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Why do we have a soccer team?

SmartinMartin

Let's face it, we're really sh1te at it and it costs ridiculous amounts of money, so why bother?
(I feel the same about the army, but that's another thread.)

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FanadMan

Izabella Thankful Poetry wrote: »

Go wan away you miserable bollix. We lost 1 match and are still top of the group ffs.

There's always one. Not you Jacksie, btw......the twonk you quoted!

Duffy the Vampire Slayer

uchimata83 wrote: »

I thought I'd answered it, but then you accused me of abusing you?

If you mean "Why do we have a soccer team"
Arguably the third most popular sport in Ireland behind Gaelic football and hurling.
The most popular sport in the world, with the highest participation numbers by miles.
Significantly lower risk of serious injury than other field sports.
It's a good way to socialise and stay fit.
Almost no barriers to entry

I suspect you knew all the above but work away, I've entertained you enough

It's definitely more popular than hurling in Ireland. Hurling is very much a regional sport that isn't played in huge areas of the country.

twowheelsonly

Stopitwillya wrote: »

So we can give some English lads not good enough to play with their home country the opportunity to play international football.

10 out of the starting 11 tonight were Irish born. The only exception was James Collins who was born and raised in Coventry but to Irish parents and he also played U19 and U21 for Ireland.
Some people might say that McClean and Duffy are English as well, being from Derry. They might say it..... but they wouldn't say it to their face !! :P

The rest of tonight's team were from Bray, Donegal, Dublin (3), Cork (2) and Galway.

Duffy the Vampire Slayer

Arghus wrote: »

I'm going to call absolute bull**** on the methodology of that survey. There's rakes of schoolkids every day out there kicking a ball around, I've yet to see a game of gaelic football happening in a schoolyard. I'd love to know how they arrived at those figures.

Maybe, in terms of official "games" with legitimate teams there may be more adults playing GAA regularly, but if you look at the whole picture from kids kicking a ball around to people playing five a side, soccer is miles, miles, ahead.

It really requires grass to play. I played it all the time in school, but we had a pitch we could use. A schoolyard wouldn't cut it.

NIMAN

twowheelsonly wrote: »

10 out of the starting 11 tonight were Irish born. The only exception was James Collins who was born and raised in Coventry but to Irish parents and he also played U19 and U21 for Ireland.
Some people might say that McClean and Duffy are English as well, being from Derry. They might say it..... but they wouldn't say it to their face !! :P

The rest of tonight's team were from Bray, Donegal, Dublin (3), Cork (2) and Galway.

That would be stretching things quite a bit methinks.

s7ryf3925pivug

hide n' seek and chasing have high participation rates but are chronically underfunded.

Dj Stiggie

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

This is not true.

Participation;

https://www.joe.ie/sport/gaa-most-popular-652397

Gaelic football and hurling are lumped in together there, hardly makes it fair.

[Deleted User]

Arghus wrote: »

Ah, look, we all know soccer is the most popular sport in the country.

Even if we - God help us - take Boards as a microcosm of Irish society, just look:

GAA forum - 611,000 posts
Rugby Forum - 1.3 million posts
Soccer Forum - 3.7 million posts

While that definitely is an interesting stat, surely GAA is more popular than Rugby. I say that as a Leinster season ticket holder.

DarTipp

our soccer team is limited and to be within a game of qualifying for the euros which we would have taken from the beginning as we were 2 years ago in the 2nd play off game v Denmark for the 18 WC, we're similar to wales Scotland and NIR where we know we're crap but the fans are great supporters

Necro

Deleted User wrote: »

While that definitely is an interesting stat, surely GAA is more popular than Rugby. I say that as a Leinster season ticket holder.

Is there as much to discuss though tbf. Like there's threads for most of the major leagues in both Soccer and Rugby, before you even mention international whereas vast swathes of club GAA barely gets mentioned here.

And it's not wrong per se, there's just infinitely more things to discuss in rugby and soccer in comparison.

Greyfox

DarTipp wrote: »

but the fans are great supporters

Or just eejits. Football/Soccer is the greatest sport in the world but watching Ireland play would turn you off football for life

Mad_maxx

We expect too much, we have a tiny pick, smaller than Wales as they only have rugby to compete against, soccer here has rugby and GAA

[Deleted User]

What "soccer team" are you referring to OP?

Few in this country last I checked.

Donnielighto

Arghus wrote: »

Ah, look, we all know soccer is the most popular sport in the country.

Even if we - God help us - take Boards as a microcosm of Irish society, just look:

GAA forum - 611,000 posts
Rugby Forum - 1.3 million posts
Soccer Forum - 3.7 million posts

That's not representative though. There are more stories in soccer due to the number of foreign teams people are interested in. Talking about something isn't playing it.

Donnielighto

Liam O wrote: »

What "soccer team" are you referring to OP?

Why the quotation marks? They're redundant.

Franz Von Peppercorn II

SmartinMartin wrote: »

So I'm a miserable bollix cos the Irish soccer team are sh1te? lol.
Dunno why the rugby comparison, at least we've actually won something in that sport. Really though, why is the State wasting huge amounts of money on this rubbish?

It’s largely self funding.

What is it with this forum and the hatred of sports y’all don’t like.

Mad_maxx

MrAbyss wrote: »

The reason is Soccer is by a mile the most popular sport in this country. Also, unlike the GAA aside from some unfunny American screaming about hurling for Google Ad Sense points, the GAA DOES NOTHING for Ireland on the World Stage and never will.

The FAI is a rotten organization who only cares about the National Team and living off that. This is why the LOI clubs are on the verge of leaving them to form a new league.

We have a crop of fantastic young player in the wings and brilliant future manager in Stephen Kenny.

The Ireland rugby team will be coming home in a few days and I don't see you complain about that.

Soccer isn't the most popular sport in this country

GAA is and by a mile, kick arounds with mates don't count

Wrongway1985

twowheelsonly wrote: »

Some people might say that McClean and Duffy are English as well, being from Derry. They might say it..... but they wouldn't say it to their face !! :P

I'd recommend you ask for an atlas for Christmas.

Seamu$

There are 182 teams who are even worse than us! Why do they have soccer teams?!

https://www.fifa.com/fifa-world-ranking/ranking-table/men/#

Donnielighto

SmartinMartin wrote: »

Why is it "a horrible thread to start"? It's a genuine question. We are really REALLY ****e at soccer and I don't understand why so much money is thrown at it in this country, hence the original question.

What makes Ireland that bad at soccer, results or style of play or something else.

How much money is being thrown at it.

Answer then and you might not be on the wind.

[Deleted User]

Donnielighto wrote: »

Why the quotation marks? They're redundant.

Using the language the OP used. The sport he's referring to is run by the Football Association of Ireland. No mention of Soccer, be like he said 'Why do we have a Rugger team in this country' or 'why do we have a Gah team in this country'.

Mad_maxx

Mysterypunter wrote: »

So Denmark can qualify for major tournaments

Denmark doesn't have GAA or rugby hoovering up talent

We are not that bad, Scotland has the same population as us, rugby is perhaps marginally smaller in Scotland than Ireland but no GAA there yet they are worse than us

[Deleted User]

SmartinMartin wrote: »

Let's face it, we're really sh1te at it and it costs ridiculous amounts of money, so why bother?
(I feel the same about the army, but that's another thread.)

They should put a tax on watching sport from other countries and pay for Ireland Football that way.. The money spent on Liverpool/Man U etc would easily support the Irish Football.

Thelonious Monk

I always loved the football team since watching Euro 88 as a 7 year old with my Dad when we beat England. I was at the home game V Swiss recently and it was good craic as I was drunk, but since 2002 basically we've been absolutely atrocious for the most part. It's depressing af.
Although I like to watch rugby, I never felt an affiliation with the Irish team and I don't really care if they win or lose that much. I suppose it's the whole southside heino goys thing just puts me off them.

yourdeadwright

Why bother with Rugby then ?

Both side have never made it past a world cup quarter final,

How many teams in the world take Rugby serious 10 at a push and the soccer team has made it as far in a world cup as them lot.,

So why bother with Rugby ?

Oh and on top of that the Rugby team get the lads from the other six counties , the soccer team would be much better if they had the same option ,

The Moldy Gowl

Liam O wrote: »

What "soccer team" are you referring to OP?

Few in this country last I checked.

This soccer/football thing is the most annoying thing, and you only ever see it online.

It's generally soccer in this country, as well as a few others. It's to differentiate from the gaa.

And this is coming from someone who goes to mathes every week and I use the 2 terms and everyone understands.

The Moldy Gowl

[Deleted User] wrote: »

They should put a tax on watching sport from other countries and pay for Ireland Football that way.. The money spent on Liverpool/Man U etc would easily support the Irish Football.

Call it a plastic tax so it goes unnoticed as well.

valoren

The Euros and the World Cup are really to my mind extended tournaments. The qualification is classed as a separate tournament but it is really the group stage for the group stage.

The 'finals' are the sexy culmination of those tournaments and are condensed into a month at the end of each tournament cycle. The teams who progress are the cream of the crop.

The initial cycle of qualification groups are part of the tournament proper and as such we always participate in the Euro and the World Cup tournaments. That's why we have a soccer team i.e. to participate in international tournaments. Sure we mostly don't progress from the "initial" group stage of the tournaments but given our level of play progressing to the finals will always be a major achievement in itself. In effect, if, for example, you get capped for Ireland playing against Georgia in a WC qualification match then to my mind you've played in a World Cup. If you scored then you've scored in the World Cup. With that in mind, the Irish team have won 3 games in Euro 2020. We have scored 6 goals in Euro 2020. If we were losing all 8 games and almost never scoring and doing so at considerable expense then calls for the actual need to have a team would pertinent.

The Moldy Gowl

valoren wrote: »

The Euros and the World Cup are really extended tournaments. The 'finals' are the culmination of those tournaments and are condensed into a month at the end of each tournament cycle. The teams who progress are the cream of the crop.

The initial cycle of qualification groups are part of the tournament proper and as such we always participate in the Euro and the World Cup tournaments. That's why we have a soccer team i.e. to participate in international tournaments. Sure we mostly don't progress from the "initial" group stage of the tournaments but given our level of play progressing to the finals will always be a major achievement in itself. In effect, if, for example, you get capped for Ireland playing against Georgia in a WC qualification match then to my mind you've played in a World Cup. If you scored then you've scored in the World Cup. With that in mind, the Irish team have won 3 games in Euro 2020. We have scored 6 goals in Euro 2020. If we were losing all 8 games and almost never scoring and doing so at considerable expense then calls for the actual need to have a team would pertinent.

I get what your saying in the first paragraph but that's really clutching at straws.

Church on Tuesday

SmartinMartin wrote: »

So I'm a miserable bollix cos the Irish soccer team are sh1te? lol.
Dunno why the rugby comparison, at least we've actually won something in that sport. Really though, why is the State wasting huge amounts of money on this rubbish?

Because it's hugely popular and the biggest sport in the world.