out to an injury time goal in our final match
EC1964 reach the quarter finals! (only 4 teams play in the 'finals' back then)
WC1966 lost in a play off
EC1976 missed qualification by 1 pt.
WC1982 went out on goal difference

so you see we were never exactly 'Luxembourg' when it came to international football and all it took was a bit of professionalism ... and a lot of LUCK to get us to our first tournament and break the cycle.

That said tho I will agree that we are definetly punching above our weight at international level. If you disagree then find me another country with a pop of less than 5 million and with a domestic league of our standard that's currently doing as well as us at full international level. I haven't checked the FIFA rankings but I doubt there is one.

Oh and before people say I cannot include population as a point because of our fondness of the 'granny rule' it might be worth noting that 9 of the 11 who started last night were born in Ireland (so were both subs) and hell even Kilbane (like the Normans) is probably 'more Irish than the Irish themselves' at this point.

eirebhoy wrote:

I think came 2nd in every group for 8 consecutive years, Pigman pointed that out a while back.

It's true. In every campaign from WC90 to WC2002 we came 2nd in our group (seven in a row I make it?). When you consider there's usually 7-10 groups in Europe a rating of 14th (or 10th in Europe) seems fair to me ..... almost GENEROUS tbh.

knobbles

eirebhoy wrote:

I think came 2nd in every group for 8 consecutive years, Pigman pointed that out a while back.

first in '88 campaign,
2nd for next 7 campaigns! 1990 to 2002
3rd in 2004

...we're gradually going down here :eek:
...not at all, maybe we're startin all over now and finish 1st again

one thing i just remembered last night was that the two best runners-up qualify automatically...a win in israel and we'd be lookin v good for 1st or a best runner-up

Pigman II

knobbles wrote:

one thing i just remembered last night was that the two best runners-up qualify automatically...a win in israel and we'd be lookin v good for 1st or a best runner-up

I'd put those thoughts out of my mind tbh.

Because of the competive nature of our group (4 teams still undefeated and who have all taken pts off each other) I severly doubt that whoever comes 2nd will be avoiding the play-offs due to 'mathematical attritiion' or whatever you'd prefer to call it.

I can see a country like Poland taking an automatic 2nd but not the runner-up in a group like ours where there's 4 decent teams and a lot of draws already.

(I'm basing all the above on the presumption they're still basing the 2 auto 2nd placers based on their 6 games vs 1st, 3rd and 4th?)

knobbles

Pigman II wrote:

That said tho I will agree that we are definetly punching above our weight at international level. If you disagree then find me another country with a pop of less than 5 million and with a domestic league of our standard that's currently doing as well as us at full international level.

i agree too, the only other country that comes to mind is Denmark.

quick bit of research and i see since 86 qualifiers they've only finished outside top 2 in qualification once...when we just about pipped them to 2nd in '94.
Denmark actually finished 1st six times since '86, impressive.

ref:
http://www.euro2004.com/history/index.html
http://www.phespirit.info/worldcup/

knobbles

Pigman II wrote:

I'd put those thoughts out of my mind tbh.

Because of the competive nature of our group (4 teams still undefeated and who have all taken pts off each other) I severly doubt that whoever comes 2nd will be avoiding the play-offs due to 'mathematical attritiion' or whatever you'd prefer to call it.

true, but that's why i said IF we win is Israel we'd be lookin good for it. We'll see...

eirebhoy

Pigman II wrote:

(I'm basing all the above on the presumption they're still basing the 2 auto 2nd placers based on their 6 games vs 1st, 3rd and 4th?)

Every match is taken into a/c this time round so its basically total points that counts. In the groups with 7 teams, the matches against the last place team aren't taken into account.

Big Ears

'I'll be very happy with a draw.'

Before qualifying starting I was thinking 4 points off Israel would be brilliant , and it probably still would be . But lately I have thought to myself that whoever does the best against the Israeli's are probably going to win the group , thats why its key to get a win in Israel even if it is a very hard task .

were ranked 10th out of 52 European teams , are we punching above our weight ?........not really , if anything we were only punching below our wait for a long time , although Pigman pointed out a few times we were unlucky not to qualify .

Boro

ILLKIILYA wrote:

I don't think that it was well said... what exactly do you consider to be "above our weight"? You compare us to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland... is this what you would consider our optimal standard? I would rather compare us to England.

I dont think you can really compare us to England. Besides the obvious population difference, they also benefit from a hugely more professional setup of the game. They have a complete structure in place that we just cant match - WRT the academies, etc. They also have the advantage of 4 professional leagues, with the premiership being regarded (rightly or wrongly) as one of the best in europe/the world.

They are two different situations really, with all of our international players playing in a foreign country. Hmm gonna contradict myself here, i guess that because our players play the english style, they could be compared to an english team. Only the english team has access to a greater pool of players.

If you are going to be comparing ireland to anyone, then NI, scotland and wales would be good comparisons. The similarities are fairly obvious. With the exception of scotland, all of us have pretty underdeveloped national leagues. Most of our good players play in england.

In the past, we all used to be similar in that effort and heart was mostly what was praised rather than any sort of skill or good play. Ireland have moved on from that "we lost but we lost well" mentality and have developed their own winning mentality, whereas the others seem to still be languishing in that era - ie giving it lots of effort but with very little class.

Interesting question - why do people think that ireland play better than wales/scotland/NI considering we all have small populations with players playing in the english leagues. We are all in or around the same area too. Is it the "fightin' irish spirit"? Or the fact that declaring for ireland has a more glamorous shine to it than declaring for any of the other nations mentioned? We have better players, its true. But is that luck? Or through any form of development? Or coaching? Or just the way ireland have been managed?

Think im confusing myself with this post TBH.

Anyway, IMO yes we are punching above our weight, or at least we were. I think we deserve to be where we are now though (between 10-20 in the fifa rankings).

smackbunnybaby

a draw against israel isnt good - we need to go into games with the "we can win all games attitude"

its exactly the attitude roy keane has been trying to get us to accept - if you are good enough to win then a point isnt good enough.

Big Ears

smackbunnybaby wrote:

a draw against israel isnt good - we need to go into games with the "we can win all games attitude"

its exactly the attitude roy keane has been trying to get us to accept - if you are good enough to win then a point isnt good enough.

'They're record in Israel over the last 30 games is 20w 6d 3l including wins over Argentina, Poland, Turkey 4-0, Estonia 7-0 and Austria 5-0.'

Draupnir

I dont know how valid that Israeli stat can be since they didnt play home games for a number of years due to the political state in the country, so that 30 game cross section could stretch over ten years or so.

Having watched Israel v Switzerland on Setanta, Ill be very disappointed if we dont beat them anyway, if we dont beat them I will again believe we dont deserve a place at a World Cup. Thats always been my believe anyway. It was the same for the Euro 2004, we couldnt have many complaints if we couldnt beat Switzerland and Russia, then why should we deserve a place at the finals.

Israel are a decent hard working team, but we have the ability to beat them and I will be expecting a good performance and a win.

smackbunnybaby

given the groups are seeded - you SHOULD be expecting to take all the points available to you from the teams below you.

kilkennycat2004

Illkillya wrote:

I don't think that it was well said... what exactly do you consider to be "above our weight"? You compare us to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland... is this what you would consider our optimal standard? I would rather compare us to England..

Scotland have football structures in place that we can't even aspire to. A professional league, several stadiums etc...
Regarding England well there's no comparison. One of the world's richest leagues, major stadiums in every town etc...
Of course we are performing hugely better than we should be compared to these 2. To say any different is living in cloud cuckoo land.

eirebhoy

Draupnir wrote:

I dont know how valid that Israeli stat can be since they didnt play home games for a number of years due to the political state in the country, so that 30 game cross section could stretch over ten years or so.

They were only playing on neutral ground for the last qualifiers, those results are from late 97 onwards.

smackbunnybaby wrote:

a draw against israel isnt good - we need to go into games with the "we can win all games attitude"

It would be a lot easier to beat the Swiss away than it would to beat Israel. Just because "We can win any game" doesn't mean its a failure if we draw.

given the groups are seeded - you SHOULD be expecting to take all the points available to you from the teams below you.

Most teams would be delighted with a point away from home from the team ranked just below you.

If France were just as good as Israel I'd be saying we are favourites to win but this is Tel Aviv we're talking about, not the silent grace of Stade de France. If we are leading up to about 70mins I wouldn't be suprised to see knifes getting flung at players and it will shít them up. All sort of thoughts will be going through their minds. Kerr doesn't want Lansdowne to turn into a fortress for the sake of it you know.