Morocco and Iran looked quite good at times too. The only team I've seen who were really appalling that I can think of are Saudi Arabia.

How far behind have we drifted in terms of world football? We stank Euro 2012 out of it, must have been one of the worst teams to ever qualify, failed to beat a hapless Sweden in 2016, and got tonked by Belgium. You can't really read into that Italy game much given it was a non event for them.

Does anyone actually think we could have been competitive at this world cup or played any decent football at all? 

In the last year we have made Georgia look like Brazil, capitulated against Denmark, taken one point off two ten man teams, and took a win over Wales who were missing their World Class striker and their midfield enforcer. But much of that is about the tactics employed.

Are you judging your analysis of Australia compared to Ireland based on the friendly last month when Ireland literally had a squad thrown together playing against France's best squad available???

Few managers have the experience of World Cups that MON has. A few rising players grateful for the opportunity, and an understanding of the achievement that qualification in itself was, thereby removing the pressure to perform, I would think we would have acquitted ourselves well.

This is Iran last night:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DgNwKcxXUAAIO0N.jpg" rel="nofollow - https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DgNwKcxXUAAIO0N.jpg

And they still made chances.

Wasn't thinking of that game at all, that was a meaningless friendly. The Georgia game, Wales away, most of our games really, we are just bloody awful. I can't recall watching a less attractive style of football. 

we would have better finishers ............ more techical players than oz but we have the same determination as them and a better overall plan than all those teams.. no mad throw-ins either... yeah we would be competitive... I always think that... look at Serbia, they needed a set piece even though they went round the pitch like they owned it,, we were a point behind them

 

The carry on of the Iran players during the game too was pathetic. Time wasting at 0-0 and throwing themselves down at every opportunity. Even Ireland don't go to those extremes.

 

Based on what I've seen so far at this World Cup and based what I've said above I think Ireland would have competed well at this World Cup. However, people need to realise we are by no means world beaters with a depth of talent to start playing the likes of Spain or Brazil off the park.

Firstly, to be fair to Ireland, Ireland also beat Wales while missing arguably their only world-class player in Seamus Coleman, and playing Daryl 'Maradona' Murphy up front. I have plenty of criticisms about the Irish team, but there's no need to belittle a fine away win. 

I could just as easily surmise that Georgia beat Ireland while they were lacking Seamus Coleman, ergo Serbia aren't that good. 

Now secondly, the thing that really propels a successful defensive team is not only their defensiveness. I think there's a bit of a delusion going on among Irish fans that if only we had the right manager, he could beat our motley crew of Championship stalwarts and EPL can't-quite-get-a-game-guys into masters of the 1-0 victory. The fact is, I think, is that while a manager can come in to give shape and direction to a team, unless he has one or two really special players to build his team around, then what he's building is less of a lasting edifice in the history of football and more of a sandcastle, a house of cards waiting to be knocked over, because a team without that spine has little resiliency. You watch Ireland go a goal down to a half decent team and you're all to often left wondering what answer they have. 

So until Ireland have another Duff and another Roy & Robbie Keane to really lead the team and power them along, overachieving and having the bubble burst might be as good as it gets.  

We’ve probably a better all round team than Australia, but the likes of Mooy, Jedinak and even Rogic are the type of energetic midfielders that we lack. 

And it isnt going to change in the near future either. Ive accepted that and made my peace with it. 

Isn't that about normal for us though, when we play anyone above the standard of say Gibraltar? 

It makes you think though. Look at 2002. With our grit and passion (sorry for the cliches), and 2 or 3 good quality players, you could certainly get to a QF in a World Cup. Our 2002 team with Roy could make a strong impact on this World Cup. I really hope we get another generation of that ilk in my lifetime. 

Tiurnament football is different. Australia were pretty poor during qualification- Saudi Arabia topped their section. The Aussies needed 2 play offs to qualify. In a world cup though everyones performance level does go up. Last night Iran were very good. They showed you can be defensive but still create. I don't think our problem is that we are defensive. It is that we have no gameplan when we have the ball. Defensively we are usually very good. 

You've lost five by three or more since the last time NI did, in Euro 2012 qualifying.

and are nearly always in with a shout of qualifying for tournaments going into the last game of qualifiers. I don't think the likes of iran or egypt would do as well if they had to qualify through europe

It's almost impossible to compare the 4th or 5th best team in Asia or Africa with the 14th or 15th in Europe- they never play each other in competition

So talking about their performances in qualifying isn't so straightforward.

All this has shown me is just how negative and poor the setup was vs a bang average side.

Ange Postecoglou walked away from Australia after leading them to the World Cup via the playoffs, it was his choice.

What’s this got to do with Northern Ireland?

Just like it didn’t take long for the boom to come back, those outlandish predictions from Euro 2012 raise their heads 6 years later 

I remember so many people thinking we'd get something out of the Croatia game and the Italy game was a gimme! How wrong we were...

 

This has left me scratching my head a bit!

+1

What else is there to do in the days before a big tournament starts but believe in your chances? That's part of the mad romance of these big tournaments. Mad romances are often illogical, given to passion, feature some heavy drinking, and crash head first into the wall of reality. But maybe the glum disappointment and cynicism that follows is worth the times where we were happy & believed anything was possible...

I actually think the way to get to the bottom of our issues and problems in the last Qualification campaign ought to include an appreciation of the "rub of the green" factor which was so prevalent in the campaign. Starting with Hendrick's goal against Serbia, and continuing on with the red cards for Taylor and Maksimovic, the combination of the Georgian keeper and the referee for Duffy's goal in Tiblisi, even Schmeichel's mistake that had us with one foot in the final's for 30 minutes or so. Apart from Duffy's goal that was chalked off against Austria, we were generally the beneficiary of team errors and refereeing decisions. Wales was a different type of luck. Its not belittling the win to admit that we benefitted from not having to face an £80 Million player who has won four European Cups, and was central to Wales getting to the Euro 2016 Semi Finals, likewise to admit that Joe Allen was influencing the game greatly before he went off in Cardiff, or that we met Ashley Williams at a time when he was struggling to maintain form. Coleman would never have permitted what unfolded against Denmark, but at the same time, would he have been able to turn the 1-2 reversal at Half time in a manner that you would expect Bale to do?

You beat what is in front of you, and you make the breaks, but we certainly enjoyed an unprecedented rub of the green, and since Gary McKay scored against Bulgaria in 1987, we have regularly enjoyed the rub of the green, and Cardiff was no exception.

BriMurt wrote: Now secondly, the thing that really propels a successful defensive team is not only their defensiveness. I think there's a bit of a delusion going on among Irish fans that if only we had the right manager, he could beat our motley crew of Championship stalwarts and EPL can't-quite-get-a-game-guys into masters of the 1-0 victory. The fact is, I think, is that while a manager can come in to give shape and direction to a team, unless he has one or two really special players to build his team around, then what he's building is less of a lasting edifice in the history of football and more of a sandcastle, a house of cards waiting to be knocked over, because a team without that spine has little resiliency. You watch Ireland go a goal down to a half decent team and you're all to often left wondering what answer they have.

 

The thing is, Ireland have shown resilience. Germany and Italy are two examples. They didnt go a goal down, but they needed wins in both games, and they achieved that. The bulk of those players are still around the squad. But since then, we have resorted to a 4-5-1 style approach which place Duffy-Meyler-Walters/Murphy at the forefront of the system. Against Denmark, the correct substitutions to have made would not have been to have taken out the last vestiges of a weak midfield, and put four wingers across the middled, thus emaciating the midfield. By by-passing midfield you are weakening the team as it falls entirely on a Route 1 approach to do all the work. Northern Ireland show what you can do with a proper system, even with journeymen style players. Australia, Iran, Saudi Arabia have all shown various amounts of resilience. Iceland are a great example, and the entire apparatus of Icelandic football should be watched closely.

BriMurt wrote: So until Ireland have another Duff and another Roy & Robbie Keane to really lead the team and power them along, overachieving and having the bubble burst might be as good as it gets.

We are falling further and further behind imo.

What is continually being demonstrated in Ireland matches is that our manager is failing to put together a cohesive 11 players that can do this.

It's not about population bases, it's not about playing like Barcelona/Spain etc., it's simply about this. 

His only tournament was only 2 years ago and we did quite well in it. 

He generally does better against the stronger teams. Look at the results over the last 4 years against the better team.

Now the football would be awful but we wouldn’t be embarrassed. 

Just giving context to the previous poster's claim that you "rarely" lose by more than one goal.

You have matched us- records since WC 2014 are almost identical.

Your problem seems to be that while both the Euro and World Cup Finals are now less elitist than they were- a lot more mediocre teams take part, basically- the qualifiers for the latter are still pretty tough.

And we have qualified for 2 tournaments in that time and the north have got to 1 just putting some context on it.

We're both bad now!!
 

Eh he went to Brazil with the BBC 4 years ago!

 

On the other hand though, we performed well enough at the Euros in 2 of our 4 games, and looked ok, so I wouldn't say we'd be getting badly beaten in every game. We regressed since the Euros though.

 

 

Poland - Lewondowski

Denmark - Eriksen

Iceland - Sigurdson

South Korea - Son

Egypt - Salah

In teh absence of a star, you need to be well organised, we are neither 

 

100%, we'd have brought nothing except the great fans to the tournament and the usual sh*te about Irish guts and commitment.

 

The football audience can thank their lucky stars we weren't at the tournament and it'll get worse before it gets better while O'Neill remains in charge.

And if the target man does actually win the header we've no-one within 40 yards to pick up the second ball.

 

Sure James McClean tackles lads in over the top fashion and runs about like a headless chicken, but I don’t think the likes of Brady, Hendrick and Arter are even trying their best as footballers and were certainly devoid of our typical passion in the play-offs. 

That’s nothing against the players, I think it’s easy to show determination and heart when there is a solid game plan that the players believe in. At the moment there is no belief. 

That's the nub of why the system doesn't work. Our midfield is too far back, with our defensive midfield on top of our CBS. The most balanced team we have had was against Sweden in the Europeans championships. We played a version of it against a full strength Wales team in Dublin and they hardly had a sniff. We had an awful weekend employing the restricitive tactics against Georgia and the more expansive against Serbia, and we then went with the more restrictive version which was badly found out.

 

If someone tells me that Asian/Americas/some African are better then us then that BOLLOONY !

 

WE WILL RISE AGAIN AS WE HAVE BEFORE :)

It's an emotion.

Q: "Hi Tom, how are you?" A: "Good, quite bolloony".

I like that, let's make it a thing.

When Big Jack played HoofBall and we scored our two most famous goals in Stuttgart and NY/NJ it was the runners from midfield who picked up the loose ball and scored.

 

there's no reason why we couldn't achieve what they have and implement similar infrastructure to what they have over the past few years to achieve it

Can we move on now from this hypothetically disastrous Ireland world cup appearance?. 

"Well, our lads have something that the likes of Belgium will never have, and that's heart."

"Teams don't like playing Ireland because of the tough physical game that Ireland bring."

"Hey, if Greece can win the Euros, so can Ireland." 

"Bllp blrrb blab blirb blap blrrb blrrb blrrb."

That’s when we were at the races , can’t see another Irish manager getting near that in the future 

Yeah England's B side were fairly successful 

We had some team in the late 80’s-early 90’ mostly playing for the top teams in England.

We will never have a squad that good again. 

Similar to Scotland - They got to 4 WCs in the 80’s and 90’s

NI got to 82 and 86

We are falling further behind the rest of Europe. 

Jog on spanner. 

Harsh , 

You’d never know the way they  played and gave it all for Ireland.  Thats when we hassled other teams and scared the sh*t out of them . I remember sitting In Lansdowne watching us beat Spain 1-0 on long grass that Charlton told the groundskeeper not to cut and the Spanish didn’t know what hit them . Now we would let them walk over us and clap at them and say ah well 

Where would the attacking chances come from though? 

The only way I’d see that working would be if Brady was played on the left, with O’Dowda on the right wing. 

Perhaps Callum Robinson could offer something in such a formation. 

Hendrick was useless in this campaign, I nearly forgot he was playing in most of the matches. He's just not a good player. McCarthy too, does anyone really think he's going to be a star for us or just a constant disappointment? They're not going to save us. 

Watching Sweden here, I don't know any of their players, but they look excellent. We really are that bad. I would expect if we don't get the ridiculous luck we got in recent campaign, we wont be qualifying for Euro 2020. 

 

Perhaps. But so many teams get by without a Worldy. Our team has enough to compete, but it needs a system which maximises our best assets. Isolating a tall, and slightly immobile striker from a five man midfield is not the way to go, while playing a long ball game, and relying on Shane Duffy to repel everything else, and having somebody like David Meyler do the rest at the base of a redundant midfield. Look, I understand that we dont have a team of world beaters. I would like to have see Brady become our target man since 2016, or James McCarthy go from strength to strength in a post-Glenn Whelan environment, but that has not happened for a number of reasons, including injury. But with Coleman, Brady, Judge and McCarthy on the way back, Declan Rice making waves at Club and Country level, Sean Maguire proving he can score in the Championship, we should be at least able to match our counterparts in the North.

 

match them do what exactly .. get to playoff in  a world cup and get out of the group in a euros... why this fascination about the nordies..

Look at our situation where our team is only picked as the anthems are being rehearsed and very little attention is paid to our opponents - and then when we eventually fail, the manager and his lackies lament a lack of talented players. Is it not obvious to everyone that MONROY are taking the piss out of the FAI (and us fans who buy S/T's) and not earning their wages.

 

I don't know. Looking back now if McClean had scored his chance around the 20 minute mark it could have been so different. The first goal I don't know how Christie didn't keep it out. The 2nd Stephen Ward has had a nightmare and Eriksen hits a top class goal. 2nd half was a disaster. We went all in far too soon. We left a world class player with as much space as he wanted. Chaotic second half duly punished by a world class player 

The Danes didn’t have to work for their win. It wasn’t some kind of tactical masterclass. We easily could have been 2/3-0 up around the 20-25 min mark, instead they score a jammy goal from a corner and we implode. Simple as that, although seeing as we don’t practice defending corners, perhaps they targeted it as a weak point. 

Even at 1-1, Stephen Ward is for some reason rampaging forward on the left wing looking for us to get back in front about 15 mins from halftime. He’s disposssed and they go back up and score a screamer to end the tie.

The sensible option would of been to completely calm the game down, take the sting out of it until halftime and go all guns blazing from 60-65 minutes onwards. Our knack of scoring late goals under O’Neill should have given us the confidence to try and knick it in the closing stages.

For some bizzare reason, we went in search of a winning goal way too early and the score line that followed should have been enough to get rid of MON.

Right lads. Heres another pointless hypothetical argument to consider. 

If we could jump into a time machine and transport our 1990 - 1994 era team into the present day, how would they get on? Factor in that we would be playing the same style and system. Also, modern rules would be in play (passback, offside etc).

Obviously we would need a fairly liberal referee to take charge of our games. 

I think our high pressure game would suit and the calibre of player available to us would be much better. 

Nothing bizarre about it. The players were amped up on expectation and adrenaline. Whatever game plan O'Neill had laid out certainly was not stuck to. 

For a little while, the Irish players probably had reason to believe it was going to be their night. They'd gotten a goal, and came achingly close to snatching another. The reality of the situation should have hit them when the Danes equalised, but the players, buoyed up by belief and passion insisted on continuing forward. The problem with this is that Irish players just don't have the skill to play a pressing game while remaining defensively aware. And the problem was also lummoxes like Ward doing utterly stupid things. 

MC Hammered wrote: Right lads. Heres another pointless hypothetical argument to consider.  If we could jump into a time machine and transport our 1990 - 1994 era team into the present day, how would they get on? Factor in that we would be playing the same style and system. Also, modern rules would be in play (passback, offside etc). Obviously we would need a fairly liberal referee to take charge of our games.  I think our high pressure game would suit and the calibre of player available to us would be much better.

I don't think it's so much that the calibre of player was so much better back then as other teams' players are so much better now because they invested in their futures whereas Irish talent is either in a (relatively) lowly LoI side, filler in the hyper-competitive market of the Premier League or off football and onto the GAA train altogether. 

We have no brain. Players are just not football intelligent and neither is the manager and his assistant. They can whip the lads up no problem but cant solve any tactical problems .  They are like a school kid motivated to the 9's to do well in the leaving cert without having done any study whatsoever.

1990 Qualified

1992 Runner Up (No playoffs)

1994 Qualified 

1996 Playoffs 

1998 Playoffs

2000 Playoffs

2002 Qualified

2004 Missed

2006 Missed

2008 Missed

2010 Playoffs (Robbed)

2012 Qualified

2014 Missed 

2016 Qualified

2018 Playoffs

The Past 30 Years of qualifying consisted of only 4 campaigns where we were no near making the tournament in hand the other 12 we were within a 180 mins of Qualification. If you where foreign to Ireland knew very little about our style or previous MON performance but knew that we had a tiny pool of 4.7 million to choose from knew that a large chunk of the Island up north play for a different nation (unfortunately). Also Taking into account the nations listed by the OP as playing in far easier continents to qualify from I'd say you would say Irish football is where its meant to be also to factor in Association football not even being the native sport here. I'm guilty of it too of expecting to much not to say to be satisfied with the current regime who would but looking at the bigger picture of Irish football it is what it is and I wouldn't bet on us qualifying for the world cup until its increased to 48 teams which by then I don't feel we will miss out on many. 

 

Agree with your argument but Trap and others have a point in terms of lack or preparation and tactics. At the very least; we would increase our chances of qualifying if we had a coherent plan and a fall back plan b strategy.

Can we please put this irrelevant argument to bed once and for all? If it was down to populations then India would be playing China in the World Cup Final.

Also Iceland (pop: 334,000) and Uruguay (3,400,000) should not be getting to any World Cups.

Success has nothing to do with your population size (hell, even the Faroes can pull off the odd draw). It's what you do with the players at your disposal that counts. 

Agree that population is not a major factor. See NZ in Rugby.

But you need to look behind the current players at your disposal.

The youth set up and management all need to be pulling in the same direction with a defined plan.

We are very linked to GB and their failing are causing us problems too.

I feel the rest of Europe are more advanced than us when it comes to the youth set up and the quality of players they are producing. Football has moved on but Ireland and GB are behind the rest of Europe.

Agreed. Put another way, your problem isn't the border in Ireland notionally losing you a few players. It's the lack of one with England (in football terms) meaning that almost all your squad play there.

As do Australia

 

In a nutshell CH.   We don't need Dunphy to be headlined telling us we're the worst football nation in the world (we're not of course).  But our philosophy is definitely one of the worst and if I hear "we don't have the players" anymore..........

 

Iran nearly topped the group with Spain and Portugal.  Australia have at least attempted to play, drew one and lost unluckily to France who absolutely anhillated us in a friendly.

 

We're going nowhere fast under O'Neill (I leave Keane out of the combination cos he clearly does fook all technically) and fook knows what Sockless Steve is contributing.  Money for old rope.

But it's not bizarre. That's what the crowd called for when they wanted rid of Trap. Someone brought in to play "have a go hero", blood and guts football at home, rather than do the boring, sensible thing and manage the game professionally. Someone who understood "Irish football culture".

Just seen Morocco play Spain there and was very impressed with their attitude. They were already out of course, but they fielded a strong team and gave Spain a competitive game. If that was us, (as it was in Euro 2012) people would be telling the manager to rest players in the last game, and then see the reserves get hammered on the pitch. 

We've won 2 tournament games in 25 years. One against a side that lost a group game 8-0, and another against an already qualified nation, that had nothing to play for and couldn't give a fig roll whether they won or lost, and only then in the last 5 minutes. We're miles behind technically and tactically, as well as coaching ability, from about oh, 30 sides at the current World Cup. Technically, we're not even Morocco standard. It hurts a lot that we're not there, it really does, but saying we would compete admirably at it, setting out to scrape by on long balls and a few draws, is not realistic. This is the biggest tournament in football, and there's no prizes for qualifying third. So if you're not up to it, you get found out in no time. 

Unlike us however, Laurel and Hardy are having the craic at the World Cup, with their fellow pundits falling around the studio laughing at their cringeworthy tales of wisdom, including the day that MON set out to swap a pair of shorts after a game. National embarrassment the pair of them.

Still, at least they can watch Denmark's players via a TV set. You know, the kind of thing that Trap was condemned for, here at home. 

Also beat Italy in USA 94. 

 

Its amazing the way a person can make some things sound awful. Another way of saying the same thing is we won at every tournament we have competed in except for 2 and in one of those 2 we got to the world cup quarter finals. So in that regard we have only ever had one BAD tournament

That first half against Denmark was a very strange one. We never looked comfortable, even when we were 1-0 in front and Denmark looked far more composed. As you say, we seemed to mentally collapse when Denmark got their equaliser but we were already living dangerously before that.

If I didn't know better, I'd say we played the game in a panic and without much confidence.

On the point of population being a contributing factor; of course it is. It is one of many factors and it is a big one. Now, I'm not suggesting that you can't make the most of the resources on offer and punch above your weight which we don't do. 

Here are the world rankings per capita anyway:

https://www.rankingper.com/" rel="nofollow - https://www.rankingper.com/

Population is a huge factor but the biggest is gaa and to a lesser extent rugby.

How many Irish internationals do you see from Kerry and Mayo two strong football counties?

Very little why because all the top guys play gaa from u6 maybe play a bit of soccer up to u14 but the top guys are taken into gaa developmental squads and that's it no other sport gets a look in and the top guys are lost for good.

It's first choice in most rural county's.

The majority of our top players come from urban areas where the pathway to do things in soccer is much more accessible

And you can play with clubs exclusively geared towards soccer.

Belfast 2

Newtownabbey & South Antrim 2

Mid & East Antrim 5

Lisburn & Castelreagh

North Down 1

South Down

Armagh, Banbridge & Craigavon 1

Causeway & Glens

Derry & Strabane 1

Mid Ulster 3

Fermanagh & Omagh 3

England 5

What has that got to do with the title of this thread? 

It's a reply to the immediately previous post on the thread, Einstein

Have looked at something like this before.
 

Our footballers suffer from a psychological condition called nick-a-goal-itis. 

This condition hampers us from qualifying for tournaments. It's terrible in play-offs. It undermines our home form and causes us to draw too many games. 

However, once we get to the big stage things nearly always seem to work out for us, as draws in tournament football keep you alive to fight another day.

But the problem is actually getting there. In World Cup qualifying we have only lost 3 away games this century, to Iran, Austria and Germany.

Our real problem is when we have to take the game to others at home. We have a mindset of not giving anything away. We are risk averse.

During this World Cup Brian Kerr has complained about Senegal and Belgium for different reasons. 

When Senegal were 2-1 up against Poland they had a number of set pieces late in the game. He complained that they weren't using them to waste time. They actually sent players up to score a third goal. They didn't score but Poland were forced to defend these set-pieces properly, and so the time was wasted anyway.

In the Belgium (versus Tunisia) game he complained about their defence for the whole match. The Belgians had decided to go out and score more goals than the opposition. It worked out perfectly and they were able to take off some of their players and give them a rest well before the game was over.

Even with a world class attack force Kerr couldn't get beyond the nick-a-goal-itis. Presumably if he was the manager of Belgium he would have wanted them to get a goal and then shut up shop for the rest of the game.

And goal scoring is really a problem for us. 

If we look at Iceland:

In 8 games at tournaments they have scored 10 goals.

And Ireland:

In 23 games at tournaments we have scored 16 goals.

This tournament has shown that all styles are valid if they are applied correctly. Russia, Iceland, Sweden have been very direct. If O'Neill insists that we play direct then he should be taking notes. 

Although it is slightly embarrassing that Saudi Arabia, whose players are from their domestic league, could pass us off the field. 

But the big change we need to see is in attack. Away from home we are fine. But we have to win games at home like we used to do in the past, and that means scoring goals.