Could a United Ireland soccer team win the World Cup?

Xterminator

As the question asks, if we had a bit more depth to the squad would it be possible?

I mean our rugby team is all 4 provinces, and I think they have an outside chance of winning the Rugby world cup.

Maybe Keith Gillepse when he's on form could supply some ammo from the right wing. Magilton, Healy and Hughes might all improve our current squad.

I think our little island can achive most things, but if we halve our strength, then we really can only ever hope to qualify for these big events , not win them!

X

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"Man, you go through life, you try to be nice to people, you struggle against the urge to punch ‘em in the face, and for what?! For some pimply little puke to treat you like dirt unless you're on a team. Well I'm better than dirt ... well most kinds of dirt. I mean, not that fancy, store-bought dirt. That stuff’s loaded with nutrients. I …I can't compete with that stuff."
-Moe Szyslak

Paleface

Indeed a united Ireland might have a better chance of reaching the big competitions on a regular basis but it wouldn't increase our chances of winning anything by much at all. Ireland are no where near the standard that teams like France, Argentina & Italy, to name just a few. It was pure luck that Holland didnt score two or three goals against Ireland. If that had happened then Ireland wouldn't be going anywhere.
Luck might scrape you through one match but not through a World Cup.

Xterminator

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Paleface:
Indeed a united Ireland might have a better chance of reaching the big competitions on a regular basis but it wouldn't increase our chances of winning anything by much at all. Ireland are no where near the standard that teams like France, Argentina & Italy, to name just a few. It was pure luck that Holland didnt score two or three goals against Ireland. If that had happened then Ireland wouldn't be going anywhere.
Luck might scrape you through one match but not through a World Cup.</font>

I see your point, but i have to point out that the world cup qualifiers are not decided on 1 match.

We went to Holland and played them off the pitch. we then went to Portugal, and I'm not sure there are many teams in the world who would escape Lisbon with a result, but we did.

We beat the minor teams in our group against whom we normally struggle, and then played both Portugal, and Holland on our own patch, and took 4 points.

Sure our 10 man team rode it's luck last week, but you could equally say we showed our character!

X

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"Man, you go through life, you try to be nice to people, you struggle against the urge to punch ‘em in the face, and for what?! For some pimply little puke to treat you like dirt unless you're on a team. Well I'm better than dirt ... well most kinds of dirt. I mean, not that fancy, store-bought dirt. That stuff’s loaded with nutrients. I …I can't compete with that stuff."
-Moe Szyslak

Paleface

Point taken. Back to your original question. Combining the Republic and the North still doesn't leave Ireland with a consistant goalscorer. We aint winning a World Cup without a Michael Owen or a Thierry Henry. Its players like that who deserve World Cup medals.

Bob the Unlucky Octopus

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Paleface:
Point taken. Back to your original question. Combining the Republic and the North still doesn't leave Ireland with a consistant goalscorer. We aint winning a World Cup without a Michael Owen or a Thierry Henry. Its players like that who deserve World Cup medals. </font>

Fair point. Having said that...France won the last WC without a single (effective) marksman up front. If you play with 1 up front and three breaking from midfield the way they did, provided you get goals from around the park, history shows that it's possible.

Though my answer to the topic question would have to be...no.

Dustaz

There strikers werent effective but for the most part they did play with 2 up front. The fact they had henry on the wings and zidane in the pocket helped of course
Even with a united team we would not have a prayer of competing with the current French side (ok, their defense is aging, but there is no end in sight of talent coming thru for their mf and attack).

Xterminator

When Henry joined Arsenal, he was not a consistant goal scorer.
He was a winger turned forward (eg Daminan Duff). I seem to remember him being very inconsistant, blowing chances etc. But he had the potential to become a great player.

Both Duff and Robbie Keane (both played and earned World Championship medals with Kerr) have the potential to become an Owen or dare I say a Shearer!

Do you not think one of them might come good by ther summer?

X

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"Man, you go through life, you try to be nice to people, you struggle against the urge to punch ‘em in the face, and for what?! For some pimply little puke to treat you like dirt unless you're on a team. Well I'm better than dirt ... well most kinds of dirt. I mean, not that fancy, store-bought dirt. That stuff’s loaded with nutrients. I …I can't compete with that stuff."
-Moe Szyslak

Paleface

They might come good but I don't think they are in the same natural finishing class as Owen or Henry . If you give those guy a sniff of the goal its good night. A couple of blatant misses later and Keane knocks one in. Hes in the position to improve under O'Leary. If he can't do it day in day out in the premiership, what chance does he have on an international level!

PiE

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Bob the Unlucky Octopus:
...and three breaking from midfield the way they did...</font>

We're also missing a coupla players who could do that...

b20uvkft6m5xwg

W/ the bigger pool of players theres a greater statistical chance that for instnce a George Best or Pat Jennings may pop up, but the unification is not exactly a dream ticket to the capturing the Jules Rimet

Having said that, FIFA are very keen to disband the 4 unions in the uk and unite them as one. Also w/ political developments and demographic change we may well see united Ireland Footie team and the other 3 unions as a british team!!

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80p.
SAVE CHIP !!

[This message has been edited by 80project.com (edited 06-09-2001).]

Victor

Possibly a pipe dream. Remember you are only expanding your player base incrementally not exponentially.

See the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Soccer Rankings. The Republic (3.8 million, #25 638 points) is half-way between France (59 million, #1, 812 points) and Northern Ireland (1.6 million, # 107, 411 points). Even if the better of the Northern players that joined the squad brought us half-way closer again, we are still left with perhaps 10 better teams (6 European) to beat (or rather in any competition you only half to beat about half of them).

Based on population, Denmark (5.3 million #18 - 663 points) would be a good marker of where we might end up (ok they have been fairly good in the past - that must have been why we postponed that game).

What we would need is a group of truely world class players - after all that is what it is all about.

Ok, slate me if you want but do other national sports detract from the pool of players.

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Kill, kill, kill the laser mice.

Xterminator

I agree there Victor. All the talented athletes in for instance the GAA.

Of course they are entitled to their choice, but statistically, if you examine the no's of irish poeple who bother with sport, and how many play soccer, as opposed to GAA, you have to say we would have twice as many world class players if the entire pool of talent were soccer players.

X

Trojan

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Xterminator:
I agree there Victor. All the talented athletes in for instance the GAA.

Of course they are entitled to their choice, but statistically, if you examine the no's of irish poeple who bother with sport, and how many play soccer, as opposed to GAA, you have to say we would have twice as many world class players if the entire pool of talent were soccer players.

X</font>

Imagine how we'd do in rugby if you GAA boggers and soccer poofters weren't around!

I heard the figure of 20,000 bandied around by some IRFU dude, that's the total number of Irish people who play rugby: including schools & underage! Compare that to NZ who have 1/2 their population, or around 2 million (that's around right, yeah?)

Not many really, is it?

England still has by far the most rugby players with something silly like 6 million or so.

All those figures are off the top of my head and are at least 3 years old, but they're relatively accurate afaicr...

Al.

b20uvkft6m5xwg

Heres one for everyone to ponder as oppossed to looking @ the rate of ppl playing GAA or rugby & not soccer in Ireland......

Due to the recent economic upturn this has obviously had an impact on the amount of ppl emmigrating abroad.

Does this then mean that the future numbers of ppl claiming direct Irish decent in some of the stronger football playing nations like throughtout the uk will radically decline.
Although the number isn't as high as it was @ one stage, there still is a significant proportion of players born abroad, claiming Irish citizenship through descent.

Additionally if the sport doesn't start developing domestically and improving some of the academy type structures, we could be in for some lean times ahead

What dy'all think of that 1

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80p.
SAVE CHIP !!