Republic of Ireland General Discussion Thread 2026

It’s Andorra. It was a 4-0 thrashing v Andorra.

I recall questioning Crawford’s management of the U21s before on here and was rounded on with a stout defence on his behalf. Back then I was critical of the style of play. For me practical football is important especially at senior level but for underage players and teams I felt it was also important for development of players and players expressing themselves to build confidence. The stout defence put up on Jim Crawford’s behalf at the time was that the results were deemed respectable. 4-0 loss to Andorra ain’t respectable.

yes they will. The whole idea is for a group of teams from the 4 pots play off against each other.

So its neither of what I said. and the winner of Pot 2 Vs Pot 3 has to play another winner from Pot 1 Vs Pot 4?

Sounds like its not in your interest to be in pot 1 then cos two teams (say Italy and Turkey) could batter their Pot 4 opponents and then have the "reward" of playing each other in the final?

Edit: Nvm. misunderstood you. So its essentially seeded twice

Think the edit addresses.

The reward for winning our pot 2 game will likely be a pot 1 team

yes and that final has a 50/50 shot of being at home. Well find out in Thursday’s draw if the possible final is at the Aviva or not

We've had nothing to celebrate since 2016 really so it's pent up energy being released.

Also the fact we were down and out not so long ago so it was unexpected. Also we almost never beat teams above us. We normally grind out a 1-1 draw.

The Kenny era was particularly depressing also.

But yeah reaching playoffs used to be the minimum we'd expect.

Always the miseryguts.

Understand what is being celebrated first maybe?

Before Portugal we thought we were out. From that point the achievement has been massive and well worthy of the celebrations.

Teams have to play a set number of games each year. If the two losers didn't play they'd have to organise friendlies so it's just easier to do it this way. Same happened in 2020 but we ended up playing England instead because the game against Bosnia couldn't go ahead and England had a friendly against NZ that didn't go ahead I believe because of COVID.

Future Kermit - July 18th 2026.

"We beat no-marks Panama and Australia in the group, scraped home against Canada in the L32, needed an own-goal to get past Morocco and then won penalty shootouts in the QF/SF after being totally outplayed. If we don't win this final tomorrow then its all been for nothing, and a total embarrassment with the fans cheering"

Maybe your right and the celebrations were a bit over the top but remember it was only a few weeks ago we were facing the humiliation of finishing bottom of the group behind Armenia.
In September I thought it would be years before we even got a sniff of a play-off.

It’s good to be back to where we feel we belong which is second place in a qualifying group, we only ever topped a group once before courtesy of Gary Mackay so second place is about our level.

England's U17 lost 4-0 to Austria. These things happen at underage.

True!

Also, they start, and end with A, and have 7 letters.

. . . . . and their opponents are all ending up looking like clones who have been to Turkey, but not for the kebabs!

16/17 year olds are a bit different to 20/21 year olds

The Spanish and the Dutch didnt even qualify…that doesnt happen at the older age groups

Yup U21s is that little bit more than just a development team. Your U19s and below are full on development teams. Heck you don't even have to be Irish to play in some of the games whereas come U21s things change and it starts to get more competitive. With teams having players who play regularly at senior level with clubs.

I think Crawford has done well overall. 2021 I wouldn't count as he took over with three games to go and lost our best players when Kenny got promoted. 2023 got into the playoffs but under performed as Israel were nothing special. They were there for the taking but Crawfords biggest flaw is he's too pragmatic at times. 2025 I believe refereeing decisions in both games against Norway cost us automatic qualification even as Italy only finished top by 3pts with Norway beating us to 2nd on H2H.

This is his third full campaign and not just because of last night but you'd hope that the FAI do consider a fresh start with underage teams. Mahon will be with the U19s ten years next April and similar O'Brien will have ten years as U17s manager next April too.