mad4city said:
Mdr said:
The Irish players and fans look like they had a great old time. I think that says it all really.
The Irish had a ball when we were beating Italy in USA 94 and things were no different when we were getting our arse handed to us at Euro 2012.
It's what the Irish do ( arguably better than anyone else?): we party.
You're here for a good time but not a long time and all that auld talk etc etc.
Irish fans make the best of their situation. That's the difference between England and Ireland when it comes to football.
Irish fans aren't stupid and obviously want to see their team do well, but there's limits to their expectations. They have very few expectations.
They know their team is rubbish.
England however aren't as good as the fans and press hype them up to be. They go away and do reasonably well, but not good enough, never good enough and get ripped apart when they come home because they didn't win the tournament/game.
Ireland go away, their fans spend money (that's tight enough as it is) and enjoy themselves either way.
This is the best example of it,
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7GonYtZrZw[/youtube]
They were getting the shite hammered out of them, but the fans were like, ya, we paid a lot of money, we're going to enjoy ourselves either way.
Poland adored them in 2012, they threw them a going away party almost. They were one of the highlights of the tournaments. The fans alone were given a huge amount of coverage. That's football. That's how it should be.
Maybe, just maybe, if the English fans/press/players etc enjoyed themselves just a little bit more and expected a little bit less, they might do a bit better.