Tuesday 19 June 2012

Irish Eyes Are Still Smiling

Ireland leaves Euro 2012 after 3 consecutive defeats and unless Sweden loses heavily to France the Irish will be regarded as the worst team in the tournament. However, it is better to be not good enough at the European Championships, than not good enough to get there.

In most countries the team would be coming home in disgrace but in Ireland they will most likely receive a hero’s welcome.

Some people may disagree with that opinion, Roy Keane included but for most people the greatest victory for Ireland was simply qualifying for only our second European Championship Finals and fifth Major Tournament in all.

We are a small nation of just 4.5m people yet we managed to qualify for the Finals ahead of 12 countries who have a larger population than we do. That list includes Romania, Belgium, Serbia, Switzerland and Scotland. What makes this achievement all the more remarkable is the fact that soccer is only our third most played sport behind Gaelic Football and Hurling.

The vast majority of Ireland fans we are disappointed we couldn’t perform a bit better in the Finals and perhaps even feel that we are a better side than what we showed but the bottom line is we are still proud of the Boys in Green.

There has been a lot of talk of retirements after this tournament. It has been speculated that Shay Given, Richard Dunne, Damien Duff and Robbie Keane could be on the verge of quitting the international scene. Whilst I may not agree that all of those are good enough to play in the starting 11, they are most definitely good enough to be a part of the squad. Those four have got over 400 caps between them and if they are willing to do so they would be an asset to have around the squad with the only difference being they are not absolutely guaranteed to start.

One criticism I would have at the moment is the loyalty of manager Giovanni Trapattoni. Loyalty is a great thing to have but “Trapp” takes it too far. He is obsessed by playing 4-4-2 and only made one change to his “usual” starting 11 throughout the tournament when he started Simon Cox in place of Kevin Doyle against Spain.

4-4-2 is almost impossible to play in this day in age. Go to any top side in any league and very, very few of them will play 4-4-2. In this tournament almost every team is playing some variation of 4-3-3/4-5-1 or 4-2-3-1.

Glenn Whelan and Keith Andrews will always give 100% but they are limited footballers. Trapp is expecting them to go into a battle in midfield against 3 players and expecting them to come out on top. In the games against Croatia and Spain, Andrews and Whelan were going into the midfield battle as the 4th and 5th best midfielders of the 5 on the pitch. Needless to say the Irish were dominated and had very little possession. In the Italy game Italy played a variation of 4-4-2 with a midfield diamond and Ireland were able to get 47% possession in what was there best performance in the competition.

I don’t think this is coincidental and perhaps if Trapp had shown some variation in his tactics we may have at least been closer in our three games and maybe even nicked a result somewhere along the road.

As much as I can speak about Trapp’s tactics it has to be said that we done ourselves no favours whatsoever. We conceded a goal in the first 3 minutes of the first 4 halves of football we played in the competition. When you do this the team talk you have just received goes out the window and you have to move onto Plan B.

Some individuals also performed well below their capabilities. Shay Given gave probably his 3 worst displays in an Irish shirt throughout Euro 2012. There was much talk before the tournament that he was injured and to be honest he looked like a man who wasn’t fit. Of the nine goals we conceded in the tournament Shay would probably feel he could have done better with seven of them. It’s hard to criticise him though as he has been superb for Ireland over the years and if it wasn’t for him then we most likely would not have qualified.

Richard Dunne, John O’Shea, Stephen Ward, Aiden McGeady and Robbie Keane are all better players than what we saw in Poland. If we can keep most of those players in place and bring in young talents like James McClean, Shane Duffy, Marc Wilson, Seamus Coleman, James McCarthy and Anthony Stokes then we can come back stronger and give qualification for the 2014 World Cup a real go.

I don’t think any article on the Irish can be complete without mentioning the fans. Yet again the Irish fans have travelled in their thousands to support their team. They have received praise from players, opposition teams and their hosts, Poland. When it comes to supporting their team there is nobody quite like the Irish. We are truly world class when it comes to getting behind our team. Now the biggest challenge is for Giovanni Trapattoni and the Boys in Green to give the fans the world class performances on the field they deserve.

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