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WE ARE HOSTING on Euro 2028 but we are relying on it too.
Ireland won’t be at Euro 2024, are not good enough to qualify for the next World Cup, and so the next major tournament we are likely to grace will be our own in five years time.
This 2-0 loss at home to Greece officially killed Ireland’s slim mathematical chance of qualifying from this group, while our play-off hopes are now rated at 2%. The universe will doubtlessly conspire to crush that down to zero by the middle of next week.
So now we are back in a deep slough of apathy, heading into another year of friendly internationals and conversations along the lines of No, the Uefa Nations League is actually very important.
While this group made daunting by the two seeds drawn above Ireland, the truth is the group’s fourth seeds are better than Ireland, too. The defeat in Athens was comprehensive, but this was damning too: Ireland jabbed zestlessly as Greece delievered the few rib-shaking haymakers they needed. Those who booed at the end were those who bravely kept their attention on the game.
With much of the build-up to the game dominated by talk of spies and moles and insider info, Stephen Kenny locked his game-plan beneath layers of security. Debutante Liam Scales was one of five potential wing-backs on the team-sheet so it was initially puzzling to see how Ireland would set-up. It then looked like it would be the customary back three, as Ireland ran through that shape in their warm-up.
But it was all a decoy so elaborate that not even Gary Dicker could have decrypted it. Ireland took to the pitch in a 4-2-3-1, and with their opponents briefly thrown, Ireland started brightly. Chiedozie Ogbene’s neat lay-off in the box for Will Smallbone forced a fine save from Odysseas Vlachodimos, while minutes later Evan Ferguson curled a shot from outside the box and clipped the outside of the post. Ireland’s bright start didn’t bring a goal but it at least engaged the crowd with a game to which the nation spent the week indifferent.
Alas, the Greeks then settled. Ireland’s early impetus bled slowly away, and they were behind by the 20-minute mark. Chiedozie Ogbene lost a 50/50 with Kostas Tsimikas – he was unfortunate for the ball to bounce behind him and ideally for Tsimikas – and then Ireland allowed him an age to pick his cross. That cross was delicious, slung right onto Giorgos Giakoumakis forehead as he climbed unhindered into the sky, having shaken off Nathan Collins too easily.
The crowd rallied the Irish players as they trooped forlornly once again to the centre-circle. The players responded, led by the ever-gutsy Ogbene, but struggled to create many chances with a Scales cross from the left agonisingly eluding Ogbene in the box. Ireland’s sense of control was brittle, such was the weight of Greece’s counter-punch. Bazunu lithely tipped over a Dimitris Pelkas shot in the penalty area after one lightning Greek counter.
But it was in the final seconds of the three minutes of added time at the end of the first half that Ireland’s maddening fragility was put on show again. Ogbene lost the ball on the edge of his own box, and from there the crisp edifice of Ireland’s defence instantly crumbled. Pelkas launched the ball forward for Giakoumakis, who was still in his own half, which made Collins’ decision to step up to play offside inexplicable. Giakoumakis’ skidded ball across the box was too far ahead of the arriving Masouras, but not of Pelkas. He scuffed the ball back for Masouras, who hooked the ball into the net. Poyet marched down the tunnel before the whistle, and heard a chorus of boos roll down the terraces behind him. Ireland have an unmatchable knack of losing on the swings and the roundabouts.
Collins was hooked at half-time, perhaps in punishment.
It was the first time Ireland had conceded twice in the first-half of a competitive home game since the 5-1 World Cup play-off defeat to Denmark, but there was at least no second-half collapse this time around. Nor was there anything else. Ireland returned to their desultory toil, lolling in possession, shuffling it side-to-side to no end. The portions of the crowd who weren’t utterly disinterested crackled with frustration. Their best chance fell to Matt Doherty from Smallbone’s fine corner, but he reacted too slowly to make anything of it. Otherwise Ireland were restricted to a couple of shots from range and set pieces, one of which ended in a chaotic phase where Ferguson whipped a ball into the box for Duffy. Greece dealt admirably with Ireland’s aerial threat.
Callum Robinson and Mikey Johnston were introduced from the bench and both made fleeting impacts: Johnston won a corner from which Doherty brought an agile save from Vlachodimos, while minutes later Robinson flashed a shot narrowly wide of the goalkeeper’s right-hand post.
But that was about as good as it got for Ireland. Tonight they were beaten by a better team, and Europe is now littered with better teams than Ireland. Stephen Kenny will leave his job shortly, and be dismissed as experiment that failed in qualifying, but the course of action he altered was failing too. Ireland have tried playing every which way; they have blooded youngsters and returned to veterans; they have played out from the back and knocked it long; three, four, and five at the back.
Nothing has worked.
Ireland are pushing a rock up a hill and if they look to their side, they’ll see even Sisyphus is further ahead.
Republic of Ireland: Gavin Bazunu; Matt Doherty; Nathan Collins (Ryan Manning, HT), Shane Duffy (captain), Liam Scales; Jason Knight; Josh Cullen, Will Smallbone (Callum Robinson, 69′), Alan Browne (Mikey Johnston, 69′); Chiedozie Ogbene (Adam Idah, 84′), Evan Ferguson
Greece: Odysseas Vlachodimos; Lazaros Rota, Konstantinos Mavropanos, Panagiotis Retsos, Kostas Tsimikas; Dimitris Kourbelis (Andreas Bouchalakis, 63′), Tasos Bakasetas (captain) (Konstantinos Koulierakis, 87′), Petros Mantolas; Giorgos Masouras (Konstantinos Koulierkas, 87′), Giorgos Giakoumakis (Fotis Ioannidis, 69′) Dimitris Pelkas (Tasos Chatzigiovanis, 63′)
Referee: Glenn Nyberg (SWE)
Attendance: 41,239
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We were always going to be minnows especially after how the FAI ran Irish soccer into the ground and spent funds unwisely not investing in the future. You reap what you sow
@DJ D: bit like RTE
Vera’s owed an apology.
@SF Means Sh!t 4 Free: For what .?. Telling them they were overweight and lazy! .
First time I left an Ireland match at half time. No passion,no skill ,no fight, no hope. KENNY OUT NOW.
@liam preston: Nothing to do with Kenny…. Blame the dim players
@liam preston: See you in Faro
@Blue Moon: the passing was depressing. Left, right, backwards. Greece were in the Irish area after a couple of incisive passes. Thought that Scales and manning were good enough
@liam preston: real supporters don’t leave at half time!
@Ron Stevens: at least real supporters go and support and pay their hard earned cash where were you sitting on your sofa .
@Blue Moon: McCarthy got results with the same players.
@Blue Moon: everything to do with Kenny in my opinion
@Blue Moon: It’s a lot to do with Kenny. The people still backing him have lost their minds a long time ago. He is not up to it in any conceivable way and must be replaced. He doesn’t have much to work with but has done pretty much as badly as it was possible to do. He was sacked by Dunfermline and Shamrock rovers in the past. What did anyone expect?
@Blue Moon: Agree 100%. The players are championship at best, and I think they prioritise club over country.
Embarrassing at this stage.
Give a new manager an easy win in next game.
Ireland were lucky to score nil
@Larry Betts: Larry Betts is never funny, but he thinks he is.
Very poor performance from Greece not to knock in another few. IRL are an extremely terrible team and have been for a very, very long time. Overall, an ok result for Greece and an exactly as expected from Ireland.
DISASTER.
The damage done by Delaney and Co has reached its destination Ireland ranking at close to Zero. However the decision to continue with Kenny cheer led by Tony O Donoghue and the RTE set plus Giles and Dunphy has reached below zero
@Tim Brennan: Don’t blame Kenny…. It’s the players, or can you even call them that…. Seen better matches in the 15 acres…
@Blue Moon: how can you not blame Kenny????
Kenny gets around 1 million a year for this.
@Ollie McGlinchey: he gets less than half that
@Ollie McGlinchey: And???Do wa Rice and d other lad did and sing…Anthems were made for singing. Take it don’t bale
@Ollie McGlinchey: he gets 540k a year. Why chat shit?
Tired of the age old “we don’t have the players ” argument ..there is enough to work with there…plenty of other international managers with worse squads doing fine. Martin o neills euro 2016 selection wasn’t a whole lot better either
@Michael Flannery: Face the truth…. He doesn’t have the players… I’ve seen better actors on the stage in the Abbey. He has Zero to work with.
@Michael Flannery: I agree. There is a squad there plus u21set up for an experienced manager or a coach to come in.
Plenty there to work with. I am afraid its beyond Stephen but at least he has set the roots to go forward.
Anthony Barry or Carsley may be good choices.
Wouldn’t worry about the booing, it’s the least Kenny can expect. He should go.
I remember a lad howling expletives and throwing a handful of coins at Staunton the night we hammered Cyprus 1-1 in 2007.
Staunton got fired a few weeks later…
Kenny is even running out of excuses at thus stage and yet he shows no signs of expecting to be sacked. Didi was spot on with his comments
Ireland seem to be regressing to the pre Jack Charlton era ; or perhaps worse .
@Des Hanrahan: Far worse before Charlton Ireland had several close runs to qualify. Plus in those times only one team from a group qualified. This is the worst Ireland have ever been.
@Des Hanrahan: progressing to pre Charlton??? You really know your football. I must be dreaming that Don Givens struck a hat trick against Russia in Dalymount, or that we beat a magnificent French team containing like of platini, giresse and tigana. And got robbed in couple of euro qualifiers by disgraceful referee decisions ( one in particular I think against Belgium) . Eoin Hand had a really fine team that were streets removed from the drivel we are now watching.
@Michael Garvey: agreed. We had some incredible players. I think we have the genesis of a great team now also. If it’s nurtured properly. I was team Kenny throughout, until today. His heart was in the right place, the execution wasn’t there. There’s a possibility of a decent team bubbling under everything. Sadly this manager isn’t the right person, regardless of how much he tries
Hopeful this will end the Kenny fan obsession!
As an Irish football fan it was as bad as you get this was the worst performance in years even under Kenny given what was at stake albeit a sliver of hope. To be fair he blooded new players but that was years ago now. These players at the very least should be able to play football better than has been over qualification. For me that is down to Kenny in early years he wanted to play ball but over last 18 months he has regressed on the football part but tryed to make us hard to beat and hope for a lucky goal which was his downfall. Not just tonight but all qualification games he has picked the wrong team to start everytime. Example tonight Johnson should have started so should Robinson but he goes for the pragmatic selection that hasn’t worked at all. We need the 3 points and knew it was all or bust so why didn’t he just go for it. Look we haven’t a great 25 but they are decent to me it seems like they had no belief and that stems from manager down. As bad as we have been in last 20 years we always had a togetherness and always made sure teams knew they had a tough game afterwards but 2nite was just as low as I’ve ever seen us. Time for Kenny to go and let the new manager get a bit of time to make us compete for a home tournament that we need to be in
Imagine Having a Worse Record than
“”The Gaffer”"
Put him out of His Misery.
Sad to hear booing in landsdowne
@Logs Byrne: it’s the least they deserve
We will beat Gibraltar on Monday and he’ll be like what’s the problem! Spoofer
I have no words!
Rubbish again
Cracking game Ireland. Legends. #inyourhead
Sorry, wrong sport.
That 2nd goal was embarrassing, everything about it was awful, one mistake after another. Amateur stuff.
Does willy smallbone even have a club or does he just turn up for the Ireland matches
Get big Sam in there and Robbie Keane
@graham harris: Robbie’s not available. He’s in bunker in Israel.
@graham harris: are you for real Robbie Keane???
Kenny has made average players look bad and good players average. Players tonight looked especially clueless. Fingers need to be pointed at Keith Andrews and John O’ Shea also. Head turned perhaps for the latter.
Leave Kenny in charge for Gibraltar but find someone new to finish this campaign and let them use to figure out who the best 11 is, I don’t think Kenny even knows that yet after so long. Long term I think Hughton would be a good option, might be available after the AFCON
For years we played long ball to Robbie Keane not tall or strong but it pushed us up pitch. Now when we have a big tall cf who can hold it up we don’t do it. As they say play to your strengths at times it may not be nice but if it wins you games who cares. And against so called lesser teams then play ball
We are a rugby nation
@Stevie Doran: as the man said about this, we are a bandwagon nation
No room for Irish players in the top divisions anymore. Full of foreigners. Charlton was lucky. All top tier players. Not pretty but we made it to a few finals under him and McCarthy. Good times are gone unfortunately.
Who’s your next manager?
@Gareth Wogan: Vera
@Gareth Wogan: I read that Steve Bruce might be the next Ireland manager
Sad to hear booing in landsdowne
@Logs Byrne: yes it was but those 41odd thousand paid their hard earned cash to go to it and witness that crap so what else should they do clap and cheer a terrible performance. Bad enough to loose but loose without an effort is worse
Iv seen better football at a Sunday league game. Absolutely awful.
Toast.
Ryan Tubridy is looking for a job…
Ireland had it most successful soccer under an English coach.
Ireland is number one in the world in Rugby under an English coach.
Perhaps it’s time to face facts and unite again with England?
Disappointing result… But not really Kenny’s fault…and I’m totally not surprised. You can only play with the hand of cards you’re dealt… He doesn’t have any quality players to fill an international team. Maybe he should resign and say goodbye to bad ilk
Poyet was spying on us, again. That’s why we lost.
@eamon. What are you on about a good chuck of that team are pl players and do well for their respective teams. Kenny juat wasn’t up to the task end of. A good manager would have that team playing well and to their strengths when needed
@Karl Pilkington: you obviously don’t watch football. There was 2 players in the starting 11 from top division teams
What a delusional person . “It wasn’t flat in the 2nd half ”
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result .
1. Ask questions .
2. Is English football the only thing there is ?
3. Gaelic has probably our best sportsmen/women.
4. So go figure ..
Neil Warnock would do a better job.
@Ollie McGlinchey: shame his retired :(
@Ollie McGlinchey: Christ …the bar is very low.
Bazunu, Doherty, Duffy, Collins, Cullen, Ferguson, Ogbene all play or have played in the Premier League, Scales has played in the Champions League… Greece’s star player is with Liverpool reserves… when will people realise that the problem is not the players, it’s what the manager gets out of them
If Israel put troops into Gaza, Hezbollah will unleash fury,and that will end Israel!!
@Mark Emark: And Christian Anderson didn’t write fairytales.
@hans vos: no Arab will allow the destruction of Al Asqa mosque,for a Jewish church!… Never …and that what this , fundamentally,boils down to!.. They will fight to the death….
@hans vos: haha….wait and see
Until Ireland start to produce players playing at the major clubs in England (or further afield) then our level will be on par of Slovakia, Finland, North Macedonia et al, Evan Ferguson is not going to save this team and I fear his talent will never grace a major tournament. Between 1982 and 2008 Ireland either qualified, or played an eliminator for major tournaments, the last 8 years they’ve struggled to get out of their group (albeit the 5-0 by Denmark put it into perspective) these players out of 1 or 2 are not good enough and no manager is going to get a tune out of them.
Kenny has no playing experience and has never managed a football team outside of the League of Ireland except for one very short spell as a manager in Scotland where his team was quickly relegated.
His results as manager of the Irish team are pretty much what you would expect given his complete lack of experience and qualifications for the job.
MALOSION
Trump to win tomorrow + city of troy, double pays evens.
Remember that Stephen Kenny is earning €1500 per day, 365 days per year on his current contract….
Think on that the next time you pay to watch these losers.
Maybe he’ll get a job with RTE next
All players ratings 3
Come out ye blue and whites
Come and fight me like a knight…
Stephen should motivate them with thus song
Young team…Give him time.
Hasn’t got a massive pick in fairness…no matter who ya bring in.Rugby b great craic tomorrow
Yeah and that’ll be a 1/4 loss, again we’re hyped as if we’ve won the thing, NZ show up when it matters.
Get Keano in and let him rip, Kenny is in way over his head. Granted we don’t have the players anymore and the FAI are in dire straits thanks to that Rat Delaney but surely we can get better than Kenny ffs..
When Kenny needed to make changes at half time he didn’t. Why didn’t he bring on Ida at half time and put him up front alongside Ferguson. Kenny needs to go. Resign now for goodness sake. New manager should be someone like Chris Hughton Not Steve Bruce and not Mark Hughes they are not good managers.
Clueless, toothless, pointless.
That sums up that performance and that team
If you don’t invest the money in new players from a young age what do you expect.
Too much money goes to the gaa, yet it means nothing internationally.
@Hector turtlehead: why would they give the fai the same amount as the GAA when people can’t even be bothered to turn up to an Irish league game
Poyet wants the job. Give it to him
It’s a bit of a mantra now but Ireland do not have players up to intl standard. Greece proved this again last night. Way superior footballers. Threatened to score each time in possession. We were, as always, unwatchable. Feel sorry for the thousands of loyal fans. Never gonna get a result with this mgr and players
I’m used to losing, all teams do at some point, my county team has one provincional title in my lifetime, I remember Ireland losing plenty of soccer and rugby games. 24 years ago our rugby team got the wooden spoon in the 5 Nations more often than not, just winning against England felt like an achievement. The professional era in rugby saw an upturn in results, things progressed to where we are now with expectations so high. We have good but not great players in the soccer team, we should be more solid and harder to beat, whatever is going wrong it’s not just the manager. Evan Ferguson is our best chance of having a high profile player in the coming 10-15 years. Robbie Keane had Damien Duff doing a lot of the work and supplying chances, Roy Keane was more creative than many remember also. We need to find players good enough in midfield to supply Evan Ferguson, he can’t be expected to do it all on his own. If only Harry Arter, Jeff Hendrick and Robbie Brady were 10 years younger… There are some good players in some positions, Aaron Connolly is improving, Michael Obafemi and Troy Parrot are good younger players also, Dara O’Shea and Nathan Collins are good defenders who can improve, Andrew Omobamidiele could be as good as Paul McGrath in time. Adam Idah and Chiedozie Ogbene especially are promising. In Gavin Bazunu and Caoimhín Kelleher we have great goalkeeping options, the more they play the better they will get. Things are darkest before the dawn…
There are actually people in this comments section who would hand Stephen Kenny a new contract. You would have to wonder about some people and their state of mind. He was doomed to failure from the get go as he is miles out of his depth.
Hah! And the absolute gall of all the misogynists on here who dissed the women’s team on a daily basis.
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