Republic of Ireland vs España

ricero

It has been confirmed the Spanish football team will be facing criminal prosecutions.

The Irish team has accused them of rape.

Rhys Essien

Renn wrote: »

How many teams in the Euro finals have had two players on the pitch at the same time who don't have any clubs at the moment (Andrews and Green)?

Dont forget St Ledger.

Id say that will be a record never broke at a Championship along with Spain having 862 passes against us.:(

Professional Griefer

Why was Paul Green brought on the ****ing pitch?

HazDanz

d22ontour wrote: »

Result was to be expected, thankfully it wasn't a massacre score wise, their 2nd gear performance would beat most teams around our level just as easily. Italy next who will need to beat us by at least 2 if the other game is a draw, more of the same on Monday so...

4-0 is a bit of a massacre to me. We looked at least a leagues worth of quality away from the Spanish today. They gave it there best which is good enough for me tonight. I would question our approach and how we tackle the opposition, hopefully world cup qualification will be better after learning from this experience.

kryogen

Ix Deadmau5 wrote: »

Why was Paul Green brought on the ****ing pitch plane?

FYP

plasmaguy

G.K. wrote: »

You've really missed the point here.

Also, do you really think Paul Green/Glen Whelan and Wes Hoolahan/Ciaran Clark are on the same level?

In the context of tonight's game, it wouldn't have made much difference, Hoolahan and Clarke would have been outclassed too.

In the context of the Croatia game ditto. In the context of the Italy game the same. In fact in the context of any game during the Trap era, the same.

Trap has got average players playing above themselves in the qualifiers to beat average teams. Spain, Croatia and Italy are not average teams.

Wes Houlihan would have been MASSIVELY OUT OF HIS DEPTH tonight. He would not have made a blind bit of difference.

closeline

McShane, Cox, Green shouldn't be in the squad. The worst thing about this is Trap is taking no blame. The worst possible result tonight was 1-0 to Spain. At least it was 4-0.

fryup

i loved it at 4-0 down ..ronnie whelan says "i hope this doesn't get embarrassing"

:rolleyes:

plasmaguy

kryogen wrote: »

Are you gonna try to answer either of the direct questions I have put to you in the thread? Or are you gonna bitch out of that too?

I let a few of your other posts go, but this one has earned yourself an ignore.

Helix

jiltloop wrote: »

Well then they should come to Ireland more often! I'll support them gladly!

In regards to the LOI support I think the FAI need to come up with a strategy and system that encourages people's interest. All I'm saying is that I do love football but I've never had an interest in LOI and obviously I'm not alone. FAI need to find out why that is and find out how to deal with it. You can't expect people to immediately become passionate about something just because someone wants their support. It needs to be a cultural shift.

you're right, you don't become passionate about something overnight. however you also don't become passionate about something if you don't try to get into it. when it comes to the LOI there needs to be a total focus on getting kids into it early, im talking 4-6 years of age when they don't know the difference between good football and poor football, and they still have the sense of wonder at being at a football match in a real life stadium

that's where you make fans for life. almost everyone i know my age who has any interest in the LOI was introduced at that age, and most also follow teams in england too. it's not an either/or thing or anything like it

the problem is that the FAI don't care about the national league, and the reason they don't care is because they don't make money from it. the only reason the league exists is so that they can have a national team. uefa and fifa regulations state that no national league means no national team - it's the only reason the loi exists.

the catch 22 situation comes from the fact that people won't go unless the fai do something to push them to games, and the fai won't do anything to push people to games because they've no interest in the league since it makes them no money because people don't go.

i think a good place to start is by telling people that without the national league there's no national team. another solution to drum up interest would be letting people in to loi games for free with their national team tickets, or letting people into national team games for free with their loi season tickets. and under 16s should be free to loi games full stop

Hank Scorpio

nm.

ricero

from our own fans embarrassing us outside the England team hotel, to our embarrassing opening performance against a not so great Croatia and finally tonight's performance i want to forget euro 2012 and erase it from my memory.

G.K.

plasmaguy wrote: »

In the context of tonight's game, it wouldn't have made much difference, Hoolahan and Clarke would have been outclassed too.

In the context of the Croatia game ditto. In the context of the Italy game the same. In fact in the context of any game during the Trap era, the same.

Trap has got average players playing above themselves in the qualifiers to beat average teams. Spain, Croatia and Italy are not average teams.

Wes Houlihan would have been MASSIVELY OUT OF HIS DEPTH tonight. He would not have made a blind bit of difference.

Where did I say they wouldn't?

But picking inferior, out of form players has no justification and makes no sense.

ColeTrain

applehunter wrote: »

Why don't you **** off.

I'm embarrassed and I'm Irish.

Deal with it.

Well, well I never. You're going into my enemy list.

SomethingElse wrote: »

If you think that all the other teams that played against Spain were lucky, you really should take a step back and look at your logic.

What are you on about. Spain play most teams off the park, just like they did to us tonight. Does it really matter that we got beat 1-0 or 4-0? We were 100% outplayed, I won't lose sleep over the fact they took four of their chances compared to one.

kryogen

HazDanz wrote: »

4-0 is a bit of a massacre to me. We looked at least a leagues worth of quality away from the Spanish today. They gave it there best which is good enough for me tonight. I would question our approach and how we tackle the opposition, hopefully world cup qualification will be better after learning from this experience.

They made some horrible mistakes that directly led to goals, that to me negates any claims that they played to their best, they were not switched on at the kick off, second time in a row, they were not switched on coming out for the second half, second time in a row!

I don't want to be too harsh on them, when the groups were drawn it was very likely they would be on a plane home after 3 games, they are what they are, limited players, Shay does not look like he should have been playing, either that or age is catching up with him, Dunne was not his usual self in these games, he was sloppy and lethargic, the reluctance to remove Keane from the starting 11 bothered me, Long is a better option with the game we are playing, because he is captain should not make him undroppable.

Someone like McGeady, honestly to me, and this may be not popular should never wear the jersey again, he has no heart and that is unforgivable to me, that is the minimum requirement to wearing the jersey for me. You at least have to have heart.

Ah I could rant all night /

Blondie919

Does anyone else here think Aiden McGeady isn't very good? I thought he was awful in both games so far but especially tonight. He put in one good cross but most of his passes went astray and he is not really a team player, he doesn't/ cant defend.

djpbarry

plasmaguy wrote: »

I hope Trap resigns, sometimes I think he is too good for Ireland...

I hope he resigns too, because he is ultimately responsible for the absolutely shambolic performance we witnessed tonight and against Croatia. I honestly do not see the point in qualifying for a major tournament if you’re going to show up and produce that. Absolutely laughable.

d22ontour wrote: »

Result was to be expected...

Was it? Why? Every one of Spain’s goals resulted from abject Irish defending. Every one of them was preventable.

ColeTrain wrote: »

Again, I'm not one bit embarrassed.

You should be. I know I am. People will make the excuse that it’s Spain, but Croatia played us off the park too. So did Hungary. And Russia. **** sake, even Armenia toyed with us in Dublin and they only had ten men on the pitch.

BeanFlicker wrote: »

...we're rigid, good defensively and on our day we can be unbeatable...

Is that a ****ing joke?

Mal-Adjusted

Helix wrote: »

i think a good place to start is by telling people that without the national league there's no national team. another solution to drum up interest would be letting people in to loi games for free with their national team tickets, or letting people into national team games for free with their loi season tickets. and under 16s should be free to loi games full stop

Correct me if i'm wrong, but didn't Salthill-Devon F.C do that and nobody went.

plasmaguy

G.K. wrote: »

Where did I say they wouldn't?

But picking inferior, out of form players has no justification and makes no sense.

Andrews was one of our best players tonight and he was our best player against Croatia. To say he is inferior is incredibly unfair.

ColeTrain

kryogen wrote: »

Someone like McGeady, honestly to me, and this may be not popular should never wear the jersey again, he has no heart and that is unforgivable to me, that is the minimum requirement to wearing the jersey for me. You at least have to have heart.

Ah I could rant all night /

McGeady won a fair bit of ball back for us tonight and apart from his mistake with the 3rd goal, did well defensively imo. I don't know what he was lacking commitment wise compared to anyone else.

jiltloop

Helix wrote: »

it's more the fact of how hypocritical it all seems

Why is it hypocritcal? It's not black and white, you don't have to be a diehard fan or not a fan at all. That's what I've always tried to explain to LOI fans, there's alot of fans in the grey area out there that enjoy football immensely but obviously not as much as some diehard fans. It's not all or nothing. The challenge the FAI have is attracting some of the grey area of fans to the LOI

Some of my friends who are lot more knowledgable and passionate about football than I am and who I would regard as being experts on the game have little interest in LOI.

Back to the music and film analogy (although as we've said it isn't a perfect analogy), there's people who have different levels of interest in both but just cos you are more of a music/film fan doesn't give you the right to castigate other lesser fans. You have to realise that they are content with the satisfaction they receive from it and are happy with the quality of music/film that they choose to consume. Having a chip on your shoulder about them is endlessly irrelevant.

kryogen

plasmaguy wrote: »

I let a few of your other posts go, but this one has earned yourself an ignore.

lol yeah just like I thought, you bitch out......again!

Some things never change

plasmaguy

djpbarry wrote: »

I hope he resigns too, because he is ultimately responsible for the absolutely shambolic performance we witnessed tonight and against Croatia.

:rolleyes:

Is this even worth replying to? Probably not!

kryogen

ColeTrain wrote: »

McGeady won a fair bit of ball back for us tonight and apart from his mistake with the 3rd goal, did well defensively imo. I don't know what he was lacking commitment wise compared to anyone else.

I could be blinded with rage toward him at the mo, but anytime I was watching him he was either making stupid mistakes, or compounding them by not making an effort to get back and make up for them.

Ill re watch it later in case Im being too hard on him

Helix

Mal-Adjusted wrote: »

Correct me if i'm wrong, but didn't Salthill-Devon F.C do that and nobody went.

needs to be a national thing rather than just restricted to one club

plasmaguy

plasmaguy wrote: »

Please stop grasping at straws. Wes Houlihan is an average player in an average team.

To argue he could have done a job against a team made up of Barcalona, Real Madrid, Man City and Torres, who was outstanding tonight is just grasping at straws.

Houlihan would have contributed zilch tonight, you know that as well as me. He's a nobody compared to the class of player Spain has, an absolute nobody, not fit to lace Xavi, Silva, or Inniesta's boots, he'd be poor in this environment, sorry to be blunt.

Why replace one poor player with another poor player? We are talking a world apart here from the EPL and Houlihan would be massively out of his depth, you know that as well as me.

Damian Duff, Robbie Keane at his peak, Given, Dunne, O'Shea, etc etc all look great in the EPL but tonight revealed the gulf in class between playing the likes of Spain and playing in the EPL.

No matter who we put out, we'd still be hammered, end of story.

I hope Trap resigns, sometimes I think he is too good for Ireland and wasting his time dealing with the kind of nonsense he has to put up with sometimes, barstool analyst, armchair manager, etc.

You know sweet fa about football otherwise you would realise that the players he left behind were better standard then those he brought and that your not actually swapping a bad player for a bad player. There is a world of difference between a premiership player like Hoolihan who plays for Norwich week in week out and a player like Paul Green who isnt even at a club.

NO ONE IS SAYING WE WOULD HAVE BEATEN SPAIN!!

But we deserved in the very least to give ourselves the best chance we could.

Granted Spain would hammer alot of teams and no one is denying that but you play football to try win even when others tell you not too bother and to attempt this you pick the very best available to you regardless.

gilmour

wonderfullife wrote: »

The euros were the big event. I personally feel they were ****ing legendary tonight and we left a lasting impression on the world again that can only be positive for the image of our country with the likes of Muamba and RVP tweeting about the support.

Of all the posts in this thread, this one gets to me the most. What is with the identity of this ****ing country that it feels the need to win the support of everyone around the world? Im sick of this low self esteem bollocks that seems to be etched into the very fabric of who we are, absolutely pathetic.

fryup

kryogen wrote: »

I could be blinded with rage toward him at the mo, but anytime I was watching him he was either making stupid mistakes, or compounding them by not making an effort to get back and make up for them.

Ill re watch it later in case Im being too hard on him

no you aren't he was sh!te

RoryMac

ricero wrote: »

from our own fans embarrassing us outside the England team hotel, to our embarrassing opening performance against a not so great Croatia and finally tonight's performance i want to forget euro 2012 and erase it from my memory.

This a joke??

Sanity_Saviour

ColeTrain wrote: »

McGeady won a fair bit of ball back for us tonight and apart from his mistake with the 3rd goal, did well defensively imo. I don't know what he was lacking commitment wise compared to anyone else.

This.
He's gotten a fair bit of abuse tonight but apart from Andrews, Given and maybe St. Ledger none of the Irish team can come out of that with any pride. McGeady was terrierlike in the knowledge he wasn't going to be able to make any real runs. From what I saw he made nearly the most tackles out of anyone else, though I may be wrong. I'd say he made more tackles than Whelan made successful passes.

To be honest I thought he was our 2nd best player behind Andrews but it seems he is a real scapegoat for any poor performance.

ColeTrain

kryogen wrote: »

I could be blinded with rage toward him at the mo, but anytime I was watching him he was either making stupid mistakes, or compounding them by not making an effort to get back and make up for them.

Ill re watch it later in case Im being too hard on him

Why him though? I watched it in the pub and he was getting a lot of abuse.

Bizarre to highlight any player tonight given how we got outclassed all over the pitch but from the game I watched his passes usually went to a man, would like to see the stats on that.

secman

We could have played the whole squad tonight and still would have lost. In fact spain could have taken 3 players off and still won. The difference in class was immense, they were a joy to watch, their movement, work rate , comfort on the ball, showing for the ball. Our guys at one stage didn't want the ball , the fear in their faces was unreal. They were so alert, we were at times sleep walking. They sucked the heart out of us with their mesmorising play.

Secman

G.K.

plasmaguy wrote: »

Andrews was one of our best players tonight and he was our best player against Croatia. To say he is inferior is incredibly unfair.

Where did I mention Andrews?

I'd have had him in my Euro squad, if I were in Trap's place, even if all players were available (For CM the unavailable players I considered were S. Reid and McCarthy).

The inferior players I meant were Ward, Whelan, Green, McShane.

To a lesser extent O'Dea, Hunt.

For the record, while he was Ireland's best player tonight he wasn't very good against Croatia imo.

djpbarry

HazDanz wrote: »

I would question our approach and how we tackle the opposition...

We tackle?

plasmaguy wrote: »

Trap has got average players playing above themselves in the qualifiers to beat average teams. Spain, Croatia and Italy are not average teams.

Ireland didn’t beat anyone of note in the qualifiers.

ricero

RoryMac wrote: »

This a joke??

im serious i want to forget this tournament it was a disgrace

jiltloop

Helix wrote: »

you're right, you don't become passionate about something overnight. however you also don't become passionate about something if you don't try to get into it. when it comes to the LOI there needs to be a total focus on getting kids into it early, im talking 4-6 years of age when they don't know the difference between good football and poor football, and they still have the sense of wonder at being at a football match in a real life stadium

that's where you make fans for life. almost everyone i know my age who has any interest in the LOI was introduced at that age, and most also follow teams in england too. it's not an either/or thing or anything like it

the problem is that the FAI don't care about the national league, and the reason they don't care is because they don't make money from it. the only reason the league exists is so that they can have a national team. uefa and fifa regulations state that no national league means no national team - it's the only reason the loi exists.

the catch 22 situation comes from the fact that people won't go unless the fai do something to push them to games, and the fai won't do anything to push people to games because they've no interest in the league since it makes them no money because people don't go.

i think a good place to start is by telling people that without the national league there's no national team. another solution to drum up interest would be letting people in to loi games for free with their national team tickets, or letting people into national team games for free with their loi season tickets. and under 16s should be free to loi games full stop

Yeah I understand that completely. LOI isn't marketed at all. Also the territories of the various teams especially around Dublin probably aren't clearly defined so therefore allegiances are going to be harder to cement.

For instance I'm originally from Ashbourne in south Meath, how could I have an allegiance to any team in LOI. Someone earlier suggested I could support Drogheda Utd, a team from Louth, a town I may have been to maybe 4 times in my whole life (i'm 30). That doesn't make sense to me. How could I generate a passion for that team?

Obviously there's huge number of people that fall outside the influence of allegiance to LOI teams just like me, and there has never been any attempt to market LOI to people like me. That's why I get incredulous about the attitudes from LOI fans.

ColeTrain

Sanity_Saviour wrote: »

This.
He's gotten a fair bit of abuse tonight but apart from Andrews, Given and maybe St. Ledger none of the Irish team can come out of that with any pride. McGeady was terrierlike in the knowledge he wasn't going to be able to make any real runs. From what I saw he made nearly the most tackles out of anyone else, though I may be wrong. I'd say he made more tackles than Whelan made successful passes.

To be honest I thought he was our 2nd best player behind Andrews but it seems he is a real scapegoat for any poor performance.

I thought he had a decent game if you can call any performance decent. He is a scapegoat for sure. He was getting heckled anytime he got the ball and anytime he did anything good there was silence from them!

SomethingElse

ColeTrain wrote: »

Well, well I never. You're going into my enemy list.



What are you on about. Spain play most teams off the park, just like they did to us tonight. Does it really matter that we got beat 1-0 or 4-0? We were 100% outplayed, I won't lose sleep over the fact they took four of their chances compared to one.

The level of our performance is reflected in the scoreline. We were annihilated. Would you have settled for that performance and a 4-0 defeat at the start of the game?

plasmaguy

All the Irish players tried hard tonight in fairness, but they are just limited technically, it's not their fault, nor is it the fault of the manager. It's just a situation he has inherited.

Trap has brought a limited group of players a long way but there's only so far you can bring them, so maybe the best thing he could do is resign.

It won't change for the next manager though who will inherit more limited players. If Trap goes, I don't see us qualifying for another major tournament for another ten years as there is an awful lot of sh*te managers hovering around out there, one of who would get the job.

G'night!

monkey9

The best thing about this this thread is Plasmaguy!!!!! Go for it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ColeTrain

SomethingElse wrote: »

The level of our performance is reflected in the scoreline. We were annihilated. Would you have settled for that performance and a 4-0 defeat at the start of the game?

I expected it. I'm not sure what you were expecting?

In footbal David usually doesn't slay Goliath.

kryogen

We will almost certainly be getting nowhere near the World Cup with Trap at the helm, and he will be at the helm. Germany will qualify and Swedens record in qualifiers is unreal.

RoryMac

ricero wrote: »

RoryMac wrote: »

This a joke??

im serious i want to forget this tournament it was a disgrace

If you think Ireland failing to beat some of the best countries in the world and the Ireland fans being praised throughout Europe is a disgrace i'd love to hear your expectations coming into the tournament?

CiaranC

jiltloop wrote: »

For instance I'm originally from Ashbourne in south Meath, how could I have an allegiance to any team in LOI.

Yet you claim to have an allegiance to Tottenham Hotspur. In London.

G.K.

What you could have expected is none of the ridiculous errors, better ball retention (retention, not posession) and perhaps a lower scoreline, but still being defeated all the same.

HazDanz

djpbarry wrote: »

We tackle?

Sorry I mean our approach to play. Would we really have been any worse off going into these finals taking a more proactive approach rather than trying to contain the opposition? I know it's easy to say now we could have done things different but we are better as a football nation than what we showed over the last two games.

ricero

RoryMac wrote: »

If you think Ireland failing to beat some of the best countries in the world and the Ireland fans being praised throughout Europe is a disgrace i'd love to hear your expectations coming into the tournament?

i did not expect my team to concede in each game after 3 minutes in each half, i expected a better defensive performance from Ireland throughout the tournament

plasmaguy

plasmaguy wrote: »

All the Irish players tried hard tonight in fairness, but they are just limited technically, it's not their fault, nor is it the fault of the manager. It's just a situation he has inherited.

Trap has brought a limited group of players a long way but there's only so far you can bring them, so maybe the best thing he could do is resign.

It won't change for the next manager though who will inherit more limited players. If Trap goes, I don't see us qualifying for another major tournament for another ten years as there is an awful lot of sh*te managers hovering around out there, one of who would get the job.

G'night!

Hey if the net was cast far and wide and the on form players were getting picked regularly then i would have no complaints suppose we were beaten 10-0 tonight but if you took your head out of the sand you would know that isn't the case with Trap

MisterAnarchy

Blondie919 wrote: »

Does anyone else here think Aiden McGeady isn't very good? I thought he was awful in both games so far but especially tonight. He put in one good cross but most of his passes went astray and he is not really a team player, he doesn't/ cant defend.

He is a one trick pony with no end product.

fryup

djpbarry wrote: »

Ireland didn’t beat anyone of note in the qualifiers.

yep, **lets face it** the only reason ireland got there is because we drew Estonia in the play offs, had it been any other team we would have been knocked out, simple as