Republic of Ireland v Luxembourg - Match Thread - K.O 19.45 - RTE and Sky Sports

gormdubhgorm

partyguinness wrote: »

In hindsight is it any real surprise? Are the ROI really that much better than the Luxembourgs of the world?

Let's look at the squad...basically average Championship/League 1 level with a sprinkling of very average bottom half PL players who are mostly defenders in and out of their club sides.

ROI does not have any international class players playing at the top level.

For all the slagging off of Kenny...the players themselves need to get a grip out on the pitch and beat a team. They are not robots.

Bob Harris wrote: »

The gap between Ireland and Luxembourg is not all that big. If you look at the level our players are playing at and theirs you'd to expect a fairly even match which is what we saw. While none of their players play in any big club in a top Euro league their starting 11 nearly all play in the top tier in the the country they are in so they are not the part timers they were 10/20 years ago.

While Ireland had 6 PL starters on Saturday - 4 of those are at relegation threatened sides and none of these 6 are superstars by any means. Coleman the best of them and a shadow of the player he was 2-3 seasons ago.
Robinson's scoring record is shocking and then Shane Long comes on to replace him who hasn't scored an international goal in 5 years.

We do not have quality players and we can't expect to round up a hotch-potch of mediocre players who are playing a very average standard of football for their clubs and think they'll perform like Brazil.

We're 42nd in the FIFA rankings and looking at the teams down as far as 100 we'd struggle to beat any of them.

Roy Keane gave a really blunt assessment of Ireland after the Luxembourg game. Plus discussed the level of players - most are just 'honest' and Coleman is Ireland's best player, a full back. Many playing in the Championship and others not getting regular games for their clubs.

Hard to argue with anything he has said. Keane sounded like he felt sorry for Kenny and the lads.

Pussyhands

Are we playing better than the sum of our parts? No.

Northern Ireland had a worse team than this and they went to the Euros.

gormdubhgorm

Pussyhands wrote: »

Are we playing better than the sum of our parts? No.

Northern Ireland had a worse team than this and they went to the Euros.

How did they play to get there. Pragmatic set pieces backs to the wall, hard to break down, organised. Must easier way to play with technically limited players.

NI knew their strengths and weaknesses and O'Neill set up his team accordingly.

People seem to think they are playing a computer game and suddenly teams can play football the 'right way'.

John Giles had a decent set of players for Ireland and tried to play football the 'right way' never qualified for a tournament. He was unlucky in fairness. But did it work?

Beating a powerhouse in USSR 3-0 and drawing against a weak Turkey whipping boy team 0-0 no consistency 1976 EC qualifiers. Were robbed in the 1978 qualifiers though. It did

yohan the great

gormdubhgorm wrote: »

How did they play to get there. Pragmatic set pieces backs to the wall, hard to break down, organised. Must easier way to play with technically limited players.

NI knew their strengths and weaknesses and O'Neill set up his team accordingly.

They played like that against teams better than them. They passed us off the park in a friendly a few years ago

Loafing Oaf

Bob Harris wrote: »

The gap between Ireland and Luxembourg is not all that big. If you look at the level our players are playing at and theirs you'd to expect a fairly even match which is what we saw. While none of their players play in any big club in a top Euro league their starting 11 nearly all play in the top tier in the the country they are in so they are not the part timers they were 10/20 years ago.

While Ireland had 6 PL starters on Saturday - 4 of those are at relegation threatened sides and none of these 6 are superstars by any means. Coleman the best of them and a shadow of the player he was 2-3 seasons ago.
Robinson's scoring record is shocking and then Shane Long comes on to replace him who hasn't scored an international goal in 5 years.

We do not have quality players and we can't expect to round up a hotch-potch of mediocre players who are playing a very average standard of football for their clubs and think they'll perform like Brazil.

We're 42nd in the FIFA rankings and looking at the teams down as far as 100 we'd struggle to beat any of them.

Going by the surnames and, ahem, complexions of many of the players, looks like Luxembourg have been energetically tapping their immigrant communities and the residency rule in recent years...

Bob Harris

Loafing Oaf wrote: »

Going by the surnames and, ahem, complexions of many of the players, looks like Luxembourg have been energetically tapping their immigrant communities and the residency rule in recent years...

There's been a lot of accents and complexions that you could say are not typically Irish playing for the Republic over the years too!

gormdubhgorm

There are echoes of Stephen Kenny's situation in the following from John Giles last stint as manager in the 1980 qualifiers


http://soccer-ireland.com/irish-soccer-managers/johnny-giles.htm


'He also came under fire for his methodical possession playing style which could involve many passes across defence and midfield but made little territorial ground.'

gormdubhgorm

Loafing Oaf wrote: »

Going by the surnames and, ahem, complexions of many of the players, looks like Luxembourg have been energetically tapping their immigrant communities and the residency rule in recent years...

Not only that the Luxembourg FA have linked up with Swiss/Belgium/French and Portuguese clubs to give a pathway to their best players from the Luxembourg centre of excellence. Not the top leagues in Europe but the tiers just below that.

Seems a lot more organised than the Irish situation?

gormdubhgorm

Zeek12 wrote: »

I think minnows is exaggerating their weakness to be fair. San Marino are ranked 210. Gibraltar and Lichtenstein are ranked around 190 and 180. Those are the sort of countries you'd call minnows.

Luxembourg are ranked over 100 places higher than SM and Gibraltar.
Just for some perspective, Georgia who have caused us (and a number of other decent sides) real headaches in qualifying groups are ranked less than 10 places higher than Luxembourg.

Not excusing the performance but we have no God given right to think we'll always beat a team like Luxemboug anymore. They narrowly lost 3-2 to Serbia, just like us, in their EURO 2020 qualifying, and Ukraine scraped past them thanks to an O.g. in injury time.

Totally agree with you on Cunningham though. He offers nothing from an analysis standpoint and the standard of the RTE panel in general (including Maloney as presenter) is really poor at the moment.

Luxembourg have jumped in rankings massively as well in recent times they are definitely on the up.

crossman47

gormdubhgorm wrote: »

Not only that the Luxembourg FA have linked up with Belgium/French and Portuguese clubs to give a pathway to their best players from the Luxembourg centre of excellence.

Seems a lot more organised than the Irish situation?

Lux has always had a large Portugese community.

artanevilla

gormdubhgorm wrote: »

Not only that the Luxembourg FA have linked up with Belgium/French and Portuguese clubs to give a pathway to their best players from the Luxembourg centre of excellence.

Seems a lot more organised than the Irish situation?

I once had a container full of assorted pens that I knocked onto the floor, the pens were everywhere. That was more organized than the Irish situation.

gormdubhgorm

crossman47 wrote: »

Lux has always had a large Portugese community.

I was wondering why they had such a scatter of Portuguese names, makes sense.

partyguinness

Bob Harris wrote: »

The gap between Ireland and Luxembourg is not all that big. If you look at the level our players are playing at and theirs you'd to expect a fairly even match which is what we saw. While none of their players play in any big club in a top Euro league their starting 11 nearly all play in the top tier in the the country they are in so they are not the part timers they were 10/20 years ago.

While Ireland had 6 PL starters on Saturday - 4 of those are at relegation threatened sides and none of these 6 are superstars by any means. Coleman the best of them and a shadow of the player he was 2-3 seasons ago.
Robinson's scoring record is shocking and then Shane Long comes on to replace him who hasn't scored an international goal in 5 years.

We do not have quality players and we can't expect to round up a hotch-potch of mediocre players who are playing a very average standard of football for their clubs and think they'll perform like Brazil.

We're 42nd in the FIFA rankings and looking at the teams down as far as 100 we'd struggle to beat any of them.

And just taking the PL players- they are fighting relegation. West Brom and Sheffield are going down and Newcastle are in trouble. Doherty is a squad player with confidence issues and Coleman is also a squad player at this stage.

That team in a few months time may well have only 2 PL players...both RBs...grim.

EDIT: Sorry I have just repeated what you wrote which I had not read.

johnnyryan89

gormdubhgorm wrote: »

I was wondering why they had such a scatter of Portuguese names, makes sense.

Nearly half of their population are immigrants and Portuguese would be the highest number of people who move there.

Pussyhands

Bob Harris wrote: »

Our players are still better than theirs.

Sinani is on loan from Norwich, at the club bottom of the league in Belgium.


There's a big difference in that and Josh Cullen who's a regular for Anderlecht, one of the best clubs in the league.

Their goalkeeper players in the B league in Belgium...the league below that is semi professional.

Maybe Kenny is putting the cart before the horse. You can't expect players like O'Shea, Stephens etc to play possession football when they don't week in week out.

Maybe develop players first that are good enough to play like that at club level.

partyguinness

Pussyhands wrote: »

Our players are still better than theirs.

Apparently not.

gormdubhgorm

Pussyhands wrote: »

Maybe Kenny is putting the cart before the horse. You can't expect players like O'Shea, Stephens etc to play possession football when they don't week in week out.

Maybe develop players first that are good enough to play like that at club level.

Tony O'Donoghue basically asked Kenny this question the last day. 'Was it too much too soon?' Trying to get the players to play possession football.

Kenny's answer did not sound convincing. 'I think so, but there is no point in me saying it we have to prove it with results'

partyguinness

Funnily enough the very first ROI game I watched was away to Luxembourg Euro 88 qualifier. 2-0 win to Ireland but until Whelan scored the second it was nervy. ROI beat Luxembourg 2-1 at home but Luxembourg actually took the lead. McGrath scored with 15 to go.

Ok...that is of no relevance to today's team but it does show that the ROI do by and large struggle to beat 'weaker' teams. Plenty of other examples over the decades.

For every 1-0 win over Germany or Italy and there are far more dour and painful 1-0 or 2-0 wins against the minnows.

Liam O

Ireland have a 5 year gap in the squad between the ages of 24 and 29. Literally a missing generation. Players would generally be at their best in those years but we have nobody. It's fairly sickening to see and is about what has happened in the past rather than what is happening right now.

Ferris_Bueller

Why is it that our players just look so uncomfortable on the ball? We gave the ball away so cheaply in the early stages of the game and in the second half we just looked devoid of anyone who wanted to be on the ball in an attacking area.

Is it down to the players we produce? Are we just churning out hardworking, honest pros who aren't particularly technical? If you look at them individually I wouldn't say that Stevens, Doherty, Browne, Brady etc are poor footballers, fair enough some guys such as Duffy maybe do fall into this bracket but overall they aren't especially bad footballers and not any worse than the Luxembourg players.

Are players too used to playing a certain style of football with the national team that it is hard to change? For a long time now the likes of McClean, Brady, Hendrick and some of the more experienced lads have looked so accustomed to playing how we did under the likes of MON & Mick. In this system nobody in particular seemed to take responsibility for making something happen and it was hoped that by whipping enough crosses into the box and winning enough corners/frees that we would get lucky and nick a goal. It works arguably against the bigger teams but how many times have we played the Georgias, Gibraltars, Luxembourgs and really struggled to break them down when the onus is on us.

Is it a case of us just needing one or two players who can make something happen for the rest of it to click? We saw this with Wes Hoolahan, when he was on the pitch the entire team seemed to play better as we had someone who wanted to receive the ball in tight spaces. Someone on YBIG said that we genuinely would have been better off bringing on a 38 year old Wes the other night than most of the other subs and it is hard to argue against. Obviously that is not going to happen but is it worth throwing in someone like Jack Byrne, Conor Ronan or Alan Judge to have this creative player on the pitch?

Or is it simply a case of the players needing more time to gel and get used to this way of playing? Ken Early had a good article this morning outlining how little this XI has played together and how much chopping & changing has been forced upon us in Kennys reign to date with injuries & covid. If we persist with it will we eventually just get better?

It's a very frustrating situation we find ourselves in. There are no quick fixes but at the same time Kenny needs to see improvement or else he won't be kept on much longer. As bad as the result was the other night, I don't think the performance was much worse than we have seen in the past against the likes of Gibraltar, Georgia, or in the nations league games in Autumn.

~Rebel~

Pussyhands wrote: »

Our players are still better than theirs.

Sinani is on loan from Norwich, at the club bottom of the league in Belgium.


There's a big difference in that and Josh Cullen who's a regular for Anderlecht, one of the best clubs in the league.

Their goalkeeper players in the B league in Belgium...the league below that is semi professional.

Maybe Kenny is putting the cart before the horse. You can't expect players like O'Shea, Stephens etc to play possession football when they don't week in week out.

Maybe develop players first that are good enough to play like that at club level.

Both of those lads were playing regularly in sides that qualified automatically from the championship to the PL. they played decent football to get there, and are both demonstrably well able to pass the ball around. There are some players who aren’t - but those two aren’t amongst them.

Kenny is asking no-one to do anything that mid table championship teams like Blackburn don’t do week in week out.

Our problem is the same problem we’ve had for 5 years, and the same problem we’d have if we switched back to more agricultural ball - we don’t have goalscorers. Ultimately you can lump it long, or play up the field with shorter passing, or carry it with pace, but someone has to be capable of sticking it in every now and again, and we’re at a historic low in terms of players who can do that on any sort of remotely consistent basis.

Whether Kenny stays longer term, or someone else comes in, the first 2 thirds of the pitch are almost irrelevant as a ‘work-on’. It’s fine. The final third is where all of our problems lie, and where we need to figure out how to bring a cutting edge.

partyguinness

gormdubhgorm wrote: »

Tony O'Donoghue basically asked Kenny this question the last day. 'Was it too much too soon?' Trying to get the players to play possession football.

Kenny's answer did not sound convincing. 'I think so, but there is no point in me saying it we have to prove it with results'

But this is what McCarthy did when took over in 1996. A deliberate effort to a more attractive style. Even tinkered with the infamous 3-5-2. Garry Breen was hailed as the new David O'Leary.

Now of course it helped that the likes of Robbie Keane and Duff were emerging and a still very decent top flight footballers to pick.

Pussyhands

Ferris_Bueller wrote: »

Why is it that our players just look so uncomfortable on the ball? We gave the ball away so cheaply in the early stages of the game and in the second half we just looked devoid of anyone who wanted to be on the ball in an attacking area.



Or is it simply a case of the players needing more time to gel and get used to this way of playing? Ken Early had a good article this morning outlining how little this XI has played together and how much chopping & changing has been forced upon us in Kennys reign to date with injuries & covid. If we persist with it will we eventually just get better?

I would say it's impossible for players to gel in international football. The players only got together on Monday and had to travel to Serbia for a game on Wednesday.

You can't expect hoof it players to play possession football. Wes Holohan was a footballer who played football for his club. He wasn't a hoofer for Norwich who then came to Ireland and started passing it around.

LuckyLloyd

partyguinness wrote: »

In hindsight is it any real surprise? Are the ROI really that much better than the Luxembourgs of the world?

Let's look at the squad...basically average Championship/League 1 level with a sprinkling of very average bottom half PL players who are mostly defenders in and out of their club sides.

ROI does not have any international class players playing at the top level.

For all the slagging off of Kenny...the players themselves need to get a grip out on the pitch and beat a team. They are not robots.

Yes. Or, at least, we were until Stephen Kenny took charge.

gormdubhgorm

partyguinness wrote: »

But this is what McCarthy did when took over in 1996. A deliberate effort to a more attractive style. Even tinkered with the infamous 3-5-2. Garry Breen was hailed as the new David O'Leary.

Now of course it helped that the likes of Robbie Keane and Duff were emerging and a still very decent top flight footballers to pick.

Similar I suppose in that McCarthy wanted Ireland to play a more expansive game. Plus he was basically learning on the job like Stephen Kenny.

The 3-5-2 the one where McCarthy played Roy Keane as a sweeper? I think was against Iceland? McCarthy was saying that Keane could become the best sweeper in the world. The idea was quickly shelved.

When I think of it McCarthy seemed to be barely hanging on at one stage in his first spell. The play off against Belgium? Oliveira scored I think and Mark Kennedy got booed? The play off against Turkey McCarthy got ate as well.

The nice play off draw v Iran for the 02 WC helped eventually.

I think the advantage McCarthy had was that he has his rep as a player. Captain Fantastic etc. Whereas now Kenny does not have that to fall back on. The narrative from some quarters is LOI manager what do you expect.

But Brian Kerr was a LOI and had one of the better records as an Irish manager.

Did you smash it

Ferris_Bueller wrote: »

Or is it simply a case of the players needing more time to gel and get used to this way of playing? Ken Early had a good article this morning outlining how little this XI has played together and how much chopping & changing has been forced upon us in Kennys reign to date with injuries & covid. If we persist with it will we eventually just get better?

Journalists like Ken and dion fanning always try to find times that our pragmatic football failed. They never focus on when it succeeded.

If we had played the Kenny way vs Bosnia in the 2016 playoff we would have loss as Bosnia had the better technical players in Pjanic and a better forward in Dzeko.

We instead played with blood and guts and disrupted their game and it worked.

But Ken instead makes comparisons in his piece to a bloody friendly against Iceland in the ONeill era.

dfx-

Did you smash it wrote: »

Setup Browne for a good headed chance on Saturday off a set piece. Put two corners on Duffy and doherty’s head for Finland away. Brady is as good as we have for crossing and set pieces.

Stevens and Doherty are complete no marks at crossing and attacking.

Other than Jack Byrne.

Ireland need to take shots every so often when the final ball isn't working. The midfield is what Ireland has cherished most for the last 35 years. Far too many times the ball goes backwards or sideways after checking back on themselves. 'Hard working', 'busy', safe passing but largely ineffective players going forward. In many managers' cases, they were not allowed be anything else. Brady being the obvious case all the way back through to Hoolahan and Byrne.

It is no surprise that if you pick them for 30 years, that's the type you end up creating.

gormdubhgorm

Ferris_Bueller wrote: »

Why is it that our players just look so uncomfortable on the ball? We gave the ball away so cheaply in the early stages of the game and in the second half we just looked devoid of anyone who wanted to be on the ball in an attacking area.

Is it down to the players we produce? Are we just churning out hardworking, honest pros who aren't particularly technical? If you look at them individually I wouldn't say that Stevens, Doherty, Browne, Brady etc are poor footballers, fair enough some guys such as Duffy maybe do fall into this bracket but overall they aren't especially bad footballers and not any worse than the Luxembourg players.

The bit that annoys me about Kenny is not that he wants to play possession football.
It is that he has not searched for the tools to try and make it work.

What do you need for that a fella who has no fear in midfield who wants to create and play penetrative passes.
Jack Byrne is that type of player demanding the ball confidence etc.
Granted he is injured now playing for APOEL.

But did Kenny give him a chance at all? And why not?

Put workhorses in midfield around him (god knows Ireland have enough of those players who are 'honest' with 'legs').

If Kenny still wants to play possession football and can't find a creative midfielder up to it. Grand don't play that way. Adapt the tactics to the players available.

Otherwise it is sideways pass, sideways pass, sideways pass in their own half. Teams can sit off under no danger. Zero threat. Then when Ireland lose the ball they seem to look on passively.

How is this supposed to be an improvement on even the worst of direct football?

Lamped ball, lost ball, ball won back, energy, fight, lamped ball. lost ball. lamped ball, set piece etc.

I thought even Barcelona have a 3 sec rule for pressing and winning the ball back?

Liam O

Did you smash it wrote: »

Journalists like Ken and dion fanning always try to find times that our pragmatic football failed. They never focus on when it succeeded.

If we had played the Kenny way vs Bosnia in the 2016 playoff we would have loss as Bosnia had the better technical players in Pjanic and a better forward in Dzeko.

We instead played with blood and guts and disrupted their game and it worked.

But Ken instead makes comparisons in his piece to a bloody friendly against Iceland in the ONeill era.

Being able to consistently pass the ball 10 yards to a teammate and blood and guts are not diverging philosophies. You can have both ability and passion. Ireland should be able to beat 4th and 5th seed teams by outplaying them.

Ireland were better than Bosnia in those games because they had better players around the pitch in their prime whereas Bosnia had 2 or 3 big names and then a huge drop off.

dfx-

Did you smash it wrote: »

Journalists like Ken and dion fanning always try to find times that our pragmatic football failed. They never focus on when it succeeded.

If we had played the Kenny way vs Bosnia in the 2016 playoff we would have loss as Bosnia had the better technical players in Pjanic and a better forward in Dzeko.

We instead played with blood and guts and disrupted their game and it worked.

But Ken instead makes comparisons in his piece to a bloody friendly against Iceland in the ONeill era.

All of the success of the pragmatic football was based on a huge slice of fortune or usually results elsewhere - Euro 88 based on Scotland's win, Italia 90 group draws, WC94 qualifiers final game based on Spain v Denmark drawing, drawing Estonia for Euro 2012, Scotland losing in Georgia in 2015, a disinterested Italy in 2016 groups.

Even then, it has been touch and go, before you look at the countless failure of the pragmatic approach.

Did you smash it

dfx- wrote: »

All of the success of the pragmatic football was based on a huge slice of fortune or usually results elsewhere - Euro 88 based on Scotland's win, Italia 90 group draws, WC94 qualifiers final game based on Spain v Denmark drawing, drawing Estonia for Euro 2012, Scotland losing in Georgia in 2015, a disinterested Italy in 2016 groups.

Even then, it has been touch and go, before you look at the countless failure of the pragmatic approach.

Lucking out with a playoff draw vs Slovakia who were missing their best players (lobotka and inter Milan centre back) and drew with Malta and Cyprus this window. Oh wait...Kenny’s ireland went out on penalties to them.

Hammer Archer

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

Yes. Or, at least, we were until Stephen Kenny took charge.

Posted similar in another thread.
Less than 10 years ago, we needed goals in the 89th and 90th minute to beat Kazakhstan (ranked 142nd) after being 1-0 down for most of the game. Two years ago, it was an own goal and an injury time second goal to beat Gibraltar (ranked 196th) at home. We only won the reverse fixture 1-0 and had Randolph to thank for not going behind in that game. Our last four games against Georgia (ranked at a similar level to Luxembourg now) have seen us come away with two uninspiring 1-0 wins at home and two draws away from home (one was the infamous game where we had 25% possession at one point). So we have not been "much better" than the Luxembourgs of the world for some time now.
We do not have the quality, especially up front, to put these sorts of teams to the sword with ease anymore. On a related note, I remember a sizeable portion of Irish fans criticizing Robbie Keane over the last 5-10 years of his international career and even belittling his scoring achievements by saying he "only scores against bad teams". Jaysus, what we wouldn't give to have a forward who can score like that again.

gormdubhgorm

Hammer Archer wrote: »

Posted similar in another thread.
Less than 10 years ago, we needed goals in the 89th and 90th minute to beat Kazakhstan (ranked 142nd) after being 1-0 down for most of the game. Two years ago, it was an own goal and an injury time second goal to beat Gibraltar (ranked 196th) at home. We only won the reverse fixture 1-0 and had Randolph to thank for not going behind in that game. Our last four games against Georgia (ranked at a similar level to Luxembourg now) have seen us come away with two uninspiring 1-0 wins at home and two draws away from home (one was the infamous game where we had 25% possession at one point). So we have not been "much better" than the Luxembourgs of the world for some time now.
We do not have the quality, especially up front, to put these sorts of teams to the sword with ease anymore. On a related note, I remember a sizeable portion of Irish fans criticizing Robbie Keane over the last 5-10 years of his international career and even belittling his scoring achievements by saying he "only scores against bad teams". Jaysus, what we wouldn't give to have a forward who can score like that again.

Yeah I created a thread about 7 years ago asking why Robbie Keane was not appreciated comparing his record, with Klose from Germany.

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=91223471

It seemed to be very spilt back then.
I even said he will be missed when he retires!

Even a half decent striker is worth his weight in gold. If Kenny had one of those who had the quality to nick a goal from very little he could pass the ball sidewards to his hearts content. Knowing other teams were at least wary of a threat. Ireland have no threat bar Duffy.

The_Kew_Tour

dfx- wrote: »

All of the success of the pragmatic football was based on a huge slice of fortune or usually results elsewhere - Euro 88 based on Scotland's win, Italia 90 group draws, WC94 qualifiers final game based on Spain v Denmark drawing, drawing Estonia for Euro 2012, Scotland losing in Georgia in 2015, a disinterested Italy in 2016 groups.

Even then, it has been touch and go, before you look at the countless failure of the pragmatic approach.

Spain won that last game 1-0.

We were seeded for the Euro 2012 draw..

Ireland got 4 points of the World Champs in 2016 qualifying. Scots got none.

noodler

It's nonsense to explain away every achievement the various teams have made over the last 20 years.

People didn't like bore draws against better opposition? Well fair enough, bit it beats the hell out of losing to them like we did in Serbia.

But we've never lost, to my recollection, a game to a lower seed at home.

briany

gormdubhgorm wrote: »

Yeah I created a thread about 7 years ago asking why Robbie Keane was not appreciated comparing his record, with Klose from Germany.

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=91223471

It seemed to be very spilt back then.
I even said he will be missed when he retires!

Even a half decent striker is worth his weight in gold. If Kenny had one of those who had the quality to nick a goal from very little he could pass the ball sidewards to his hearts content. Knowing other teams were at least wary of a threat. Ireland have no threat bar Duffy.

Never mind a Robbie Keane, as it's unlikely a striker of such quality will grace the green jersey in the foreseeable future. Even someone of Jon Walters' calibre between 2010-2015 would be welcome.

briany

noodler wrote: »

But we've never lost, to my recollection, a game to a lower seed at home.

It's happened at least twice that I can recall. Ireland were 1st seeds in Euro 96 qualifying and lost home and away to Austria 3-1. Also, were beaten by the Swiss at home in Euro 2004 qualifying who were 3rd seeds to Ireland's 1st.

But we may have never lost at home to a team that far down the rankings from Ireland.

Time will tell on this because Luxembourg might go on to upset the other teams in this group, and if that happens, then the result at the weekend won't seem so bad. But if, on the other hand, Luxembourg are dispatched by the other teams, it'll really give a bleak perspective.

noodler

briany wrote: »

It's happened at least twice that I can recall. Ireland were 1st seeds in Euro 96 qualifying and lost home and away to Austria 3-1. Also, were beaten by the Swiss at home in Euro 2004 qualifying who were 3rd seeds to Ireland's 1st.

But we may have never lost at home to a team that far down the rankings from Ireland.

Time will tell on this because Luxembourg might go on to upset the other teams in this group, and if that happens, then the result at the weekend won't seem so bad. But if, on the other hand, Luxembourg are dispatched by the other teams, it'll really give a bleak perspective.

Haha, look, point taken and you are technically correct.

It's my own fault for being so specific but Austria and Switzerland are not comparable to Luxembourg in terms of footballing ability.

briany

noodler wrote: »

Haha, look, point taken and you are technically correct.

It's my own fault for being so specific but Austria and Switzerland are not comparable to Luxembourg in terms of footballing ability.

Traditionally no, but it's already been noted in this thread several times that Luxembourg have kicked on a bit from their days as a minnow. That's compounded by the fact that Ireland has regressed.

partyguinness

dfx- wrote: »

All of the success of the pragmatic football was based on a huge slice of fortune or usually results elsewhere - Euro 88 based on Scotland's win, Italia 90 group draws, WC94 qualifiers final game based on Spain v Denmark drawing, drawing Estonia for Euro 2012, Scotland losing in Georgia in 2015, a disinterested Italy in 2016 groups.

Even then, it has been touch and go, before you look at the countless failure of the pragmatic approach.

Mostly true. Spain beat Denmark in the last game in 1994 WC. Ireland have never gone out, smashed a qualifier group and eased into a tournament. Never do it the easy way.

Not many teams do not have some bit of fortune but equally Ireland have had bad luck:

- WC 82 Apparently the ref did Belgium a huge favour. Not sure what but my father has never shut up about it,
- Euro 88- Holland's goal was a complete fluke, McGrath hit the post. Holland went on the win the tournament.
- Euro 92- Youtube England's goal away to Turkey. Denis Wise literally fell over himself and the ball hit off his hand and went for a 1-0 win.
- WC 94- two individual mistakes gave Holland a 2-0 win
- Euro 2000- Ireland were 10 seconds from automatic qualification and Macedonia equalised from a corner. Then a jammy handball penalty against Lee Carsley gave Turkey an away goals victory in the play off
- WC 2010 the handball against France

Luxemburg are still way below us in the rankings. The rise of Luxemburg has been over egged tbh.

It was their 2nd away win in world cup qualifying ever, ie since 1937. The previous one was 2008.


For the record, in European championship away qualifiers they have won twice ever, i.e., since 1963. The victories were in 2007 and 1995.

So, that's what we lost too. Apparently they are on the rise, but statistics show they are hopeless on the road.

Kenny must have a lot of friends in the media because he's getting a relatively free ride. When crowds come back he's toast. Match going fans won't stand for that.

briany

There were some positives from the game. Some nice passing at times. I made a gif of one such sequence.

Did you smash it

briany wrote: »

There were some positives from the game. Some nice passing at times. I made a gif of one such sequence.

I thought before the thing with Kenny ever started that Irish fans have a blind belief that possession football is good to watch. Van Gael’s football at United showed that possession football could be just as boring as attritional Conte or Mourinho style football.

Actual good football to watch is attacking football....and we haven’t skilled attacking players.

Maybe Marco Bielsa could get these players playing attacking football but expecting a LOI manager who’s never coached at a high level and has access to the players every couple of months to do it was auld tosh.

Zeek12

6 wrote: »

Luxemburg are still way below us in the rankings. The rise of Luxemburg has been over egged tbh.

It was their 2nd away win in world cup qualifying ever, ie since 1937. The previous one was 2008.


For the record, in European championship away qualifiers they have won twice ever, i.e., since 1963. The victories were in 2007 and 1995.

So, that's what we lost too. Apparently they are on the rise, but statistics show they are hopeless on the road.

Kenny must have a lot of friends in the media because he's getting a relatively free ride. When crowds come back he's toast. Match going fans won't stand for that.

You're over egging the away record thing a bit yourself.

Home and away advantage is greatly diminished during Covid, when games are played in empty stadiums. And stats across many of the big European leagues over the last year show that. There has been a significant rise in away team victories this past 12 months.

And just because they didn't win many away victories thats not to say this wasn't coming. Or they weren't building towards it.

Luxembourg drew 0-0 AWAY to France in WC 2018 qualifying. That was a team including Pogba, Kante, Griezmann, Mbappe, Giroud etc. France were crowned World cup winners less than a year after that. Arguably a much more significant result than saturday night.

Luxembourg narrowly lost 3-2 to Serbia. And went down 1-0 to Ukraine, only conceding a goal in injury time, in the last Euro qualifiers.
A result like this has been coming.

Its a little unfortunate for us that we met them on an upward curve, when we are on a poor run ourselves - but its also a wake up call for us.
Sides ranked 80th or 90th etc. are no pushovers. And if we don't show up in these games they can and will punish us.

Georgia, a team of similar ranking, should have comfortably beaten us on at least one occasion in recent years. It was a combination of luck and some brilliant defending and great performances from our keepers that saved us.

briany

Did you smash it wrote: »

Actual good football to watch is attacking football

Actual good football to watch is effective football that gets results whether that be attacking or defensive. If you can pip every team you play one-nil, having only one shot on goal, and limiting your opponents to speculative shots from range, then that's good football. Nobody would party any the less hard if Ireland could win the World Cup that way.

Bob Harris

briany wrote: »

Actual good football to watch is effective football that gets results whether that be attacking or defensive. If you can pip every team you play one-nil, having only one shot on goal, and limiting your opponents to speculative shots from range, then that's good football. Nobody would party any the less hard if Ireland could win the World Cup that way.

We'd party alright but moan about how we didn't win it the right way.

gormdubhgorm

6 wrote: »

Luxemburg are still way below us in the rankings. The rise of Luxemburg has been over egged tbh.

It was their 2nd away win in world cup qualifying ever, ie since 1937. The previous one was 2008.


For the record, in European championship away qualifiers they have won twice ever, i.e., since 1963. The victories were in 2007 and 1995.

So, that's what we lost too. Apparently they are on the rise, but statistics show they are hopeless on the road.

Kenny must have a lot of friends in the media because he's getting a relatively free ride. When crowds come back he's toast. Match going fans won't stand for that.

Cas did not view the result as a real shock.

He called Clark Luxembourg's best player, and criticised Browne.
Plus said by a country mile this is Ireland's worst team for the last 30/40 years.

briany

Bob Harris wrote: »

We'd party alright but moan about how we didn't win it the right way.

Moaners would be an insignificant, if vocal, minority.

~Rebel~

6 wrote: »

Luxemburg are still way below us in the rankings. The rise of Luxemburg has been over egged tbh.

It was their 2nd away win in world cup qualifying ever, ie since 1937. The previous one was 2008.


For the record, in European championship away qualifiers they have won twice ever, i.e., since 1963. The victories were in 2007 and 1995.

So, that's what we lost too. Apparently they are on the rise, but statistics show they are hopeless on the road.

Kenny must have a lot of friends in the media because he's getting a relatively free ride. When crowds come back he's toast. Match going fans won't stand for that.

I don't disagree with anything here, but there's two caveats to be added I think... on the rankings, it takes quite a long time to rise up, or fall down, so I think our two levels are actually a lot closer than the rankings currently show - that said, we should still be well ahead of them.

And then on away/home - I really wonder how much home or away makes any difference in international football without a crowd. In club football it's one thing, where are least you still have familiarity with the ground you play at every second week, and you don't have travel as you live nearby. But with internationals, all that is gone. Our camp flew to Serbia, then Ireland, and now off to Hungary. None of these lads live in Ireland, so that Ireland bit is just another flight to another city. It could've just as easily been in Latvia and I'm not sure we'd see any difference. And they play so infrequently that the little bit of familiarity with the ground doesn't count for a whole lot either.

Home advantage internationally is really ONLY about fans. Looking at results bears this out too I think... games are looking a lot more like neutral fixtures. I don't believe that Portugal would have been reliant on an extremely fortune own goal to just about get past Azerbaijan at home if there's fans in that stadium.

gormdubhgorm

Bob Harris wrote: »

We'd party alright but moan about how we didn't win it the right way.

No 'guile' as the fella said :rolleyes: