Cult of Stephen Kenny

As a passive observer, if you want to see how poor football, and the FAI, is at the moment...

...then you only have to look at folks reprising the 'Saipan' drama from 20 years ago, aka the last time Ireland was at the world cup.

Now, we all know it was a huge drama at the time, but for anyone born after 2000, they more than likely won't know anything about it.

The whole news piece felt like a 'remember when Ireland had a good team? Remember when the FAI didn't squander all that money and talent? When the Italian media were chuckling away to themselves after the FAI (and Denis O'Brien) spent way too much money on Giovanni Trappatoni, who was well past it by then.'

Felt like a newspiece for people who still read Roddy Doyle.

Our best forward tonight was a full back. Ridiculous situation.

Burnley got relegated, but Leeds were a hairs breath from going down with the opposite approach, bottom line is play to your strengths, and Ireland strength has never involved technically gifted footballers, to think that Stephen Kenny can take non technical footballers and make us play quick passing effective football is far out there. Even a manager who knows what he was doing would struggle.

We will get nowhere until we accept that we need to be results orientated and play the football which beat suits the players.

Heard Stephen Kenny post match comments on sports news. Sometimes he talks well enough but this morning came across again as a bit of a spoofer, unconvincing.

The top GAA players in the top counties are about as amateur as the top Rugby players were in the late 80's/ early 90's...

I thought we did ok in patches last night, and then faded. Whether that's players at the end of a long season, or not getting enough game time. The final ball was shocking really, but we still had the chances to get a result. At the game at least, it felt like we got feck all from the ref as well.

What's the alternative to trying to play football? If "playing to your strengths" is Keane up front, hoof ball and then defend like f*ck, I won't be renewing my season ticket.

If I was working in McDonalds and this guy was my manager I'd be disappointed.

Wales have a world class player who carries them we dont even have a premier league quality player!

Denmark are full of top quality players playing in the top leagues around Europe, we are way off them

Drifting between level B and C is Irelands current level

Yes, most likely, once there's progress. Which I think there has been if not in results. I also view his record based upon how disrupted things were during Covid for the squad specifically.

Talk of emulating Wales or Denmark - we have squad on par with neither, never mind some of the genuine world class players they have!

Imagine if previous managers got their fingers out and tied Rice and Grealish down, we would be a different proposition

Football is cyclical ok. Look at Iceland a few years ago, they were the envy of every small country. Now their results have collapsed finishing fifth in their last world cup group, just above Leichtenstein. In the group they lost away to Armenia and North Macedonia, drawing at home with both. This year they've had home draws with Uganda and Albania as well as losing 5-1 at home to South Korea. No doubt they're having the same discussion over there.

Its a pity with our last two results as there was a real feel good factor at the end of the season with the games against Portugal and Belgium and the away wins.

Yeah Norway wasn't the best shout....my main point was however that we would be a lot better with a larger player pool to choose from and less fragmentation going on in terms of players opting for other sports etc

If you look at most teams that are consistently there or thereabouts there are common features imo

Not necessarily in order of importance

1. Large populations so large pool to choose from

2. Soccer is the main sport and commands the most media attention and focus

3. Decent internal league and/or proximity to good external league so players get more regularly scouted seen.....and standard of coaching is on the better side

4. Poverty among the demographics that play the game........there are many more successful players coming from dirt poor backgrounds than there are ones coming from privileged ones imo.....nothing like the focus and motivation that comes from having your back to the wall and it's do or die.......until of course you get the big bucks and don't know how to handle it or the hangers on mess you up.

There are exceptions to this but they are not in the majority and they can be linked to a "golden generation" type scenario or a key player or two coming through and a team being built around them.

If there was no GAA (which isn't and won't be the case) and soccer filled that void...I wouldn't have any difficulty believing we would have a fairly consistently good team...

We sort of did have a consistently good team from late 80s (perhaps before with likes of giles/brady) up to not that long ago .... due in large part imo to

3. Proximity to a good external league

And

4. Poverty ....causing lots of people to leave the island ....set up shop in the country that external league was based and create a pool of players who qualified to play and due to numbers of English players playing at a high level viewed Ireland as a viable option for international football and maybe even potentially furthering their careers.

That's changed now.....we are still beside that league but competition for places at top clubs has intensified die to influx of money and in turn more foreign players and I think that has led to their being a smaller pool of English players at a higher level ....they have a smaller pool to chose from imo so there are less and less decent English born but qualified under granny rule footballers on the margins of English team that would see Ireland as a viable and possibly only option......more of those kinds of players see England as a team they have a shot at playing for (with all the extra opportunity that brings) .......that leaves us with a smaller pool of definite irish qualified and maybe initially unfancied late bloomers that we cap before the English FA get around to.

We are also...even though it doesn't feel like it at times a much more prosperous country than we were in 70s 80s.......that can all change but for the last 20 years a lad had more options to live a comfortable life

Soccer in this country has limited options if it wants to kick on (excuse the pun)

1) hope for a golden generation type scenario

2) hope something changes that means English Premier league once again has a large population of English players at top clubs with an Irish grandparent (although time is somewhat ticking on that one without 3 below)

3) massive decline in prosperity resulting in poverty and desperation and favellas in dalkey with little Giles, Bradys and Romarios running around using politicians and investment fund managers skulls as balls playing "Street football" amongst the uncollected litter

4) hope the player pool broadens due to inwards migration of other nationalities

5) accept that without some fortuitous events its going to be a slog snd actually start working on a long term plan to improve youth structure, improve league, spot and target talent and shop them around the different leagues...maybe help with education so there is a safety net for those that inevitably won't make it....a scholarship type structure........

Maybe take a leaf from other countries that have put solid foundations in place....maybe look internally at IRFU strategy....yes Ireland are chokers at major tournaments in Rugby but there's no denying the success of provincial structure etc....perhaps some elements can be copied to some extent.