Second Captains Part II

First half of today's pod was a total disaster technically.

Technology is ruining the game. It should be the same game from lowest amateur level to the highest professional level. You can't police off-side fairly without technology. Hence it makes sense to get rid of off-side and technology at the same time. Goals should be celebrated in the moment.

Offsides were policed fairly from the creation of the game until 2016.

That's not the case and hasn't been for quite some time. Pandoras box has been opened and it can't be shut. I also disagree that the argument exists for it to be removed. If we reverted to the offside without technology for the elite level, it would return to what we had before which nobody had an issue with. There were contentious offsides but overall it was broadly agreed the rule was good (Wenger aside nowadays).

Comparing GAA which is an entirely different game to football is pointless. Big man at the edge of the square is a tactic that is sometimes used but goals are not everything in GAA and its relatively easy to defend against. Football is entirely different. If offside was scrapped, big man at the edge of the box would be the very first thing people try. It would make the game a terrible spectacle and not something many people are calling for. There really is no issue with offside. The current issue is with technology and semi-automated solves that. Going back to no technology also probably solves that.

I think there is plenty of room for improvement.

Sure but I don't think much of what your proposing is an improvement. They're changes for changes sake (imo).

Allow the player to dribble or pass from the kick-ins…Allow the player to dribble, pass or shoot from free kicks.

Sure. I don't think that changes much.

Of course, they're your opinions but this is SCs thread and this has nothing to do with SCs so I'm gonna stop.

I've been listening to Ciarán Murphy's audiobook this morning. So far so good but I find it very annoying how he refers to his father as "dad", and not "my dad" but "dad".

For eg "So dad was training the under 16s.."

Or "Dad was driving down to Galway..."

That's ok if you're talking to one of your brothers but not in a podcast or in an audiobook.

Wouldn't that point be more relevant if he was on about someone else's dad? He's only ever on about his own dad so no need for further clarification. Didn't even notice when I read it

Shíte Euros huh

I didn't realize whether the Euros is good or bad boils down to a single game…

Why are the RTE crew so misinformed, it was an accredited cameraman that slipped and accidentally tackled Morata

No one to blame for it

new Ireland manager. Heimir Hallgrimsson. The Ireland thread seems to have been closed so I’ll announce it here instead.

They waited 13 months to get the ex-manager of Jamaica

7D chess by the Abbotstown mafia

Ken and the football purists will definitely enjoy the Icelandball we’ll be playing and definitely won’t be sharpening the knives already

without listening to it I’d say Ken will be negative and cynical about the appointment to cloud his own campaign of “make a decision” and just give it to Oshea. One of his worst takes, I don’t care much when he has bad takes about English football but he should try harder for the national team.

The English are going to win the Euros and then they’re going to hockey our Icelandic dentist

In a way I feel like they always go into the weeds a bit too far with all these types of stories and it becomes too granular and nit-picky: going far deeper into the story than 95% of people would even bother caring about. And it can often become a story about how media stories are played out in the media.

But, there was some food for thought in the pod yesterday. Only time will tell if it has any relevance though. If the new manager comes in and does okay on the pitch, then whether the interim director of football at the FAI was less than truthful to the press pack at a press conference won't carry much significance, if any.

I mean when he’s openly saying he’s going to have to learn the players’ names we can discount him name dropping almost anyone. We’ve got the vibes man from the Icelandic management team that beat England eight years ago.

He’s better than Stephen Kenny and won’t have us trying to play like prime Barcelona with League One players sure but let’s not lose the run of ourselves. 13 months after knowing we’d need a new manager this isn’t the proof that FAI knew what they were doing all along like some here tried to convince themselves of. The lads are right to be worried that this process and even the announcement was so bungled that it doesn’t well of speak to the FAI’s capabilities to address any of the structural issues it has effectively.

Best of luck to the lad because he’s going to need it looking at the organisation he’s stepped into.

It's as if the Kenny era never happened.

What on earth was Ken saying to "try one of our own", haven't we got that out of our system after the Kenny era?

It would send a shiver up your spine to hear the professionalism of the FAI being praised, but I thought their splitting of hairs and nay-saying got almost to the point of parody yesterday.

It'll come down to whether this guy can deliver on the field. That's it.

At the end of the day whatever the FAI top brass had to say at a press conference doesn't matter a shyte.

I love Ken and all, but let's not forget he backed Stephen Kenny for a long long time and most recently was talking up J'OS and his suitability for the role. On paper, at least, I think the new manager is manifestly better qualified than J'OS - and that seemed to be lost amidst the noise about timelines and press releases.

They're at a disadvantage when Eoghan isn't around when stories like this break. He can take and argue the opposing view well and stops them all going down the group think rabbit hole on a subject.

Generally agree with the sentiment of most here. There was too much preaching to the choir regarding the FAI and a repetition of many previous podcasts. It's probably driven by the media scrums desire to fire shots at the FAI and who can dig the biggest hole for whomever the current target is.

Branno coming out of the press conference "feeling grim"!? Why the f*CK was he feeling grim? Get a grip.

The number 1 priority is winning football matches and Branno said it himself that not enough questions were asked of him regarding how to do this. I, for one, am massively more interested in the new manager's take on football and life and anything really rather than trying to find out the exact moment the FAI decided to get him.

Also, way too big a deal is being made of the new manager's getting to know players' names comment. He's said that he's watched all the games, so he knows everybody, he just doesn't know them, know them.

Anyway, will England be easier to beat if they win or lose on Sunday?

Weird that Eoin is away at the same time Ken is off at a tournament.

The H… hard to spell Icelandic guy podcast was mostly waffle but the Ken's continued train adventures bit was funny

Can I be the first to make the "watching Ireland has been like pulling teeth, so they might as well have got a dentist in" remark 😝

This thread is far more at odds with reality than the lads were.

The FAI were, are and likely will remain a joke shop. Any manager is starting on negative points in effect with this job. A 17 month contract in particular is utterly absurd to me because if he’s actually the right man like they’re swearing he will need a lot longer to fix the mess Stephen Kenny left behind for him.

Not sure why he'd start on negative points. He starts from zero, nothing about the last 9 months will be held against him. If anything, he will be given plenty of leeway in the Nations League due to lack of prep time.

Why would the FAI give him a longer contract? It's not a club, there's nothing to "fix" (from the senior men's management position). He will either get the best out of the players and a new contract or he won't.

The FAI are 50+ million in debt. They can't hand out 4 year 650k a year contracts.

The only person Ken wanted was John O'Shea and I've no idea why