YoG No. 32 – Where are we now?

Reality hit us hard last night in Ballsbridge. You’ve probably seen and heard enough hand-wringing to last until the next competitive game in late 2018, so I’ve just a few things I think we need to consider about the Irish national team.

1. We don’t have the Players

This mantra, this deafening, repetitive mantra is a load of absolute bollox. We have the players to qualify. We’ve proved that as often as not in the last 4 campaigns. Let’s not look back with rose-tinted glasses at the Jack Charlton and Mick McCarthy eras. Tommy Coyne of Motherwell played up front on his own in Giants Stadium, Alan McLoughlin and a clubless Gary Breen scored vital famous goals. “But none play in the top 4 in the Premier League, and none feature in the latter stages of the Champions League”, I hear them cry!!! How many of our Quarter-final reaching Italia 90 squad would get near those 2 standards today?? Bonner, NO, Morris, NO, Staunton, NO, McCarthy not a fucking chance. We could go on, but outside of Paul McGrath and maybe Ronnie Whelan, you’d be hard pushed to find any in among the Bernie Slavens and Tony Cascarinos that would excite the likes of Guardiola and Pochettino. Ditto USA 94, where Roy Keane and Denis Irwin had emerged to add to that list. By 2002, we could push a case for Robbie Keane and Damien Duff, but their respective club careers would suggest somewhat otherwise. And let’s not forget John O’Shea and Steve Finnan, who have a few Champions League medals and finals between them, albeit from a good few years back – would they get near them now?

Yes you can argue that the standard is lower now and you would be right, but lets stop losing our shit over this issue. Andy Townsend was not Nemanja Matic or Kevin de Bruyne. We have the players. We absolutely have the players to qualify for tournaments. They CAN play football. Even last night, when they did knock it about on those rare occasions, they created great chances. We have the players.

2. But do we have the Manager?

Eamon Dunphy got a lot of grief when he called Martin O’Neill “Trappatoni with a Derry accent”. He was wrong, but not that wrong. We need to move away from these conservative managers that seem to believe point 1 above. Trap really thought we had nothing, preferring Paul Green to Andy Reid or Wes, and insisting on a brutal brand of anti-football. Under O’Neill we’ve seen flashes of very good performances, notably in Paris and Lille last year, but also great tactical discipline in holding off Germany in Dublin. But throughout all of our campaigns under both these veterans, we have played abysmal stuff, most notably at home in this campaign. We need young blood at the helm, or at least for O’Neill to change his ways. Let’s not be rash. One qualification, albeit via a 3rd place finish, a last 16 in the tournament (again from a 3rd place finish) and a play-off defeat having come runners-up as 4th seeds, is no mean feat, and last night, despite its dreadfulness, including dreadful substitutions, was far from a sacking offence. Had we just drawn with Wales and had a nice wee friendly last night instead, O’Neill’s future would be secure.

3. Worst fans in the World

This offensive myth about the Irish being the best fans in the world can be well and truly consigned to the dustbin now. We can be truly awful. A bunch of drunk, smartphone-wielding up-for-the-craic, constantly aware of how much craic we are, irritating little fuckers, whose own sense of greatness is utterly nauseating. I say that because these fairweather town-square beer-soaked muppets were seen heading to the pub in their droves last night with 20 minutes to go! And a lot of them don’t do much for Irish soccer by staying at home watching Sky and ignoring their own league which provided half the bloody team last night. The best fans in the world stick around til at least the 85th minute  or into injury time – unless you truly believe your early absence will cause a much needed change like the walkout at the 6-1 loss to Germany eventually led to end of Trap’s reign. And the best fans in the world support their local clubs – the next James, Seamus, Daryl, Seanie etc. etc. The only saving grace from last night is we will be spared the incessant feed of “look what the Irish lads have done now” nonsense being force-fed to us by the balls.ie and sports joe brigade next summer as the 5th gas-ticket eejit of the day stares out from our screens, a red cheeked, sweaty, grinning gom with his viral antic of the day.

Oh I’ve enjoyed my travels as an Irish fan, don’t get me wrong. But being great is one thing. Being 100% aware of it, and doing all you can to record and share with the world how great you are is a whole different thing.

4. Grassroots and the League of Ireland

We don’t know how the significant changes to the structure of schoolboy football, controversial as it was, will work out. Ireland has always had a massive number of soccer players, all plying their trade for their local clubs or one of the big teams, primarily in Dublin – St. Josephs, Home Farm, Kevins, Belvo, Cherry Orchard, Lourdes etc., but with no link to the League Of Ireland, and with their eyes on England. This is changing now and should provide a pathway from schoolboy into a domestic top-level and to establish a unified approach to the game in Ireland, as the route to top-level in England seems less and less likely to provide a career as time goes on. We’ll wait and see how these national leagues pan out. It’ll be a few years before it bears fruit, but change was needed.

5. England and the Premier League

Irish football is unique geographically in Europe, but also as a sport in Ireland. It sits in the immediate shadow of the biggest sporting empire in history  – the English Premier League. The impact of this behemoth on the England team has been evident for a long time, as chances for English players at the highest level evaporate, but for the likes of the Irish, Welsh and Scottish, it has destroyed them, and related to point 1, it’s impossible to tell how much worse this Irish group is to those that played pre-Sky and pre-globalisation of the English game.

We need to somehow make that irrelevant. We need another pathway to get our lads playing in top-division winning teams; in the Champions League; and in the Europa League. Yes some have gotten more experience doing that by staying in the League of Ireland, but they also need to meet better players on a regular basis. From a purely footballing perspective every other league in Europe is a better option for a young Irish player than England in my view, yes even La Liga and the Bundesliga – not every team is Barcelona or Bayern, but we seem wedded to the familiar culture, and more importantly to the money it pays. The game as it is played and run in England is no good to us.

6. The “Irish” Way

What typifies Irish football? Who symbolises the Boys in Green in your mind? Who has provided the great, great moments of our football history. A football fan from abroad may conjure up some sort of Niall Quinn / Daryl Murphy hybrid. But nothing could be further from the truth. Ireland’s best players throughout the post-war era have been relatively small in stature and massively talented footballers. Giles, Brady, Whelan, Roy and Robbie Keane, Damien Duff. Add in the likes of Ray Houghton, Kevin Sheedy, Tony Galvin and then consider Robbie Brady, Hoolahan, even Hendrick at his best last year. Matt Holland and Mark Kinsella back in 2002 as well. Only McCarthy and Kerr seem to have understood this since the 1980’s.

These players represent the Irish way, not some horseshit about spirit and determination. We have no monopoly on that and to suggest otherwise is offensive to the rest of the world! If you watched the John Giles documentary, you would’ve heard this, and also Michael Walker alluded to it recently on Second Captains. Little dancers, the street footballers of Dunphy’s rants. He’s right. He’s absolutely right. Wes Hoolahan has had a phenomenal career. Dozens of former internationals would have given their right arm to have played and scored in a major tournament for Ireland, and had such a life in football as he has. Yet he was wasted in England and wasted by two Irish managers, O’Neill much less so, however Trap’s ignorance was a treachery of Irish football. We will make more players like Wes. There have been signs that Horgan, O’Dowda and Maguire could develop into important internationals. But my fear is that the English way – particularly in the Championship or at a battling Premier League team playing Samball and Pulisball – will compromise them. Maybe a few years in the Eredivisie or somewhere would do them no harm.

We need to re-establish that Irish way, and this is linked to all of the above points. It’s our football culture and only we the fans can do it. Sure we can curse and swear about the FAI and John Delaney, but they’re not erecting barriers outside Dalymount and Tallaght to stop you getting in. There are solutions and all is far from lost.

Real football is over for the time being, but it will be back…