McCarthy the Facts...WHY HE DESERVED THE SACK

knobbles

....that was the subject title of a mail i received during the week
and seems to be getting around quick. Who ever wrote this borrowed most of their facts from an article in an irish
newspaper a while back, an article I thought was rubbish, and i feel McCarthy deserves some defence from a true irish fan that knows there's more behind these facts. McCarthy did have to go but not because of anything that happened before September 2002. A lot seem to be forwarding this around, I'd reconsider.......


WHY HE DESERVED THE SACK

Langer McCarthy the Facts...why he deserved the SACK

POINT #1
First of all let us put to bed ONE(of many) big stonking outrageous blatant McCarthy LIE...once and for all.That is....the misconception that he took "little Ireland",from 54th to 13th in the world?That's absolutely hillarious you gullible creatures.The facts are as follows.When McCarthy took over the job...we were 25th in the world....he then proceeded to drag us down to 29th,
35th,42nd,48th and finally 54th.So if you are giving him praise for the 13th place...you must also acknowledge the fact that he brought us down 29 places in the course of his managerial reign.....and was very very lucky that the FAI didn't give him the sack earlier.

i say>>>>>>> irelands results in the months before Mick's
appointment :
Liechtenstein 0-0 IRL
IRL 1-3 Austria
Austria 3-1 IRL
IRL 2-1 Latvia
Portugal 3-0 IRL
Holland 2-0 IRL
.....this is a team that was going completely downhill and needed a complete rebuilding, McCarthy said from the start it may take a few years for fortunes to change, and they did change with excellent campaigns for Euro 2000 and World Cup 2002, with a quite average team.


POINT #2
McCarthy's been at the helm for 4 campaigns.....he failed in 2....and succeded in 1.In the 4th we are currently rock bottom of our group...and if he had stayed any longer then we would have absolutely no chance of qualifying...so it would be dismal failure number 3 out of 4 for the Basil Fawlty of the managerial world.


>>>>>>>.the first campaign was always going to be a struggle when you consider the form of the team when he took over and the number of young inexperienced players he had to bring in.
In the second campaign for Euro 2000, we faced Croatia(3rd in World Cup 98) and group favourites Yugoslavia....we beat both teams at home, narrowly lost 1-0 away to both teams. Only an injury time goal in our final game v Macedonia prevented us winning the group.....at the start of the campaign few would have believed we'd come so close. It was a big step forward, not a
failure. Then came two Euro 2000 semi-finalists - Holland and Portugal. In 4 games they couldn't beat our inferior group of players. Then in the World Cup, without our best player, we struggled in the first half against better teams, Cameroon and Spain, yet at the end of these games we should have beat them, and it wasn't because we had better players.



POINT #3
Playing Duff out of position upfront EVERY GAME(to accomodate his mate Kilbane)....and consistently picking the WRONG
Players..ie,KIlbane,Harte,Gary Kelly etc etc.I mean he dropped the PFA right back of the year...Steve Finnan for the opening world cup game...for the Leeds UTD reserve Gary hasbeen Kelly......his reasoning???Kells has looked sharp in training!!!

>>>>>>>Ireland have a limited number of world class players. If we'd a class striker to partner Robbie, than Duff would have played the left for sure. But Morrison wasn't the man, not yet anyway. Before the World Cup he'd only proved himself at
Nationwide Crystal Palace....even Connoly can kick has in that division.


POINT #4
Playing Denis Irwin as centre half during world cup 98 qualifiers.
Playing Keane as Sweeper.
Playing Ian Harte at centre half during same campaign.

>>>>>as he said that campaign was a building process, and when you consider the end result from the next two campaigns, it worked out well. If we had slipped by Belgium in the play-offs I think we would have been embarassed in France with a very inexperienced squad.


POINT #5
Failing to notice that the Spaniards had only 10 men during extra time during the 2nd round world cup game.Furthermore he threw on his mate Dave Connolly instead of Clinton Morrison.

>>>>>>as that journalist failed to note, it was only for the
last 15 minutes of extra-time. Spain went on the defence for
that period, we were outstanding for the last hour of the match even though they outclassed us in the early stages of the game with their classier players. This game was an example of how great a performance Mick got out of his average team.


POINT #6
For rewarding Jason McAteer...a guy who feigned fitness during the world cup....with the captaincy on his 50th cap.

>>>>>an insignificant friendly against Finland, he subbed him at
half-time anyway.


POINT #7
We concede 2 goals in the last 15 minutes against Holland..for a 2-2 draw...and ambitionless McCarthy hails it a heroic and magnificant draw.Meanwhile Keane snarls and rightly says...it's 2 points dropped.

>>>>brilliant performance, fluck equaliser, we nearly lost it in the
final minutes only for a great intervention from Dunne on Kluivert......yes big Richard Dunne v Patric Kluivert and they couldn't beat us


POINT #8
He allowed the players to go on the booze all throughout the world cup...coz it "allows players to bond".According to Niall Quinns book...they were out until 7.00am after one of the games.
McCarthy also took the entire team to a barbeque(glorified pissup) ...in Saipan with the Irish press.....to keep the Irish press he supposedly despises....in his own words...."onside"!!

>>>>>>who was the stronger team by the end of the games
against Cameroon, Spain and Germany????




The press got what they wanted, McCarthy has gone and it
probably was best that he went but he deserves more recognition for his achievements than failures. The team he left us with has much more potential than the team he started with. Give the man a break.

BKtje

Point1:
You'll get no argument from me. I however dont like people claiming he took us from 54th to 13th. He did it but there is no denying that ireland dropped a load of places too.

Point2:
I agree the 1st campaign was going to be a struggle.
The second we went out where i dont think we should have at all.
Maybe the late goal vs Macedonia could have been prevented, maybe not. Didn't we go on to play Belgium that year( or am i misxing years up?). Belgium were and still are a fairly average side. Similar to us. We shouldnt have gone out imo.
You are now trying to tell me that you prefer ireland going out against belgium rather than embaressing us in France? We would have been playing in France. Our inexperienced players would gain experience from such a big footballing event. Come on, that just doesnt wash .
That said he did do well with the irish team to almost win the group. Again theres no denying that fact.

Point3:
So instead of playing Duff on the wing, we played him up front? So you saying an inexperienced Morrison is worse than having a winger who cant cross and takes a year to accelerate.
Connolly is bad but we coulda played Doherty up front. Neither situation is perfect.
I woulda like to see mccarthy at least try with Duff on the wing for a while.

point4:
Might have been a rebuilding process, but doesnt rebuilding usually help if you play your key players in their correct positions? Even me a football fan with no management experience can see the reasons for this. Also he told Denis Irwin to proove himself? come on.

Point5:
Connolly played that game, and that game only. There is a reason for that ffs. He's not of international standard. He didn't do anything in that game and even went on to miss a penalty.
Also i dont see why he didnt practice penalties, pass on words of wisdom and penalty techniques. Jesus your in the last 16 in the world. There is always a chance its going to go to penalites ffs. Spend a couple hours kicking a ball at a goalkeeper, is that so hard?

Point6:
I dont care that he gave him the captaincy. I was however surprised that he didnt get in more **** for feigning injury in a world cup group match! You send your captain home for complaining about the conditions but don't even really give out to a player for feigning fitness? (maybe he did but i didnt really hear about it)

Point7:
It was a brilliant performance. Holland were **** tho in fairness. I was very disappointed with those 2 late goals and i was sickened to see him so happy about a draw. If we'd held on we woulda won the group. Wouldnt have changed much but i'd have liked to be sitting on top of Portugal at the end. That really would have been a really great achievement.

Point8: Was his first major championship and was learning as much as the players were. Woulda been nice if they coulda done the boozing during France 98 where our inexperienced team wouldn't really have had a chance ne way.

I dont think McCarthy was a particularly bad manager and i was saddened that he left in the way he did. (well i was after he had gone) He made a lot of mistakes tho and he had lost his confidence at the end. He kept changing formation, switching players around. He didnt know what to do and was indeceisive and that was why he had to go.
Also a fatal flaw to go for the win against the swiss as you know they are gonna slip up later. Should have settled for the point.

knobbles

10th - rank feb '95 under Jack
32nd - ranking feb '96 before Mick's first game against Russia

....IRl clearly was clearly going downhill in its previous year before Mick came in. 18 months later IRl dropped to 55th, it was on the cards, the team was a shambles when he took over and it was a big transitional stage. Of course, I was gutted when we didn't qualify but it was the most disatrous campaign of the last 15 years and the team wasn't good enough.

I agree we should have qualified in the next campaign but remember few believed we had a chance at the beginning of the campaign, (sep '98 - croatia 4th, yugoslavia 8th, irl 54th)
if you were to compare this to todays rankings it would be very like asking could Scotland win a group with Germany and Turkey over the next 12 months?

The team selection is one that most will disagree with me on but it kinda highlights my point that there wasn't many more options when you say that we might have played Doherty up front to get Duff in for Kilbane.

Connolly came closest to sending us into the quarter-finals with a
shot from outside the box that beat the spanish keeper and went inches wide. That's why he was sent on as the 3rd striker.
Anyway there's gonna be gambles, you win/lose some.
The gambles paid off in games like Germany and Spain but
with not the Swiss game. We all wanted the win when we equalised, but it back-fired



Again, i agree it was time for him to go, but i brought this in here cause if people are gonna be sending mass mails around slagging him i think they should know that there's many fans who believe he did a fine job for our country and most importantly the team looks much more promising the way he left it than when he took over.

knobbles

btw, it was turkey in those play-offs, belgium was the '98

tHE vAGGABOND

*yawn*

do we have to go over the same points over and over again every few weeks

knobbles

Originally posted by tHE vAGGABOND
*yawn*

do we have to go over the same points over and over again every few weeks

ye, i know, but it's seems to be getting mailed around a lot
and, in an ironic kind of way, i brought it up here in attempt
to shut it up

BKtje

ah yer turkey. forgot about them hehe

thx for correction