New thread as the last thread seems to be broken.
but Kelleher had other saves to make apart from the excellent one to his left. He had a few down his throat and one that he scrambled and setup for a rebound to a Portuguese but he squared instead of shot and it went to an Irish man instead
Brilliant thanks. Its almost too good. More emotional than funny.
I guess the discrepancy might be the likes of the weakish shot he fumbled around the 41st minute, which led to a scramble and a succession of corners - definitely goes down as a shot on target, but may not credit him with a save.
You'll never beat the Irish!!!
Ah look, I know it goes without saying….but ….small country, number 2 or number 3 sport, its been chronically mismanaged….we are where we should be. If you are following this team for glory….then that was it last night.
The chances of us beating Hungary are about 30%. The chances of us beating Hungary, and then winning our first qualifier, and then winning a second qualifier where the opponent could be Denmark or Italy or Poland….I'd say where we are now we've about a 5% chance of World Cup qualification.
In fact, we might have as good a chance of qualifying by topping the group.
I got the impression Portugal went through these stages-
..
A shot on target can be a goal, save or it can be blocked by hitting a defender or one of your own players (or a beach ball!).
Last night, there were definitely a few blocked shots in the box although I can distinctly remember Kelleher making more than one save. The one he spilled and then recovered quickly and then he caught a long range effort which maybe gets classified as catching a cross rather than a save. Who knows.
there was the ping pong where O'Shea belted it into (I think) Azaz.
I just hope the players aren't gassed come Sunday. They all looked absolutely wrecked at the end of the match.
I’m still not over how we blew qualifying for Euro ‘92, 3-1 up away to Poland and we know the rest. Had we won that we would have topped the group beating England on goal difference which would have been sweet.
Bonner was awful in that game.
Them old Euros were cutthroat. 1 qualifier from 4 or 5 team groups and no playoff.
That team in 92 was probably the peak for a lot of guys too. Could have done very well if qualified.
If I remember they had a late equaliser in the last game to win the group by 1 pt, we drew with Poland twice which killed us
Being disappointed with only drawing against England and Poland hammering Turkey home and away, those were the days
Turkey were very poor then.
Only got 1 goal and that was penalty against us.
Decade later they came third in world
Substitute Ireland for Portugal and for Ireland Substitute Armenia, Georgia, Luxembourg, hell, any country that doesn’t speak English and you have the reason why we rarely qualify for tournaments.
For some bizarre reason, our players completely disrespect all opposition they don’t recognize from the Champions league. Even much bigger countries whose national sport is football.
Going back to the famous Macedonia 3-2 loss in 1997 did we learn our lesson? No, we doubled down on the arrogance: the worst player in training after that had to wear the “I had a Macedonia” T shirt until the next session. This was a team with Ian Harte as centre back! What happens? We are one minute away from Euro 2000 when a last minute goal puts us out scored by, eh…., Macedonia.
Surely we learned our lesson then? Naw, Keith O’Neill was banished from the squad because it was definitely all his fault.
Time and time again we struggle against what we think are “minnows” when we are the minnows. If HH can coax 80% of the effort in every game that was put in last night he should have a job for life and we would not only qualify for at least every second tournament but we would do well out there.
What is it Giles used to say “honesty of effort is a minimum requirement” Paul O’Connell says something on the line of “hard work requires no talent”. It should be tattooed on players arms before they get selected.
Sorry for the rant. Last night was brilliant but I am getting old waiting for the excitement a finals tournament brings.
Hopefully the U17s do a job now as well
A win on Sunday and we're going full Oakland A's
In all my years watching the Irish - a few games stand out for where we took on top teams and bossed them.
One was vs Russia in 1988. One was away to Holland when we went 2 - 0 up away in 2001, eventually drew 2-2. And the third was away to England, I think it was a 1-1 draw in the end but we just peppered their goal at one point for about 15 minutes, was unreal.
That do or die performance against France in the 2010 playoff.
I know we lost in extra time to Henry's hand but for the 90 minutes we had an energy rarely seen from Ireland.
Yeah that was a great performance.
A generation of Irish players at their peak: Duff, Keane, Given, O’Shea etc. They hit a wall in 2012 when they were just a little too old and got the worst draw of all time.
If we’d qualified in France’s place for South Africa we’d have done a hell of a lot better than they did!
Thats true - another one maybe was the 2002 game against Spain where we lost on peno's; did they have a player sent off, or they ran out of subs and one of their players go injured - anyway I remember we had the upper hand in extra time, but just didnt commit enough
Back then I wouldn't have even seen us as a level below Spain. They were a bit of a basket case then.
Under 17s through on penalties. The Canadian keeper was some prick
U17s into the last 16 after penalties following 1-1 draw against Canada. Switzerland next.
Was there something that happened pre penalties that started all that ?
Last night was my first Ireland match since 1995 (a 3-1 loss to a Toni Polster inspired Austria) 😬
It was also my two young fellas first ever live football match so a memorable night all round.
I went to a bunch of games in the late 80's to mid 90's with my Dad..…he's now unfortunately in the latter stages of dementia so there was a few mixed emotions as I guided my lads to our very good seats on the halfway line (I won 4 tickets in a competition I can't remember entering.....it was the missus's first Ireland match too)
The atmosphere was decent up to kick off but after 10 mins of Portugal knocking the ball around it died a bit..…but it was quickly apparent that they hadn't a clue to break down a low block and the atmosphere ramped back up as Ireland looked dangerous on the break.
Anyway I won't bore the arse off everyone with a minute by minute commentary but some alternative 'highlights' -
Nope. Just him being Pickford-y. The cameras picked it all up.
He even got booked for swinging off the crossbar.
Anyone know if Portugal v Armenia is being shown anywhere? Wouldn't mind having it on the laptop if Rte news were showing it.
If your lads enjoyed it, id suggest bring them to your local league of Ireland team for games if you don't already. Then you will likely prevent them turning into that guy who was crying about Ronaldo getting sent off.
Supporting our own league is the only way we can progress with football in this Country, not flying to other Countries watching ego maniacs like Ronaldo.
