Quote from: weareros on September 08, 2023, 02:08:03 PMQuote from: statto on September 08, 2023, 01:39:08 PMQuote from: imtommygunn on September 08, 2023, 10:06:22 AM+1. Ireland weren't even qualifying for every tournament during the golden era's of the 80s and 90s e.g. euro 92, euro 96 missed the boat and at that stage had players playing at high end premiership teams.
A problem is expectations... Trappatoni and O'Neill got to tournaments with mediocre enough teams so this has now become the expectation when really it shouldn't be. It also highlights another thing - Kenny sets the team up to play football and those managers set us up to be hard to break down and to grind out games. The players aren't really there to make that gameplan happen against the better teams so I wouldn't suggest Kenny is a failure but if you want results rather than trying to build a footballing culture he maybe isn't the man for the job.
There were less spots then. In 1988, only 8 teams qualified so you had to win a difficult group, as Ireland did. It was still 8 in 1992 and Ireland were very unfortunate not to qualify. 24 teams will participate in Euro 24 and it looks like we'll be nowhere near being one of those teams. That's how far we have fallen. Granted with break up of Soviet, there's more teams too and technically the Eastern Europeans were always superior to Ireland. No shame in losing 2-0 to probably best team in world. But Kenny looks very lost and in his own world. A change should be made soon. Also if Ireland/Uk win Euro 28 bid, we should think about having a unified Irish team have automatic qualification. Will never happen of course.
Unfortunate that our goalkeeper threw 2 in to his own goal against Poland.