Mick McCarthy

Has it ever really happened? Has a manager been able to turn donkeys into thoroughbreds?

I'm trying to think of European teams who have punched above their weight in my lifetime. 

Sweden are consistently useful, but they don't tend to play a pretty style. Even when they had Larsson and Ibrahimovic they didn't. 

Norway got up to, I think, 2nd in the world rankings in the 1990s. But they played a horrible style which made our lads look like technical geniuses from the Balkans. 

Speaking of which, Croatia. Balkan football consistently produces technically gifted players, it has always been their culture. Croatia punch above their weight because they consistently punch above their weight in terms of producing gifted footballers. They play a beautiful style because they produce beautiful players. We don't.

Romania and Bulgaria both had a load of gifted players when they were successsful at World Cups playing an attractive style. Even in Genoa in 1990, the gap in real class was very apparent.

The Swiss have been punching above their weight for much of the last 25 years. But they're generally puke to watch. 

Portugal have much more gifted players than us. They're generally not great to watch. Dour, defensive. 

Greece of course punched above their weight more than anybody. They were awful to watch. The international equivalent of Rangers' run to the 2008 UEFA Cup final, except they won their final.

Iceland - dreadful to watch. Getting the very most from themselves, but they're absolute hoofers.

The North - they do well with what they have, but it's not especially attractive. They do have Steve Davis, which helps.

The very limit of what we can hope to achieve with this group is something like what Sweden did in the recent World Cup campaign. That's basically to be organised as hell defensively and play an abrasive, physical northern European style. Bully our opponents physically and get a platform to play some kind of half-decent, high energy football on top of that. And make set-pieces count. 

To play a good style, especially at international level where tactics and styles are rudimentary compared to club football, requires good players, and to produce good players is a generational job like what Belgium undertook.

We can do better for sure, but we have to be realistic about what that "better" will look like. It isn't going to look like the football playing style equivalent of a young Andrea Corr, or even an old Sharon Corr. It'll look more like Jim Corr. 

We'll start playing like Croatia when we produce players of the class of Croatia's players. And mine's a pint of Harp and packet of dates please, Lawrence.

Never finishing outside the top two of a qualifying group. 

Eliminating Croatia, who had just finished third in the world.

Eliminating Holland, who were one of the world's top teams. 

Reaching the last 16 of a World Cup, dominating Germany and Spain at those finals, scoring six goals, and only going out on penalty kicks. 

2002 was Ireland's best ever campaign. 

And now we have the man who managed that team back. 

Yes, please. 

It was time for Mick McCarthy to come home. 

Mick McCarthy has come home. 

Welcome back, old friend. 

Sign me up as ON BOARD with our new manager.

Incredible how we have gotten here. A political move looking to pander to a section of the fans and take the pressure off Delaney (please god let it backfire and pan out that Delaney has read this beloved McCarthy returning situation wrong). The media love in will be in full swing soon though, you'll have Kilbane, Sadlier, Houghton, Townsend et al absolutely sucking McCarthy off left, right, and centre. From there many will be persuaded it was the only choice to make.

We get rid of MON after the worst year for the senior team in living memory. We then put the final nail in the coffin by appointing McCarthy. Horrendous is an understatement.

I would love if someone had the balls at the very first press conference to ask McCarthy has he learned from his first Irish spell where he made countless mistakes, and then list off a number of them. I have a few favourites myself (Kennedy in the '98 WC playoff being one of the most farcical things I've seen in such a high stakes match - compares with the kind of madness MON was at in the 5-1 Danish defeat). Possibly top of the pile though has to be the fact that McCarthy never realised we had an extra man against Spain in the '02 WC in the second half of extra time, as one of their players limped off iirc. This is the level of utter garbage so many are delighted to see return.