So with England’s miserable defeat to Croatia and NI’s expected exit last night and the poor aul Scots losing to the iTalians last week it obviously means none of the “home” nations, as some call ‘em, will be taking part in Euro 2008.
It’s a sad state of affairs really. What has happened to soccer on these islands at all?
While the Scots and NI played quite well throughout the qualification round they just weren’t good enough at the end of the day. Wales are sadly just shite, sorry Rhys. In the case of Ireland (ROI) and England I believe there is little excuse for not qualifying. England certainly have good enough players to create a strong team and in Ireland’s case while our players are hardly world beaters we had a very easy group with only 1 decent team (the Krauts) to compete against so failure to qualify from our group is inexcusable!
It’s difficult to know what needs to happen to turn things around. Without talented soccer players it will always be difficult but at the present time our biggest problems seems to be with management and with the tired old attitude of “ah but sure we’re a small country …”.
Steve McClaren and Terry Venebles are now available but I really hope to fuck that John Giles (who has been given the task of interviewing prospective ROI team managers) & team come up with a good solution this time after the failure of the last 3 management choices!
This summer it looks like I’ll be supporting Antonio’s team but the tournament will hold little interest for me as none of the 5 teams (6 if you include Finland) I would normally lend my support to will be at the tournament other than as spectators.
I’m beginning to think we should be focussing on other easier sports!
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