Platini v's R.O.I

[bluedub]

IrishMacca, I just wanted to ask you, you seem like a bloke who takes his football quite seriously, just what would it do for you to win this match? Would it be the equivalent of City winning a Cup, say? I myself don't get all that worked up over international football, and to be quite honest, if we lost tomorrow night I'd only be a little bit disappointed, but how would it be for you in all three scenarios, win, lose or draw? PS I may not agree with you about Stevie Ireland, but I admire your convictions and your willingness to stand up for your views

Would it be the same as City say winning the FA cup, not really, not near the same level. I'd be delighted to see City winning it but if Ireland qualified for the WC, it'd mean having the whole adventure of the WC coming up, the build up to it, it happening, the last wc was amazing, the atmosphere, the craic, mixing with the fans, the pubs, the hosts, everything was amazing and Ireland did very well, you'd have to wonder how well we'da done if Roy Keane was there. Win it maybe? (lol, we can always dream..but ya never know.)

England is much bigger then here, it's much bigger country then Ireland, it's a much bigger population with a host of different type of people. We've 4 millionish people, when it comes to sporting occasions we all get behind our team, be it rugby, football..etc. It unites the whole country, while in England it seems to seperate ye more then ever.
If you ask an Irish Man U fan of Given captaining the Irish side, they'd only be too delighted, nobody deserves it as much as him, he's the best player on the pitch by a mile, while you've got most City fans, disgusted at seeing Rooney captain the English side for a friendly.

I suppose it's got everything to do with the countries different atittudes.

We know that we're going in against better teams and hope that our fight, our spirit and passion, and our unity as our teams with some excellent players like Given, will get us through, while ye go into comps ye think ye're the better team, set yerselves up for failure, and then blame everyone around ye when ye do fail.
England is a team of hyped up individuals while Ireland are a team who'll go out, play together and enjoy every minute of it. When ye think of the last time ye were in a world cup ye think of failure, when we think of it, "Here come the good times" (song) plays. Like tonight in a show looking at the game tomorrow.

We love it, while a lot of ye despise it and resent it.
This country would thrive being in the WC, while ye just get bitter with eachother.
Here it's a united country backing a united team, while with ye, it's a nation looking for fall guys and a group of individuals, only out for themselves.
Thinking about the game..overwhelming nerves. The thought of qualifying, I mean what a feeling, I can imagine the players and fans celebrating like crazy on the pitch and it's such an overwhelmingly good feeling, but the thought of failing, it's heartbreaking.

And ye don't seem to get it.

To see Ireland go to a WC and enjoy that whole experience compared to City winning a cup, means more to me. Now if you were to ask me if I'd rather City win a cup or Ireland win a random friendly, then obviously it'd be City.
There's always different comps for City and always next year, we've been waiting 7 years, and it's a lot of players last chance to go to the WC, I'd have to say I'd pick Ireland every time.

You raise a lot of good points there mate, especially about the difference between England and Ireland when it comes to a World Cup. I have to say that City winning a cup would mean much more to me than Ireland qualifying, but I can fully understand your reasoning for choosing Ireland qualifying instead. Each to their own, I always say. I'll never forget the night we beat Italy in Giants Stadium in 1994, me and my mates were out playing ball for the whole second half, we were just too nervous to watch the second half, but when the final whistle went, EVERYONE came together and had a big party! I was just 15 at the time, and I'll NEVER forget the buzz, it really couldn't have been much better if we'd actually won the whole bloody thing! I remember every house in our estate in Dublin having some sort of nationalistic decoration on it, most were flying tricolours, and we had our window painted with a picture of Jack Charlton holding the World Cup with his flat cap on! That was a different era, and society has changed much since then. Families tended to be quite tight knit back then, and neighbours tended to know and converse with one another. I think that this qualifier could be a unifying experience for us all, especially given the extent of our current economic woes. I appreciate where you're coming from, you're a sound bloke who is passionate about his country and club and more power to your elbow

 

[jamiegrimble]

My humble apologies, I haven’t read the whole thread,just some excerpts. Time and all that. Just an observation of my own. Ireland are similar to City ,in the sense that that they have always had the desire, and fan base, but they lack the right set of players and results on the pitch .I wouldn’t give up on them. If that country made Soccer a priority, before its Gaelic traditions such as Hurling, and their own form of football, I think the youth would click in, and then they might get some world class soccer players. I personally think they are a sleeping giant, and they have an unquestionable fan base.
Come on Ireland. I will be gutted if you don’t make it.

 

[IrishMacca]

My humble apologies, I haven’t read the whole thread,just some excerpts. Time and all that. Just an observation of my own. Ireland are similar to City ,in the sense that that they have always had the desire, and fan base, but they lack the right set of players and results on the pitch .I wouldn’t give up on them. If that country made Soccer a priority, before its Gaelic traditions such as Hurling, and their own form of football, I think the youth would click in, and then they might get some world class soccer players. I personally think they are a sleeping giant, and they have an unquestionable fan base.
Come on Ireland. I will be gutted if you don’t make it.

While I'm all for Ireland qualifying, I love it I do. But I'd take Cork winning an All Ireland any day over City winning a cup.
It's the 3rd most popular sport in the country. GAA is (hurling and gaelic football) the 2 most popular sports in the country. You wont change that. I mean lets not get too ahead of ourselves. Hurling and football over soccer any day.

 

[jamiegrimble]

My humble apologies, I haven’t read the whole thread,just some excerpts. Time and all that. Just an observation of my own. Ireland are similar to City ,in the sense that that they have always had the desire, and fan base, but they lack the right set of players and results on the pitch .I wouldn’t give up on them. If that country made Soccer a priority, before its Gaelic traditions such as Hurling, and their own form of football, I think the youth would click in, and then they might get some world class soccer players. I personally think they are a sleeping giant, and they have an unquestionable fan base.
Come on Ireland. I will be gutted if you don’t make it.

While I'm all for Ireland qualifying, I love it I do. But I'd take Cork winning an All Ireland any day over City winning a cup.
It's the 3rd most popular sport in the country. GAA is (hurling and gaelic football) the 2 most popular sports in the country. You wont change that. I mean lets not get too ahead of ourselves. Hurling and football over soccer any day.

Fair enough.I wondered what the kids thought about all that.It hasnt got outside attention,its a little insular.IMO.

 

[lastmanback]

My humble apologies, I haven’t read the whole thread,just some excerpts. Time and all that. Just an observation of my own. Ireland are similar to City ,in the sense that that they have always had the desire, and fan base, but they lack the right set of players and results on the pitch .I wouldn’t give up on them. If that country made Soccer a priority, before its Gaelic traditions such as Hurling, and their own form of football, I think the youth would click in, and then they might get some world class soccer players. I personally think they are a sleeping giant, and they have an unquestionable fan base.
Come on Ireland. I will be gutted if you don’t make it.

While I'm all for Ireland qualifying, I love it I do. But I'd take Cork winning an All Ireland any day over City winning a cup.
It's the 3rd most popular sport in the country. GAA is (hurling and gaelic football) the 2 most popular sports in the country. You wont change that. I mean lets not get too ahead of ourselves. Hurling and football over soccer any day.

i knew there was something weird and strange about you macca and it's
just come to me now what it was, your a cork man :-)

 

[jake28]

Would prefer 3pts for City than Ireland to qualify....CITY mean so much more to me than Ireland even though i was born and bred there.

 

[bluedub]

My humble apologies, I haven’t read the whole thread,just some excerpts. Time and all that. Just an observation of my own. Ireland are similar to City ,in the sense that that they have always had the desire, and fan base, but they lack the right set of players and results on the pitch .I wouldn’t give up on them. If that country made Soccer a priority, before its Gaelic traditions such as Hurling, and their own form of football, I think the youth would click in, and then they might get some world class soccer players. I personally think they are a sleeping giant, and they have an unquestionable fan base.
Come on Ireland. I will be gutted if you don’t make it.

I think that there has always been a steady stream of good players in Ireland, and that the current squad, though lacking in a lot of places, still has gems in Given, Dunne, Duff and Keane. Compare the 1988 Ireland team to the English team it beat that year - three of the players (Ronnie Whelan, Ray Houghton and John Aldridge) were members of the best English club side of the day, Liverpool, who had the same amount of players in the England team - Barnes, Beardsley and McMahon. Add to that players of the calibre of Pat Bonner, Kevin Moran, Paul McGrath, Chris Hughton and Frank Stapleton, and it could be argued that it wasn't that great a shock that we beat England that day. Man for man there wasn't much in it, but because we had never qualified for a major tournament up to that point, we were regarded as underdogs. True, we rode our luck in that match, but by contrast were desperately unlucky against the USSR and Holland in the subsequent games - we really ought to have reached the semi-finals. A generation grew up on that tournament and Italia '90, the Robbie Keane and Richard Dunne generation, if you like. We will always lack in numbers, even if we concentrated our efforts more on association football as opposed to Gaelic football. But we will never lack in spirit and determination and pride. Look at our similarly small pool of rugby talent - small, but good enough to win the Grand Slam, and include some gems in O'Gara, O'Driscoll, O'Connell, Geordan Murphy and so on, not to mention the Heineken Cup exploits of Munster and Leinster in recent seasons - truly remarkable stuff. I think we will get a football generation in the not too distant future which will be just as good as that of '88 and '90. Hopefully they will give us good times, but in the meantime we have more than a fighting chance against the French

 

[Thanx4Knives]

I was flicking through old youtube clips the other day and found this

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQqVsD_eK-4[/youtube]

What a player he was and how I would kill to have a defender of his quality partnering Dunne tommorrow night.

 

[Padre]

While I'm all for Ireland qualifying, I love it I do. But I'd take Cork winning an All Ireland any day over City winning a cup.
It's the 3rd most popular sport in the country. GAA is (hurling and gaelic football) the 2 most popular sports in the country. You wont change that. I mean lets not get too ahead of ourselves. Hurling and football over soccer any day.

i knew there was something weird and strange about you macca and it's
just come to me now what it was, your a cork man :-)

:-D

 

[IrishMacca]

i knew there was something weird and strange about you macca and it's
just come to me now what it was, your a cork man :-)

:-D

There's just no getting away from it..lol.
Nah really though, we all know it's the true capital. Dublin is just overrated.