RTEngland

Slash/ED

Why is it when I turn on their coverage for the Portugal Mexico match today all I can hear is talk about fecking England!? We moan about their TV networks when our own national broadcaster is, if anything, worse. At least it's their team. Why have we this obsession with "them across the water"?

All we do is talk about them. On here, in pubs, the papers are all filled with England stories and on our own national broadcaster. Then asked why we cheer against them we say "We'd never hear the end of it from them". What b-ll-cks.

I want them to lose as I can't stand their media, but ours are worse. Any foreigner who picks up RTE between the saturation of their domestic football, only showing british sides in the champions league until their all out no matter what matches they have to choose from and the non stop talk of their international team would be forgiven for not having a clue what country this channel is support to be representing. It's a joke and sorry if this is a rant but it's everything I hate about this country, we're absolutley obsessed with them in a way they can't even compete with.

Why!? I get the feeling if they didn't qualify people here wouldn't even be watching this world cup.

The_B_Man

England are the closest country to us who have qualified. They're more "local" than say France, Holland or Germany. Plus, a lot of people have an interest in the English game over here. Makes sense really. IF we were in the cup, there'd be less talk of England. simple as that.

herbieflowers

I find with RTÉ though, that they're more willing to slate and criticise teams (including England) than actually praise anything these teams do! Their punditry is so gloomy and depressing, Dunphy, Giles et al are just too grumpy for my liking!

PiE

I'm convinced they mention England so much in an attempt to get Dunphy riled up and off on one of his rants.

Bacchus

But their drunken half-time & full time comments are often hilarious. Souness has been an excellent addition. He hasn't a clue what he's on about..... "what's his name, the big lad...... Ferdinand" ..... another ...... [talking about Sven]"What has he learned! What! I don't know what he's learned! Do you?"
I'm also really enjoying how Dunphy has found his new "Keano" in Rooney. What's the bets he'll write is autobiography

It is a bit ridiculous though. Sure, the English game is what they (and most of the country) is familiar with but are other teams in the competition that should get a fair share of discussion.

mike65

I wonder is Austrian coverage obsessed with Germany?

Mike.

LordSutch

Nearly all our players are bassed in English teams, many of our players were born in England, most of them live in England, & most of us living in Ireland support English football teams, some of us have even worked & lived in England, many people also have family & friends living in England, my mobile is on an English network, I watch the BBC (English), I Love English Bands too! Many Irish people take holidays in England ............
the list is endless.

Maybe thats why RTE takes such an interest in the England Football team?

Admittedly, England are not looking too Hot at this point in the tournament, and it doesnt look like they will last much longer, but still, the World Cup just wouldnt be the same without England.

eirebhoy

The fact of the matter is, England matches are very popular in this country whether people like it or not. You can see that by the discussion their matches generate on this forum alone. There's an "England World Cup discussion" thread on foot.ie with 260 replies. There's almost as much interest in an England game in an Irish pub as there is an Ireland game. Very few want them to win though.

http://foot.ie/forums/showthread.php?t=32511

LordSutch

eirebhoy wrote:

The fact of the matter is, England matches are very popular in this country whether people like it or not. You can see that by the discussion their matches generate on this forum alone. There's an "England World Cup discussion" thread on foot.ie with 260 replies. There's almost as much interest in an England game in an Irish pub as there is an Ireland game. Very few want them to win though.

http://foot.ie/forums/showthread.php?t=32511

Funny thing is eireboy ~ Times are changing (kinda)!

I was in a large Dublin pub last night absolutely full of England supporters, most of them were English (& wearing England shirts) but to my surprise many Irish accents were also supporting England! thats New I thought, sadly at half time we went to another pub (just sixty yards away) and we were back to the old story of (all the Irish had become honorary Swedes for the night) and no doubt next week they will all be from Ecuador (with Irish accents) yawn, yawn, yawn, yawn .......................

Necronomicon

It's because they cover the Premiership every week, a lot of their work is revolved around English football. Also take into account how popular the Premiership is over here, not to mention the panel members' ties to English football (Brady working for Arsenal, the Dunphy/Keane relationship and having Souness as a pundit, who worked in England almost his entire career).

mike65

ArthurF,

The fact you found one pub that was 'england' for the evening and not on fire is indeed progress.

Mike.

LordSutch

Very true Mike, and good to see a healthy respect for our neighbours, even if it only applies to a few pubs, its progress though:)

Chucky the tree

ArthurF wrote:

Very true Mike, and good to see a healthy respect for our neighbours, even if it only applies to a few pubs, its progress though:)

Progress? Its a steep backwards i think. The day rivalrly(spelling) goes out of football will be a sad sad day.

MisterAnarchy

Most people have Sky and are bombarded with English Tv.
Alot of Irish people watch the Premiership and many foolishly believe it is the best league in the World.
People believe what they hear.
Look at Sky Sports News,the channel is a farce.
It should be called English Football TV.
They report on hardly anything except English soccer.
The majority of people dont watch football from other countries bar the Champions League.
Its obvious then that they would be biased towards watching and talking about England.
Its like people who watch tennis once a year at Wimbledon and think Grass Tennis is the best.
Roland Garros,Flushing Meadows,Melbourne Park,what are they they guff to themselves.
In their mind there are only 2 countries in South America,Brazil and Argentina.
Any fan of football will not be besotted with the English team.
They are more interested in the Latin footballing teams .
I'm supporting Spain and Argentina in this World Cup because I like their style of football and have done since I was a child watching sport.
Most people are stupid and easily pleased.
Someone asked me today would I be watching the England V Ecuador match or the Munster Hurling final .
Why should I watch a long ball team like England ,they are a bore.

jesus_thats_gre

mike65 wrote:

I wonder is Austrian coverage obsessed with Germany?

Mike.

Maybe the Poles are too.. ahem..

Anyway, I think Souness makes a surprisingly good pundit to be honest.

Chucky the tree

THen munster final is on the same time?

Pigman II

I'd imagine it's because most of their team play in our Premiership league.

MisterAnarchy

Chucky the tree wrote:

THen munster final is on the same time?

Yes,both matches start at 4pm on Sunday.

Chucky the tree

MisterAnarchy wrote:

Yes,both matches start at 4pm on Sunday.

****!


Nice little tiff in the studio there, what a quality production!

emmemm

Brady and Giles more animated than usual.Hilarious debate over Giles's definition of a world class player.He seems to believe that if a player is one of the best in the world he isn't necessarily world class!?
Very entertaining even without Dunphy.Plenty of material for the apres guys.

Pigman II

emmemm wrote:

Brady and Giles more animated than usual.Hilarious debate over Giles's definition of a world class player.He seems to believe that if a player is one of the best in the world he isn't necessarily world class!?
Very entertaining even without Dunphy.Plenty of material for the apres guys.

He was being asked whethere he thought Riqelme was a' great' player.

Giles : "Riquelmes not a great player." (general jist being he didn't do enough leg-work).

Brady : "What about Ballack?"

Giles : "Riquelmes not a great player. Ballacks not a great player either"

Souness : Well who do you think has been a great player in this World Cup so far?

Giles : Eh........ (after about 5 seconds) .... no-one ..... Rooney.

(talk about just pulling a name out of your arse ) :rolleyes:

PHB

Giles is from the old days of football, he doesn't believe in players with certain more divided roles in teams, unless they are purely defensive. AMC is not a valid position for him. Only DMC and MC are. The players he dislikes are AMC's in general, and wingers who don't track back enough. Strikers he allows some lee way with, but his like of Rooney is in part to do with his tracking back.

kinaldo

I think RTE's coverage is great but I'm sick of Johnny Giles and his old fashioned thinking. He's become obsessed players/teams/managers having "moral courage". First we get to hear him on TV, then he repeats himself in the morning on Dunphy, then he repeats himself again in his Evening Herald article, and again on George Hook, or Off the Ball on Thurdays. I suppose with all those gigs he's bound to sound quite repetetive. He does sometimes make good points. I'm starting to like Souness now that he's a pundit. Absolutely hated him when he was busy ruining Newcastle and moaning about refs or whining about injuries every week. Not to mention his negative tactics. Funny how useless managers can sometimes make great pundits.

dohboy

Pigman II wrote:

Giles : Eh........ (after about 5 seconds) .... no-one ..... Rooney.

(talk about just pulling a name out of your arse ) :rolleyes:

The conversation turned into at discussion about who giles thought was a great player in the world today, not in the world cup. He gave Rooney as his answer.

I think he's spot on about Riquleme. Fantastic player alright, but one of the greats, not yet. We all saw how he bottled it in the Champs League.

PHB

It's cause the normal pundits we have are people who couldn't even make it as useless managers.

Nalz

emmemm wrote:

Plenty of material for the apres guys.

There last few skits having been that great in comparison to the start of the tournament
and yeah, we should shut up a little on England, and Owens injury, and Rooney, and Sven the headless chicken, and Carrick, and Hargreaves, and there lack of a creative midfielder, and the gerrard/lampard class, how shít beckham is etc...

I can see the point that most irish people follow and support English clubs but it still is a bit much...

Nalz

dohboy wrote:

I think he's spot on about Riquleme. Fantastic player alright, but one of the greats, not yet. We all saw how he bottled it in the Champs League.

yeah. totally agree. way off world class

Táck

i wouldnt say im supporting England but i'm not anti english. i'd like to see them do well becasue week in, week out i support liverpool so it would be a bit hypocritical of me to not cheer their nation on. i use to say, "if you dont want to listen to them going on and on, don't watch BBC" but imo RTÉ are talking just as much if not more.

saying there the closest country to us is a load of botox. if Scotland, N.Ire and Wales were in this world cup, RTÉ would still be talkin about England more.

is it just me or does anyone else thing giles might be going a bit senile in his old age? some of his pre-match talks are all over the shop. getting players mixed up, teams mixed up, plays mixed up etc etc. and i don't mean "ah sure thats why we love him" kinda way. i mean he's losing it

Pigman II

I don't think he's losing it so much as he's still longing for a game that no longer exists. Same with Alan Hansen. The only thing that's ever right for either of them was what worked or what was expected in their day.

Compare them to someone like Strachen who actually has been successful a manager until relatively recently and is a breath of fresh air for an analytical pov.

I think if I had my way then probably the only people who would be allowed to be commentators on the biggest stage would be people like Strachen (ie top managers who haven't been out of the game long.)

Kingp35

Strachan is not out of the game, he is manager of Celtic. I get your point though, people like Strachan and Martin O' Neill are the ones who know what they are talking about.

As for England talk being everywhere, do what I do when they start talking about them, change the channel.

eirebhoy

dohboy wrote:

I think he's spot on about Riquleme. Fantastic player alright, but one of the greats, not yet. We all saw how he bottled it in the Champs League.

As did Ronaldinho. Riquelme is the key the Argentina team. Along with Ayala he'd be their most important player. You can take Maxi, Messi, Crespo, Cambiasso, Heinze, etc. out of the team and they wouldn't be too much weaker. Take Riquelme out of the team and they're a much different team.

It's why I like Nakamura of Celtic so much. Shaun Maloney will always play well and guarantees you goals and assists but it doesn't guarantee you a great team performance. When Nakamura plays well the whole team plays well. Neil Lennon said before that once Naka has the ball the who team just falls into place. That's exactly the same with Riquelme. Against S&M Argentina scored 6 goals, Riquelme didn't score or didn't put the last pass to a goal but he still got MOTM and rightly so.

He's far more influential than Kaka imo. Kaka could have a great game (as we've seen in this WC) but it guarantees you nothing more than a great individual performance. If Riquelme plays well you just know the team are going to much better overall.

Pigman II

Kingp35 wrote:

Strachan is not out of the game, he is manager of Celtic.

Well he might as well be in that case. Kidding!

I started lauding Strachan as an analysist at a time when he started doing MOTD2 and was not a manager at that time so I'm used to automatically refering to him as "out of them game"

Don't follow Scottish football either so I had honestly forgotten he was at Celtic now.

ziggy

This post has been deleted.

PiE

eirebhoy wrote:

He's far more influential than Kaka imo. Kaka could have a great game (as we've seen in this WC) but it guarantees you nothing more than a great individual performance. If Riquelme plays well you just know the team are going to much better overall.

Good point. Riquelme exudes confidence which filters down into the rest of the team and that's as good an attribute to a team as any cutting pass.

PHB

Take Riquelme out of the team and they're a much different team.

That's because to have Riquelme in your team means you have to base your whole team around him.

eirebhoy

PHB wrote:

That's because to have Riquelme in your team means you have to base your whole team around him.

Aye, good point.

BaZmO*

T&#225 wrote: »

saying there the closest country to us is a load of botox. if Scotland, N.Ire and Wales were in this world cup, RTÉ would still be talkin about England more.

Saying that they are the closest to us is not Bóllóx. The BBC and also ITV gave us a hell of a lot of coverage during USA 94 cos they didn't quaify and they didn't have too many of their big name players playinf in the EL at the time!

finnpark

Slash/ED wrote:

Why is it when I turn on their coverage for the Portugal Mexico match today all I can hear is talk about fecking England!? We moan about their TV networks when our own national broadcaster is, if anything, worse. At least it's their team. Why have we this obsession with "them across the water"?

All we do is talk about them. On here, in pubs, the papers are all filled with England stories and on our own national broadcaster. Then asked why we cheer against them we say "We'd never hear the end of it from them". What b-ll-cks.

I want them to lose as I can't stand their media, but ours are worse. Any foreigner who picks up RTE between the saturation of their domestic football, only showing british sides in the champions league until their all out no matter what matches they have to choose from and the non stop talk of their international team would be forgiven for not having a clue what country this channel is support to be representing. It's a joke and sorry if this is a rant but it's everything I hate about this country, we're absolutley obsessed with them in a way they can't even compete with.

Why!? I get the feeling if they didn't qualify people here wouldn't even be watching this world cup.

I agree totally with you. Rte are obcessed with British sport and general British TV.

finnpark

ArthurF wrote:

Funny thing is eireboy ~ Times are changing (kinda)!

I was in a large Dublin pub last night absolutely full of England supporters, most of them were English (& wearing England shirts) but to my surprise many Irish accents were also supporting England! thats New I thought, sadly at half time we went to another pub (just sixty yards away) and we were back to the old story of (all the Irish had become honorary Swedes for the night) and no doubt next week they will all be from Ecuador (with Irish accents) yawn, yawn, yawn, yawn .......................

Well if you want to support Ireland's biggest rivals then good luck. Its called been brainwashed by the media I beleive.

PHB

RTE is obsesssed with the premiership, as are most of us here.
Whenever their is a match on, their focus is always on premiership players if possible.
England has a lot of premiership players.

If Dunphy calls Gerrard ****e, the people who get annoyed are the Liverpool fans watching. If he says Beckham is ****e, some United fans will get annoyed. It's to due with the premiership, not the Englishness.

Well if you want to support Ireland's biggest rivals then good luck.

Ex-rivals. Now, we are one of England's closest allies. Ultimately, I support England, but not hugely, cause I support the players I like in them. I don't really cheer when Gerrard scored from a Cole chip, but I cheer when I see Beckham, Rooney, and Neville [maybe Rio, depending on mood] winning or doing something great.

Táck

PHB wrote:

I support the players I like in them. I don't really cheer when Gerrard scored from a Cole chip, but I cheer when I see Beckham, Rooney, and Neville [maybe Rio, depending on mood] winning or doing something great.

so you don't really have anything to cheer about then do you? beckham shouldnt be playing, rooney has yet to get match fit, neville is injured and Rio's average of one cock up a game is sometimes un-noticed, sometimes critical.

thankfully crouchy, carra and stevie have done me proud! as proud an irishman can be of the english team!!!

PHB

I get by. It's probably to do with Beckham actually playing, Rooney being England's only hope of winning the WC, despite the titanic preformances of Crouch and Gerrard, and Rio still keeping Stevie out of the CB position, despite his alleged cock ups,and Neville instantly regaining his position at RB once he is fit.

I tell ya, it's tough times for those guys, real tough times.

LordSutch

Ireland & England are not rivals in this World Cup, so I still say that there is absolutely nothing wrong with supporting England as our closest neighbour, (as I did last week) & I will be supporting them again this Sunday. I would also be a huge hypocrite not to support them as I am a Chelsea supporter, & my son is a Liverpool fan!
(no doubt you will be shouting for Ecuador)?

super_furry

I was in a pub in town last weekend cheering (with an Aussie friend) for England. Got a few funny looks, but **** 'em. My dad's English so I'll support England and even if he wasn't I think I would.

Kingp35

ArthurF wrote:

Ireland & England are not rivals in this World Cup, so I still say that there is absolutely nothing wrong with supporting England as our closest neighbour

Im confused by all this closest neighbour talk. Its usually the case that you want a team to LOSE because they are your closest neighbour. Imagine Argentinians cheering on Brazil? It just doesnt happen

WhiteWashMan

eirebhoy wrote:

Very few want them to win though.

:rolleyes:

dohboy

I won't be supporting England.

Especially after seeing 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley' the other night.

Anyone who supports England is pig ignorant of this country's history.

imo.

therecklessone

dohboy wrote:

I won't be supporting England.

Especially after seeing 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley' the other night.

Anyone who supports England is pig ignorant of this country's history.

imo.

Help wanted

I am a confused Irishman who can't decide who to support in this world cup. I mean, the German's bombed us during WW2, the Franco's men shot at the Irish in the International Brigade during the Spanish Civil War, the Dutch gave us King Billy, the Swede's the Vikings, the French couldn't organise a decent invasion to kick the Brits out, Mussolini was a Black and Tan, Argentina knocked us out of the Rugby WC in 99, and a Brazilian looked at me funny last week. Who does that leave?

Ecuador?

dohboy

therecklessone wrote:

Help wanted

I am a confused Irishman who can't decide who to support in this world cup. I mean, the German's bombed us during WW2, the Franco's men shot at the Irish in the International Brigade during the Spanish Civil War, the Dutch gave us King Billy, the Swede's the Vikings, the French couldn't organise a decent invasion to kick the Brits out, Mussolini was a Black and Tan, Argentina knocked us out of the Rugby WC in 99, and a Brazilian looked at me funny last week. Who does that leave?

Ecuador?

Let me have my schadenfrude, will you?

I'm just a bit riled after watching them Black and Tans murder and pillage my Paddy brethern.

PHB

Anyone who supports England is pig ignorant of this country's history.

Totally, I'll tell ya, my history degree is down the tubes now that I support England.

I'm just a bit riled after watching them Black and Tans murder and pillage my Paddy brethern.

Jesus, you must be near 100. Incredible!

Let me explain this really really clearly,

The people who are now in England did not oppress the Irish people.

So if you want to blame them for it, you better be willing to blame yourself for everything that Ireland has ever done.

dohboy

PHB wrote:

Jesus, you must be near 100. Incredible!

I said i got riled watching 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley'.

"The people who are now in England did not oppress the Irish people."

I dont want to turn this into a debate about nationalism, but there are people on this island who would strongly disagree with you on that comment.

Look, i have a long history of not-supporting England. Yeah it's petty and blinkered, but it good natured. It's just inherent in me to not want them to do well. I'll probably grow out of it.

If your fawning premiership fandom has you assimilated to the degree that you are actively supporting England, that's your perogative.