U19 European qualification group

None of the other teams previous results look great to me - although I guess we are missing some of our bigger players compared to the first round.

Positive for the future though, which is great 

Aaron Bolger was the stand out for me, I don’t understand why he’s swapped first team football for Cardiff’s u23s. 

Miles ahead of the rest. 

There is unquestionably a lot of politics goes on, but I would argue that is possibly the case in any small country. Part of the politics is understandable in a country with a traditionally big rural/urban divide and where the sport dominates in one geographical area. That is to say that will the perceived Dublin bias don't the years can be frustrating, it is also somewhat understandable.

There is also the fact that we live in age where we can all get a little knowledge and a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. That is to say, we often can't understand why some 18 year old isn't in the team/squad when we saw him play ten minutes once and he was excellent or, worse again, he should be in the squad as he is on the books of a famous club/franchise. We then put this down to politics. In reality, at anything under 21 it is a very difficult job for the coaches to know who our best players are and, more importantly, who they will be, never mind the fans. By that I mean that a lot of players who went on to great careers didn't stand out at underage level,Paul Scholes being a famous example.

Look through this thread and it is full of posts like: 'player x must be brilliant to keep the player I like out' or 'great squad and we are missing our three best players'. So when that perception of politics is there, it is easy to come to the conclusion that politics is behind all these decisions.

We also like to infer the quality of the opposition based on the strength of their senior team, as we are doing here with Romania, whose history would suggest they are, like many similarly sized Europen nations with a love of the game, cyclical. They seem to throw up a good team every twenty years or so and are probably due one.

I am not trying to take the gloss off a magnificent win that highlights the job our underage coaches have done with them, something is obviously right at the moment, a 5-0 win against anyone at this stage is terrific, I just feel a lot of opinions are thrown around without any real  knowledge.

That isn't aimed directly at the post I am replying to, more the thread in general.

Has Mick McCarthy been to Louis Copeland's?