Irish football is at a cross roads 🇮🇪 ⚽️
Over achievers
The Irish love affair with soccer started back in 1987, when a plucky man from Newcastle in the North of England, a 1966 world winner with England, led the Irish National team to the Euro 88 competition in Germany. Jack Charlton had landed. It was the first time in our history that we qualified for a major tournament and unlike today where 24 teams qualify for the Euros, back in 1988 there was only room for the eight group winners. That made our accomplishment all the more impressive.
Looking back with a critical eye, you could make the point that we had a golden crop of players in Ray Hughton, Ronnie Whelan, Paul McGrath, Packie Bonner, Chris Morris, Mick McCarthy, Kevin Moran, Chris Houghton, Frank Stapleton, and John Aldridge, but still even in the days of Johnny Giles and other Irish legends, we never managed to make it into a major tournament.
Jack's tactics would not have been everybody's cup of tea, with players encouraged to thump it forward and live of the breaking ball by putting the opposition team under pressure.
Under Jack's guidance we went on to qualify for the next 2 world cups, Italia 90 and USA 94. Irish supporters were now almost expecting our team to qualify for tournaments, but the run did'nt last. We have struggled to qualify for tournaments ever since, scraping through occasionally after nervy playoff matches.
Poor showing
I suppose in a lot of ways, we were over achievers. The shoe however is now firmly on the other foot and today we are under achievers. Our 2 points from 15 makes for depressing reading for any Irish football fan.
Usually i would be quick to say that it's just not good enough and hope that the manager would be either sacked or not have their contract extended.
Stephen Kenny
The manager in this instance is Irishman Stephen Kenny and although his results have been pretty terrible - 8 loses, 7 draws and just 1 win against minnows Andora who went 1-0 up in that match too by the way!
No one knows our underage talent like Kenny and we are not exactly dripping in superstar talent, so I would like to see the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) extend his contract until after qualifying for Euro 24. He is trying hard to instill a passing possession based philosophy into the team and at times we have seen flashes of what that can look like. He is building something and if he can continue to build over the rest of this failed campaign, we may well end up with a competitive team heading into the Euro qualifiers.
We are at a cross roads now, but I believe if we can rediscover our dogged team spirit and unearth a goal scorer in someone like Aaron Connolly or Troy Parott we may just have a chance to dine at the top table with the big boys in 2024.
It's important to note too that Kenny has been at the helm for arguably the toughest time we've seen in football for many years. Matches played behind closed doors. Players missing matches because of Covid-19 close contacts. Not able to Foster the usual squad comraderie we associate with Irish teams because of social distancing. When you add it all up, it's been a real challenge for him.
Germany 2024
Should we qualify for Germany, I will 100% travel over for as many group games as possible and if Euro 2012 is anything to go by, the craic will be mighty! Here is a photo i took just before i travelled to Poland for Euro 2012.
Away matches are serious fun, but tournaments are a whole other level altogether 👌✈🍻☀️ If you ever get the chance to attend.... in the words of Ben Stiller....
The images above were sourced at the following locations
https://images.app.goo.gl/mmiDzbZWBT5apeSd9
https://www.upworthy.com/these-irish-soccer-fans-stormed-the-streets-of-france-and-cleaned-them-up
https://tenor.com/search/ben-stiller-do-it-gifs
That's it from me for now.
Thanks as always for reading.
Peace Out.
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From your description it seems Jack Charlton employed the "kick and follow" style of football which was then popular with the English team to get Ireland to the Euros. But football has advanced beyond that and what Stephen Kenny is trying to build is admirable but it is not going to yield results overnight and that's why I support your opinion of giving him more time but not with the national team but with the under 20s and below. Let the federation get managers with similar philosophy as Stephen Kenny and let them build from the grassroots, identify talents and groom them into stars. Definitely a long term project of at most ten years. But for now let Ireland get a coach that can play to the present teams strength (which is not what Stephen Kenny is trying to build) to achieve the short term goals of qualifying for Euros and even world cups.
Though there is no minnows in football but I believe Ireland should be able to qualify in their group.
Enjoyed reading your post😎. It's been a while
Great feedback and your comments are interesting. Funnily Kenny was in charge of the U21s for 2 years before he got the senior job, so he has had some time with the younger players to try to instill his ethos.
Another big problem we have is our inability to score goals. We were spoiled with Robbie Keane during his career, as he scored tonnnes of goals for us. The strikers we have now are not anywhere near as prolific.