Republic of Ireland General Discussion Thread 2026

Festy was dreadful against Hungary. Maybe paying the price.

We've a decent squad for a few years at least but badly need a CM.

All international football except the tiny elite are 1 or 2 players dragging everyone through.

Solid with a few match winners could describe almost everyone.

I like how he got the FAI to move the away fans from behind the goal for the next home game. He has been lucky but he also is trying his best for the team by the looks of it. im more positive about Thursday than some on here.

There’s a slightly worrying level of over confidence creeping into remarks from ex Internationals and pundits in the media. Let’s hope all of that silly noise is not being absorbed by the players and management.
Anyone would think beating teams (ranked higher than us) away from home is a common occurrence.

Reality is it happens once in a blue moon for us.

I give us a decent chance vs the Czechs but no more than that. And being honest we are the underdog in this tie.

And we’ll need key players like Troy, Kelleher and Coleman to produce outstanding performances once again.

It's feast or famine.

I'm under no illusions. They've similar ranking to Hungary who were much better than us for most of the game but we prevailed.

I can see it being a 1-1 draw and hopefully we prevail in the penalties.

The Danes have a bit of an injury crisis in defence so maybe the Macedonians might surprise us.

We were on a good run heading into 2012. Conceded very few goals in the year leading up to it.

I remember Rafa Benitez named us as his dark horse before the tournament! Reckoned we’d get out of the group.

In hindsight, the core group of players in Duff, Keane, Given and Dunne were all past their prime. Had we qualified in 2010 instead of France, I reckon they’d have done much better. Far easier group for a start!

Understandably all the talk of ourselves but how are the Czech's shaping up? I see Patrick Schick scored two the weekend in Leverkusen's 3-3 draw, typical! Soucek played nearly the full game for West Ham v Villa. Two of their defenders Coufal and Hranac with Hoffenheim involved in a 5-0 loss to RB Leipzig and one of theirs at Lyon (Pavel Sulc) scored in a home loss to Monaco. Another defender played the full game in Bologna’s 0-2 home loss to Lazio. Didn’t bother looking at any of their home based players with the like of Slavia Prague, Plzen etc. and unsure if they are carrying any injuries.

Anyone living in CZ or can comment on what the Czech version of Boards or newspapers are saying/predicting? You'd imagine they'd be confident but also wary of our ability to spring an upset. I'd say they reckon if they can shut down Troy they'll do the job while hoping for Schick to carry on the scoring form.

Ya 2010 should have been the big swansong for the 2002 team. 2012 was a tournament too late.

The reality is that stuff creeps through to the players imo, particularly when ex-internationals are jumping on the bandwagon.

We were a bit fortunate to get past Hungary. It was a fabulous feeling of course but the reality is the opposition sh*t themselves in the last 10 minutes and fair play, we were clinical enough to punish them. But we rode our luck.

Our record away from home in competitive games is frankly pretty awful. This bullish over-confidence for a win in Prague seems mis-placed to me.

Let's see how it plays out Thursday evening.

I think we’re pretty significant underdogs on Thursday. Czechs in front of a home crowd where they rarely lose and look to have put their house in order since the draw was made. We have a couple of key injuries too and our midfield is insanely light. They will have no fear of us.

Still though, it’s not impossible for us to get a result. I could see it going to penos which would be almost unbearable!

If we do lose I hope the media aren’t too critical(unless it’s a complete hammering). We’re in this position due to a legendary week in Irish football that nobody saw coming. While we might not be able to maintain it now, I think the camp would be in good spirits going into the much more achievable Euro campaign with HH.

as usual we just need to raise ourselves to be significantly better than the actual sum of our parts.