Republic of Ireland General Discussion Thread 2025 [CLOSED THREAD]

I know we've been told to move on, but just to let you all know, I've worked freelance with the FAI and know a few of the staff.

The fella doing the interview is one of the heads of communications and does all media with the senior men's team, he's been with the men's team since Kenny got the gig, but has worked with the FAI in other roles previous, it has always been his job. Anyone giving out about it has literally not been paying any attention for the last 5 years, he's at every press conference and does tons of interviews.

Considering folk couldn't hack Hendrix, McLean, Obamadele or Molubmbfphy, Hallgrimsson will see some extravagant attempts I'm sure

I'm going to stick to calling him Heimir like we're pals

impressive press conference, the fact he is confident and clear in his communication very refreshing after the torturous nature of Kenny’s interviews

Decent little RTE interview with an Icelandic journo here;

the dirty secret of the Kenny era was that it was terrible to watch. Playing out from the back when unable to do so is extremely uncomfortable to witness. I honestly support the effort to do so but it was a mitigated disaster

we might be talking about this lad a lot over the coming years. 2 worldies in a forthnight. I dare say the window dressing exercise of Hallgrimsson going to dalymount would have been better if relocated to turners cross

I'd agree.

Plenty of good football was played.

Trap's era was a step below.

Exactly this.

I was never enthralled.

Way too many pointless passes in our own box, go one behind, get desperate and go long anyway.

MON **** the bed midway through that campaign. Given the start we had drawing away to Serbia and beating Austria away we really should have topped that group. The performance away to Austria was good with Wes showing his class.

Losing Coleman didn't help really. Probably made MON more cautious but even when we went 2-0 up against Moldova before 20mins, if I'm not mistaken they hadn't conceded two goals in a game that early until then. Rather than go for a third and fourth we sat back and defended. Believe Harry Arter did his dying swan impression to get someone sent off late in the game.

Then that playoff game I'd say broke him. I know we had to score two goals in that second half but MON went full harakiri with those half time changes. Gave Eriksson free reign to finish us off.

As for 2018 itself, I think that's a year in football he'll never want to remember. Thought we were getting some change up as he used 352 in some friendlies and even played Callum O'Dowda as the attacking midfielder of the trio.

Whether Rice leaving played a part in it or being the first competitive game since the 5-1 he went straight defensive against Wales. Played a crippled Walters up front in a 442 with Robinson and Wales spanked us. We made Ethan Ampadu look like Ruud Gullit that night. After that he went ultra defensive till he was sacked.

he could just pretend that it gets lost in translation and numb out

It's the Georgia game away that I remember as the turning point (although we'd already drawn at home with Austria and Wales at that point, now that I look).

We went 1-0 up after about 3 minutes and then tried to defend the lead instead of pushing on. Of course they equalised and then we didn't get going again. This 2 years before Kvaratskhelia had made his debut for Georgia, remember. Really should've pushed on and beat them.

We still finished 2nd in a group with some decent teams in it despite dropping the ball several times. We'd kill for that now.

Then the away playoff game against Denmark was possibly the worst game of football I can remember watching. A fascinating tactical battle between the Irish approach of hoofing it forward and the Danish approach of passing it around the back for a bit, and then hoofing it forward. The average bottom of the table clash in the Irish First Division is better.

And the second leg. I really don't understand what happened here. 2-1 down at Half Time and he empties the midfield. I think he left Hendrick, who's not exactly known for his holding ability, as the only central midfielder on the pitch. I guess Hoolahan was supposed to help him out? But Hoolahan had only played 1 or 2 games as a deep center mid in his Ireland career as far as I remember. And then to round it out, he failed to tie Rice down with a competitive cap.

The other worldie that Did you smash it was talking about.

It's not that the results were bad when looked at retrospectively. No the results were fine.

It's that it could've and arguably should have been better. The start we had, the ability in the team, the confidence - they were there. We should've won the group and automatically qualified. But MON seemed to lose his confidence mid way through.