FAI...June 2024 Friendlies v Hungary and Portugal

[Captain Scarlet]

I'll ask again. When we play from the back and it gets to Cullen... what then? What is our attacking plan?
Do we have an attacking pattern?

[seafoid]

Stephen Kenny has to go, he's out of his depth. We need a manager who realises that in international football you have to play the cards you're dealt with regards your approach and your players. we dont have the players for playing out from the back all the time, there's a time and a place. we need someone who is going to be more pragmatic in their approach, Id love to see Chris Houghton take the job, he knows how to deal with players in the lower levels of England and knows how to get a winning formula.

We may not have the players right now for an effective brand of possession based football, but we definitely don't have the players for a return to hoofball.

Outside of the centre backs, we are tiny. Who plays the point man in a hoofball system? Obefemi, Parrott, Ogbene, Robinson, Hogan - none of those guys fit the bill. Maybe Idah, but he's perma-crocked these days.

Whether you agree or not on sticking with Kenny, it's pretty clear that we have it persist with something like his brand of football.

There's a difference in what we're doing now and hoofball. What we do now is try and play with possession. That's great but you have to have players who can then break the lines, that's the part we don't have. Teams will let us have the ball and drop a bit simply because they know we don't have the quality to break them down with the type of play we're doing.

Scotland have the perfect mix they play to their strengths, look at Steve Clarke, he's teams are always built from the back. Strong CB partnership RB/LB who can get forward and get balls into the box, it's not hoofball by any stretch.

There's more than 2 ways to play football

At least we can score goals. , The defence and up front are OK. If midfield is the main problem it should be easier to fix than having to firefight everywhere.

[GAABoardMod5]

Rd 1 draw for 6 October:  Scotland v Austria, Wales v Bosnia and Herzegovina, Portugal v Belgium.

Rd 1 draw for 11 October: Portugal or Belgium v Iceland, Scotland or Austria v Ireland, Switzerland v Wales or Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Update for 11 Oct:  Portugal v Iceland, Scotland v Ireland, Switzerland v Wales.

Top 2 direct to World Cup, third place team goes to play-off tournament in NZ in Feb 2023.

https://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/2022/1006/1327566-what-ireland-need-to-happen-to-seal-a-world-cup-ticket/

[seafoid]

Rd 1 draw for 6 October:  Scotland v Austria, Wales v Bosnia and Herzegovina, Portugal v Belgium.

Rd 1 draw for 11 October: Portugal or Belgium v Iceland, Scotland or Austria v Ireland, Switzerland v Wales or Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Update for 11 Oct:  Portugal v Iceland, Scotland v Ireland, Switzerland v Wales.

Top 2 direct to World Cup, third place team goes to play-off tournament in NZ in Feb 2023.

https://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/2022/1006/1327566-what-ireland-need-to-happen-to-seal-a-world-cup-ticket/

Rankings are not necessarily correlated with performance over 90 minutes. It's Cup final stuff
Portugal (27) beat Belgium (19)

https://www.fifa.com/fifa-world-ranking/women?dateId=ranking_20220805

[seafoid]

https://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/2022/1006/1327455-agg-takes-emotional-cobh-trip-ahead-of-game-of-her-life/

[Capt Pat]

Fcuk that for a game of marbles.

[general_lee]

At least Kenny will get the boot.

[Capt Pat]

That draw was a bit fcuked up. They had top teams in pot 2 who certainly should have been in pot 1, hence the England Italy group and our group with Netherlands and France. It was the same throughout the draw, some teams were in pots above their level and some teams in pots below their level.

Now I don't expect Ireland to qualify but hopefully we can get back to giving the top teams a right rattle and beat the lesser lights in the group.

[Ed Ricketts]

In a weird way, that draw could be the making of Kenny and/ or the brand of football he's trying to introduce.

A handier group would have brought expectation, which might have seen compromise on the project of reinvention. But this group provides the opportunity to stay the course and just see how it goes. Taking anything from Holland or France will be a bonus, so it's really all about the playoffs from the start.

[snoopdog]

Realistically 3 of the 5 teams in that group are above Ireland.

[seafoid]

https://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/2022/1009/1328043-uphill-task-for-ireland-after-difficult-euro-2024-draw/Republic of Ireland have been handed a nightmare draw for Euro 2024 qualifying with Netherlands and France in Group B.

The Boys in Green are in a five-team group along with one of the strongest fourth-pot teams, Greece

Stephen Kenny's side will also face Gibraltar as the final side in the group.

The top two teams will qualify, with a play-off possible for the tournament in Germany based on Nations League standings and the number of highly-ranked teams which have already qualified automatically.

It represents one of the worst possible scenarios for Kenny as they must get the better of one of two powerhouses in world football.

[Ed Ricketts]

That draw was a bit fcuked up. They had top teams in pot 2 who certainly should have been in pot 1, hence the England Italy group and our group with Netherlands and France. It was the same throughout the draw, some teams were in pots above their level and some teams in pots below their level.

Now I don't expect Ireland to qualify but hopefully we can get back to giving the top teams a right rattle and beat the lesser lights in the group.

Always one or two big shots that fall out of the top pot, but it got pretty ridiculous this time round. They'll surely have to revisit the seedings for next time. Using Nations League performance lacks legitimacy when many of the bigger nations still treat those games as friendlies.

England and France are the 2nd and 3rd ranked teams in Europe, but slipped into the second pot because they used the last Nations League campaign to run their squads in advance of the World Cup.

[From the Bunker]

We'll finish 4th in that group. Gibraltar have proven a nightmare for Irish teams to beat recently.

Greece are ranked 19
Netherlands ranked 6
France ranked 5

Denmark (16), Finland (37), Kazakhstan (30), Northern Ireland (44), San Marino would have been a nice draw.

Then again, you'd never know what kind of results we'd get against those teams.

[AustinPowers]

Netherlands aren't great.   Sure Van Gaal  is over them ffs

And France can struggle in qualifiers too.  But Even if Ireland lose to them , I'd just be happy to see them go out and kick the shite  out of that Pogba  dick.

Greece are poor. Should get 4 points there and 6 v Gibraltar

[Captain Scarlet]

We need to move on from the lads saying 'at least we are playing nice football' and batten down the hatches if needs be versus France and Netherlands.
Looking back at the Portugal game we didn't play nice, we did what we had to do and we could have gotten a great result. It will be a case of digging in for France and Holland.
If we are classing them as not great what are we?

If we are progressing the way we claim to be we should be able to play against Gibraltar and go to mix it up versus Greece.

You would hope Parrott and Obafemi can build a partnership as Cullen in front of Collins, O'Shea and Omobamidele is solid.