Irish 23 Man Squad - The Run In

Pro. F wrote: »

Knockout competitions are a rubbish way of comparing the quality of teams because the sample size is so small that luck becomes a big factor. Even the league format of qualifying groups is so small that luck plays a large part.
It was a poor WC in general and Germany had a very easy route to the final.

The Dutch were unfortunate to face us with Keane while the Germans got the benefit of coming up against us without him, qualifying first out of the group and getting the best path to the final.

If you don't agree with my estimation of the Dutch as the best of that four fine, you can ignore it because it's not that important. The point still stands. Your idea that we probably wouldn't have done any better with Keane is still ridiculous.

No I don't agree with your estimation of the Dutch as that best of the four sides. I wouldn't ignore it either as it's such a black and white error that it'd make me question the validity of anything else you might say.

You say that knockout if a rubbish way of comparing teams. However Portugal flew past Holland in as big a league system as there is on offer for UEFA so there's proof positive if you want it. I don't know how much clearer you want it.

Regarding luck, Russia lost 1 qualifier this term to Slovakia on bad luck. However, they still were far the best team and won the group at a canter in the end. By comparison you don't lose 2 games based on luck (or fail to win any of four against your peers) and then blame bad luck. I don't know how you can't accept that Holland were just not at the races that time around.

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The Keane issue is of course a 'what if' scenario and of course logically having your best players will make your best team. I'm not denying that logic. I'm saying in reality it's not always necessarily so.

In favour of logic look at when Zidane came back to France in '05. The team was completely revitalised by having him back. Anyone could see it. His return basically cost us qualification for WC2006 because up until then France had been struggling to even keep up with the three other average teams in the group.

However there's also many examples contrary to the logic. England 1990 loses their talismanic Captain Brian Robson. The team actually improves without him there.

The point is you can't automatically just assume that a team will be better because 'star player x' is in it. Sometimes it doesn't work out that way for whatever reason.

I believe the majority of advocates for Keanes case it's basically Irish fans harping on about it who realised we were in the weaker bracket of the knockouts and suspect we'd have got to the final with Keane in there. The assumption based on nothing more than wishful thinking.

To be clear I'm not saying we definitely wouldn't have done better with Keane there. I'm just saying the evidence available (eg matches with him and matches without him against top teams) demonstrate that results and performances were on a par either way.

SantryRed wrote: »

But did you not see how Keane single handledly got some of those results in the group stage? He was sensational against Holland and Portugal. We could have at least matched the 1990 team in 2002 with Roy Keane in that team.

One of the most overused and ridiculous terms in football IMO. He was excellent in those games but definitely did not do it single handedly.

Will the announcement be live on TV or Radio does anybody know?

is this live on Rte new now (on saorview)?

kwestfan08 wrote: »

Will the announcement be live on TV or Radio does anybody know?

there'll be a stream apparently

So with Duff in who is the most likely suspect? I've lost track of all the maybes at this point.

kitakyushu wrote: »

So with Duff in who is the most likely suspect? I've lost track of all the maybes at this point.

McGeady? Ken Early said on the radio the other night it was he

kitakyushu wrote: »

So with Duff in who is the most likely suspect? I've lost track of all the maybes at this point.

you'd almost think we had to wait more than 10 mins to find out, or there was a prize for posting it first.


ITS GIVEN. OR DUFF. OR DUNNE. OR KEANE. OR....

Have a feeling it's going to be Fahey.

MickySticks wrote: »

Keith Fahey maybe?

He's not a key player though. Although it wouldn't surprise me if it was and it was the media who decided to use the word "key".

buyer95 wrote: »

McClean is 90-99% certain to be in the squad, on form alone, Traps words

Yeah he is now, but he wasn't when I made the post over a month ago.