Lack of realism when it comes to Irish soccer

I very rarely intrude on the world of association football. It is not something that I know much about. I watch Irish teams. Football, rugby, men women, and will them to win. I enjoy hurling of course and in the past year I have taken up watching Gaelic football again. Jim Gavin’s rules changes have brought about an improvement from the sterile putrid game developed by the negative tacticians of yesteryear. The game has improved but is still blighted by an overuse of the handpass.

I watched Ireland against Hungary recently in the Aviva Stadium and delighted in the Adam Idah goal that secured a draw. It was a result that was based on effort. It seemed that the Irish players and manager played with pride and passion. Pride, passion and effort are essential qualities in any team. I thought that Ireland would go from strength to strength and secure a win in their next game against Armenia, who according to the Irish media, are ranked forty or fifty places below Ireland, in the world rankings. It was not to be. I watched the game and Ireland were lucky not to be beaten off the pitch. They would have been but for a number of fine saves by our Kelleher.

The result gave rise to a deluge of abuse from the Irish media and the pundits engaged by the media to comment and/or write on the game. The manager, hailed as a hero for the turnaround in Irish football following the draw with Hungary, suddenly became a dentist from Iceland who would be well advised to return to dentistry. This was a man who had some success with his native country and with Jamaica and whose appointment was welcomed not so long ago by the media who report soccer in this country.

They (the meeja) have a lot to answer for. They have little time, generally, for the Irish club scene. Up until recently they saw only Shamrock Rovers and even then only if Rovers were qualified for some lowly conference league games in Europe. They tend to go overboard in their admiration for the Irish team and let their imaginations run away with themselves. They have grown up on the Premiership and judge Irish teams on the basis of a player’s ability to do well in games across the water. It does not enter their thinking that maybe the Premiership is not all that it is cracked up to be, even with the plethora of football mercenaries from across the world attracted by immoral salaries.

They tend to write off Ireland’s opponents as unworthy of a team made up of Premiership players and, in commentary, belittle opposing teams. As I saw the game in Armenia the home team displayed more skill and teamwork, in the opening half, than the Irish team and a lack of aggression in the Irish team allowed their opponents show off their skills. Ireland did step up their effort in the second half and it could be argued they deserved the consolation goal, but only the delusional would suggest that Armenia did not deserve their win.

Barring a miracle, Ireland will not go to the World Cup so the soccer writers and commentators will for the next couple of years have to content themselves with concentrating on their favourite clubs across the water. The FAI will concentrate on sorting out the myriad problems that currently beset the organisation and will pursue the futile task of securing endless pots of money from the Government (the taxpayer) to pump into the provision of academies that will produce the elite players who will go on to make their fortunes (or maybe not) in the Premiership and will then star for Ireland (or maybe not).

The minute a homegrown elite player, aged fourteen or over, attracts the attention of a big name club in the Premiership, the media will hop on the bandwagon and fill the head of the youngster with dreams of stardom that in most cases will be just that - dreams. That is the way it has been for the past century and that is the way it will continue to be no matter how many academies are set up around the country. Talent and temperament allied to passion will get a youngster to the top. Without those essential ingredients no amount of coaching and encouragement will make, to put it bluntly, a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.

The simple reality for Ireland is that the demographics and indeed the gene pool place a limit of our ambitions. We might in the future qualify for a World Cup but barring a miracle we will not win one. We might even get another Jack Charlton and with good grace and luck a bunch of talented players arising at the same time, whether home produced or foreign bred but Ireland committed, who can entertain and grind out sufficient victories to give supporters something to cheer about and a team to be proud of. But, if supporters and the media don’t place a rein on expectations we can look forward to nothing but disappointment.

And that applies particularly to those who have responsibility for running and developing soccer here. The FAI, in seeking financial support from government (taxpayers) for the development of elite academies are looking for a quick and illusory fix. They would be better drafting a plan for the development of football at grassroots level, in other words the local clubs and investing the hoped for money in club facilities.

That, of course, will take time and hard work. A lot of hard work and commitment similar to what the GAA has done and continues to do. For all its faults the GAA works from the ground up. The FAI have a top down approach. Perhaps the top down approach works in some societies but it is not suited to the Irish mentality. Irish people have rejected the notion of doing what they are told. It has been bred into us for centuries that we are masters of our own destiny and don’t take kindly to authoritarianism. We might be persuaded, but we won’t be told.

And now, apropos something quite different. The king of England, under orders from his Prime Minister, the Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer (such a dichotomy - a Labour leader with a title!) hosted the President of the United States to a state banquet the other day. There were 160 of the great and good dining on a “feast” of quail egg salad for starters and chicken with courgettes for the main course. In my humble opinion the Port Chipper could do better. It must have been the wine and cocktails that distinguished the feast! What was absolutely disgusting about the event was this vulgar display of wealth, pomposity and mammon at a time when Benyamin Netanyahu, with bombs supplied by Trump and Starmer, was raining down destruction on a Gazan population already dying of starvation and disease.

We have to be thankful for our President Michael D. In the declining days of his Presidency, he continues to do his people proud. His comments at the Ploughing Championships when he called for Israel to be excommunicated from the United Nations were appropriate. Israel’s actions and ambitions in Gaza and the Middle East are anathema to everything that the UN stands for. There is no place for a state with genocidal ambitions in today’s world. There is no place for them in a civilised society.

Since withdrawing my nomination, I have not given much thought to the race to replace Michael D. My one suggestion to Jim Gavin is that he should ditch Micheál or at least drive him away from his shoulder. Micheál is yesterday’s man. Our President should be able to think for himself.

Thought for the Day 

Expectations destroy our peace of mind. They are future disappointments planned out in advance.

- Anon