Nadir or Underachieving

Just checked it out. On 500k a year and a million bonus for qualification for the euros.  100k for back room staff.  

I'll go one further and say that every Irish team in football (and rugby for that matter) has underachieved from the overly lauded Italia 90 team who reached the quarter final (only just) in a much smaller competition to the current rugby team who ultimately got knocked out when it mattered. We now have a crop of players who aren't as good and are still underachieving. Why? Mentality. Do we genuinely believe in ourselves or just hope things "go our way" if we try hard enough? A great manager can instill that belief in players and a great leader can instill that belief in people. Then over time self-belief becomes part of the culture instead of the current self-doubt.

Baldrick wrote: Realrover wrote: I'll go one further and say that every Irish team in football (and rugby for that matter) has underachieved from the overly lauded Italia 90 team who reached the quarter final (only just) in a much smaller competition to the current rugby team who ultimately got knocked out when it mattered. We now have a crop of players who aren't as good and are still underachieving. Why? Mentality. Do we genuinely believe in ourselves or just hope things "go our way" if we try hard enough? A great manager can instill that belief in players and a great leader can instill that belief in people. Then over time self-belief becomes part of the culture instead of the current self-doubt. The 2002 team did not under achieve.

Realrover wrote: It absolutely underachieved and again choked when needed. A team full of premier league players with one 2nd round appearance in the world Cup and multiple failed qualification attempts to show for it. Also, that Spain team were no great shakes but they got the job done over another team full of top league players because they couldn't close out the game and then missed 3 penalties on the trot. Why? Mentality.

Edited by Baldrick - 18 Nov 2023 at 7:28pm

The spanish team were a bit better on paper but were having a poor tournament. They were there for the taking and everybody knew it and we fluffed our chances. The match was a cup final essentially.

Realrover wrote: The spanish team were a bit better on paper but were having a poor tournament. They were there for the taking and everybody knew it and we fluffed our chances. The match was a cup final essentially. The Swiss team wasn't better than ours. The French was. 1999 team and 2016 team are different generations to the 2002 team so not relevant here?

I'm responding to your "2002 team didn't underachieve" comment, and if you don't think the 1990 team underachieved I don't know what to tell you.

Stickittotheman wrote: The O'Shea wrote: Stickittotheman wrote: We are underachieving. Was what Mick had in his campaign significantly better than Kenny has had available? I would argue they were much the same and yet Mick had us one goal from qualifying. MON's team that went to the Euros was probably a step above what we have now but not so far ahead that we should be where we currently are. Manager is to blame. No one else. It has been a disastrous failure. Mick steadied the ship, nothing more. We limped past Gibraltar twice and disgraced ourselves in Georgia. Denmark and Switzerland always had more than us and were going to qualify ahead of us. Did they? That would be why we were one goal from qualifying would it? Mick steadied the ship after a disastrous previous 18 months. He laid decent foundations for Kenny to come in. Now look at us. The sooner we move on the better. These last couple of years have been dreadful

it’s incredibly simple what has happened. We hired an atrocious manager, who is incapable of achieving results at this level. He continued to play the same way even when it was blatantly obvious that we don’t have the players to do so. We need a pragmatic solution with a qualified coach.