Thursday, February 08, 2007

Ireland 2 San Marino 1

Everyone is being tough on our poor manager Steve Staunton and the FAI.

Let's get real in many ways...

1. We won. It wasn't a great performance but we were clearly a much better side and San Marino's strategy was all about avoiding being scored against - they worked hard and successfully on defense.

2. We are a slightly better than average international side, but nothing exceptional. We are still in a mental state since the exceptional performance in Italia 90. In a sense it's like England feeling for 40 years that they are World Cup winning class since 1966.

3. We've driven out Jack Charlton, Mick McCarthy, Brian Kerr and now we want rid of Steve Staunton. Were they all so very bad?

Let's stop looking for heads and support and build on what we have.

PS...On radio yesterday I loved one Dublin woman when asked on the street if she knew where San Marino was...."I'm not sure, but I know it's not the place near Fairview!"

3 comments:

Paul O'Mahony (Cork) said...

But it's so pleasant to have a scapegoat... someone to blame for all the ill. The Irish team get spoken about as if they were a personification of (1) your employer (2) your family (3) all those of whom you are envious

John of Dublin said...

Hi Omani. Yes we love moaning.

I was just thinking back to the shock on Jack Charlton's face when he saw the huge crowds out to welcome the team back from Italia 90 - similar to the euphoria if we had won the World Cup itself. He kept saying "But we didn't win".

Now we have lost the run of ourselves and can't even celebrate if we win an international game.

I know San Marino are amateurs but a win is a win. It was on their territory and the whole team were concentrating on defending well and deserve some respect. We had so many chances to score, timing a bit off, we can and will do better.

Anonymous said...

John, this is exactly what I was thinking. I remember a time when we would never have booed the Irish team no matter what the result. We stood by them and I loved that about the Irish supporters because it was so different from everyone else.

Now we've even got the nasty tabloid hate pieces with doctored photos of the manager...and this is when we win!