Republic of Ireland General Discussion Thread 2025 [CLOSED THREAD]

Really not sure what to make of this appointment.

It might be that I'm glad the search is over but it's an appointment that is just a mystery to me. I'm glad it's not some of the names or betting favs like JOS, Lennon, etc we've seen in a while but I'm also not very clued into who he is.

The only real positive here is that he is an international manager with experience of getting teams like us to major tournaments in Iceland albeit a couple of years ago and Jamaica to Copa albeit with a poor group. That said, he got Jamaica past Canada who have been a good team to watch in Copa this month. It's the sort of appointment I've wanted for Ireland to have, a manager with international experience and getting teams to tournaments.

Big job ahead of him.

you have to laugh

because this is embarrassing

no direspect to Íþróttabandalag Vestmannaeyja

In fact I've total respect for what Iceland have managed to do for soccer in their country

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/jan/30/volcano-iceland-national-football-team

but that doesn't make this man suitable for the job.

FAI made a balls of the recruitment

and they will try and feed the line that this was their masterplan all along!!!

to revolutionise the game with an Icelandic manger.

Highly doubt they were waiting till after Copa to appointment Hallgrímsson. Technically resigned as Jamaica manager but would say he probably resigned before he was pushed. Canham likely reached out to him in the last ten days about the job.

He'd want to be mad to resign voluntarily from the Jamaica job, who'll likely be playing at the '26 WC for the Ireland job.

Heimir Hallgrímsson , only a little bit grim, but hopefully chances of a fairy-tale ending?

Happy enough with that to be fair. Good international experience and seems to know how to work with limited teams.

Considering our tough nations league and that we are nowhere near the quality level of WC qualification, its seems like a good time to give this type of appointment a try.

FAI Director of Football Marc Canham commented, “We are thrilled to announce Heimir as our new Head Coach. Earlier this year, we identified Heimir as our number one candidate whose capabilities and experience aligned with our criteria. Not only does Heimir have significant experience at international level with two different countries, but crucially he also has a track record of qualifying for major international tournaments and taking teams up the FIFA World rankings.

“It was also important for us that we recruited a Head Coach who is interested in the overall development of football in Ireland as outlined in the FAI’s football pathways plan and in particular someone who is interested in the development of our underage international teams both of which Heimir is hugely passionate about.

“I also want to thank and pay tribute to John O’Shea and his staff who have guided the team through recent friendly internationals preparing the team impeccably, creating a brilliant environment for the players and achieving positive results on the pitch.”

So apparently this was months in the making. Yeah right. Wondered what happened in April to the so-called appointment being made.

Results are all that matter.

To be fair if there's one FA that's even worse than ours it's Jamaica, this might actually feel like a step up in professionalism for him.

I said on the old thread that I wanted the manger to be someone I never heard of before, because I thought they needed something new rather than the same old names being mentioned.

And boy did they deliver.

He helped bring Iceland to the euro quarter finals and steered them to a world cup as well. He has way more experience than Kenny ever had so **** it let's get behind him

Proper football is back. None of this woke tippy tappy nonsense 🤤

Does Greenwood have an Irish granny?

I'm happy with the appointment. He has plenty of relevant experience, qualifying a tiny nation for the World Cup. That Icelandic team were brutally effective and competitive. There should be no split fanbase, etc.

The Kenny diehards seem wound up today.

Jamaica conceded the equaliser with an own goal with the last kick of the game. Obviously were then gassed for the Extra-Time. 3-1 isn't a bad scoreline in itself but 1-1 in 90 mins was fantastic.

You could put together a 10k-page anthology of speculative articles about this appointment over the past 8 months, appparently based entirely on movements in the betting markets…

He certainly has the right experience for the job. I'm actually glad its an appointment that people weren't expecting because he likely won't have his pals in the media, among the old pros or any of the obvious interest groups in Irish football.