Professional Soccer versus Club Gaa Team at Gaelic football: who would win??

chalad07 · 19-02-2009 09:09PM #1

Okay – this is totally hypothetical question that my friends and I have argued about manys a time. A bit of craic really, nothing too serious! It’s funny because people tend to be totally polarised with their answers. The split at the minute is 50/50. So just wondering if anyone would care to give an opinion?

Question: Would Chelsea F.C., after 2 weeks of Gaelic football training, beat an average Gaelic side in a game of Gaelic Football?

Clarification: For Chelsea we just picked a random (but good) soccer team. For the Gaelic Team the example we used was Moville Gaelic football team from Innishowen in Co. Donegal (one of the lads played for them). If you’re not familiar with Moville just choose you’re nearest decent club football team. We’re not talking Kerry or Dublin here against Chelsea, just the average GAA team from down the road,

(Mods please feel free to move this if you don’t think it’s in the right place. I couldn’t really think where else to put it)

li@mo · 19-02-2009 09:12PM

GAA lads would win it easily

Orizio · 19-02-2009 09:54PM

Chelsea.

Daysha · 19-02-2009 10:15PM

Chelsea by miles.

Pride Fighter · 19-02-2009 11:20PM

li@mo wrote: »

GAA lads would win it easily

This

smashey · 20-02-2009 12:07AM

Moville?

You could at least have used St. Eunans or Gweedore.

HeLlDoItHeCrAzY · 20-02-2009 01:20AM

I'd imagineyour local gaa club, no matter how big or small would be at an immediate advantage. Aswell as that, the pride would undoubtedly play a major factor.. give me one man who wouldnt be scarred for life if they were to lose to a bunch of panzees who play that foreign sport!!.. Not esplicitly my opinion, but I think we can all take for granted that that thought would be the undertone of the match..

on the other hand, I dont care if your all ireland club champions, your gonna have a few weak links when it comes to fitness, stamina, strength, etc.. and even touch.. these guys are professional athletes, trained by some of the finest coaches in the world, essentially 5 or 6 days a week.. the only people that will last with them would be your county panelists, if any and the odd few fitness fanatics, and even they will find it hard. Luckily though the football game is shorter than the soccer game so fingers crossed there.

Fitness though is a strange one.. after all just because your an olympic sprinter doesnt mean you can swim worth a damn.. different sports mean different muscles..different movements.. whose to say a soccer player wouldnt be dead after ten minutes. Certainly I think this would be more evident in hurling.. They wouldnt exactly be used to constant movement and sprinting.. no time to stand round with the hands on the hips!! I know i wouldnt last too long in a rugby match..

Tactics!... think tactics.. soccer players wouldnt know how to play the different positions, they would be lost and by the time they figured it out it could be too late

soccer players are skilled at kicking their ball, but the gaa football is different in make up, and size.. and bar the goaly, they would have little experience kicking the ball out of their hands.. this would make scorin very difficult, and indeed not many frees would be converted. without scores how could they win?? i would like to see if they could even manage one shot on target??

finally i believe it would come down to aggression, and psychology. soccer players would simply not be used to the kinda of physicalness that dominates the sport, mind you though, despite your pre conceived ideas, these lads are no whooses.. they are strong and I'm sure they could adjust, and if the soccer lads were to win i think that would be the key. And psychology!.. like i said, foreign sport!!!! english team!!! panzees!!!

Chances improve with rank... aFTER thinking this over, id have to believe that pretty much any half decent senior or intermediate football team would pull the victory.. To be honest, I have my doubts whether or not the likes of chelsea could put away even the likes of a junior, or even junior b team.. id have to believe there only chance would lie against an underage side..

dceire · 20-02-2009 01:23AM

Thats like saying who'd win in a lawnmower race between lawnmower racers and F1 drivers!

Anyway it doesn't matter Man Utd would win!

Orizio · 20-02-2009 01:25AM

dceire wrote: »

Thats like saying who'd win in a lawnmower race between lawnmower racers and F1 drivers!

Anyway it doesn't matter Man Utd would win!

A rather unfortunate comparison. You do realise you are on the GAA forum don't you?

Daysha · 20-02-2009 02:58AM

dceire wrote: »

Thats like saying who'd win in a lawnmower race between lawnmower racers and F1 drivers!

....not really

Anyway I can't even believe there's disagreement about this. On one side you've got some of the best FOOTBALLERS in the world playing gaelic FOOTBALL. On the other of amateurs not even good enough to make their own county team.

I know they're different sports but you can't say there aren't similarities. If they have any sense they'll keep the ball on the ground as much as possible and the GAA players won't have a hope.

And then you've got professionals used to playing 90 mins of football a week and training 5 days a week, compared to 60 mins matches every once in a while and training once a week.

Positionin will be no problem either. You've still got the basic defenders (full back), defensive midfielder (half back), midfielders, attacking midfielders (half forward) and strikers (full forward).

Movement and tactics wise the soccer players would be absolutely all over them. If they can make room for themselves on a soccer pitch, can you imagine what they'd be like on a GAA pitch!?!

The ONLY advantage the GAA players would have is when their player has the ball. Thats one man of 15 that has an advantage over his marker. What about everywhere else on the pitch. The soccer players would be quicker and stronger.

And then you say the soccer players have two whole weeks to get used to problematic areas like the tackle, the pitch size, and kicking the ball from hand (is that even a major problem?)

Seriously lads, the GAA players wouldn't even score a point.

pfpwcl · 20-02-2009 04:14AM

Local club team by far, can ye remember the ireland team playing gaelic football in the team camp before one of the world cups. they looked so bad, and a lot of them would have played gaelic football when they were younger. Im not saying ireland are as good as chelsea or united but it still gives you an indication.

IIMII · 20-02-2009 09:22AM

The soccer players would need to learn how to catch and handle the ball, and kicking from your hand isn't quite the same as kicking from the ground. Plus you have the obvious weight difference in the ball, with the penalty spot further from the keeper with smaller goal mouth.. That's before you even get into the physicality of the game. And the poor defenders would take a bit of getting used to man marking without the off-side rule.. There's also the fact that soccer is played at a less frenetic pace because of it's zonal nature, wheras in football they might curse being pulled all over the place to mark their man..

premierstone · 20-02-2009 12:03PM

No offence OP and im not trying to be smart or anything but this thread is completely pointless and futile there are so many things that make it impossible to give a qualified answer for what its worth if the Gaelic Fottball team were anyway competent, fit and had a asstute manager they would murder them I mean who would play in such pivotal positions for Chelsea as midfield, Centre Back and Full Back??

BTW deise what club team only trains once a week, jaysus is it any wonder Waterford football is strugling :P

corkhero · 20-02-2009 12:07PM

The soccer team.

Maybe they wouldnt beat kerry but definitely a local club team.

If the regular gaelic football wasnt working out for them, they could just play soccer and the gaa team wouldnt come near them

Yavvy · 20-02-2009 12:50PM

It would be a tight match however if you pitted a local team against say... Man City Man city might have a better chance due to the irish lads..Im sure they have some experiance of GAA.

If you were to take the top twenty Irish lads from Uk soccer and pit them against a local GAA team the local GAA team might struggle.

Tyrone or Kerry however would eat them alive

Daysha · 20-02-2009 01:38PM

premierstone wrote: »

BTW deise what club team only trains once a week, jaysus is it any wonder Waterford football is strugling :P

Quality over quantity

premierstone · 20-02-2009 02:06PM

deise59 wrote: »

Quality over quantity

Seem to be fcuked on both scores so

Diabhal Beag · 20-02-2009 02:40PM

If Drogba is playing gaelic imagine all the shiity dives he'd make. He would make his marker look like Finian Hanley :pac:

dceire · 20-02-2009 02:44PM

Orizio wrote: »

A rather unfortunate comparison. You do realise you are on the GAA forum don't you?

Whats GAA???

Orizio · 20-02-2009 02:57PM

dceire wrote: »

Whats GAA???

Soccer fans really are slipping these days, your supposed to be calling it GGA or 'Gaaaaaaahhhhhhhh'...

HeLlDoItHeCrAzY · 20-02-2009 04:17PM

you know what.. after re thinking this.. my opinion not only stands, but is strengthened!! Never mind chelsea, the top 20 Irish lads would be murderlised by any! club team.. no doubt about it!.. robbie keane, versus your typical local half back (because there is no way he would be able to play full forward).. in fact, I dont think there is anyone on neither the chelsea or! irieland team that could play the main positions on the pitch, bar full + centre back (richard dunne, john oshea, john terry).. seriously!! they simply dont have the credentials to fill in key positions up the park, or even in the middle of the field.. seriously frank lampard against your local rhinocerous of a centre mid??? fitness or no fitness.. without this they will be confined to taking speculative pot shots (under no doubt intense pressure) from out the field.. and it takes years of practice to even get half decent at shooting with as gaa ball (as i stated before is completely different in texture and size and weight etc) out of the hands.. what good would 2 weeks do?? couldnt see the irish boys scorin too many goals though, then again id imagine the smartest thing the soccer team could do is use there goalkeepers outfield and stick some wirey ****er like lampard in goal... gaa, all the way, and thats not bi assed, thats aftr careful consideration!!

s_carnage · 20-02-2009 04:43PM

My first instinct before reading this thread was that the GAA team would win comfortably but after reading all the arguments put forward and especially deise59's my opinion has changed. Really think the premiership team would win even if there were no Irish players allowed on their team. It would be a great contest to see. If only we had a Sky One type channel in Ireland that might get it going!!!!

Dante · 20-02-2009 04:50PM

The GAA heads would probably win....the physical difference would definitely give the GAA lads and advantage and they would have much better ball handling skills and a much better head for the game.

Mr. Incognito · 20-02-2009 05:13PM

Elite GAA Players against Elite Soccer players in GAA- Elite GAA players win

Elite Soccer Players against Junior club team in GAA - Elite Soccer Players win

Elite GAA against Third Division Soccer team in Soccer - Third Division Soccer team win

Elite Soccer team against elite GAA in Soccer- At least 10 nil (in the first half)

My two cents anyway

chalad07 · 20-02-2009 05:24PM

premierstone wrote: »

No offence OP and im not trying to be smart or anything but this thread is completely pointless and futile there are so many things that make it impossible to give a qualified answer

Of course it is, but sure i'm not looking for a correct answer or anything. Point of conversation is all

I think that Chelsea would walk a game like this.

- Bear in mind it's not Kerry, or Donegal, or Dublin that they're playing. It's the local GAA team. The lads that maybe train twice a week, that prob go out drinking 2/3 times a week. These guys might be good at a local level, but havent made intercounty. In terms of fitness, speed, stamina they'd be totally outmatched. The soccer lads are pros and they train almost every day, and have been doing so their whole life. Even players that are perceived to be weaker (say malouda) still do an awful lot of weight work. The smallest Chelsea player would be far stronger that the smallest GAA player

- Chelsea have 2 weeks to train. They'd def be able to get to grips with the basic of the game. Come on, do people really think that Frank Lampard wouldnt be able to kick a point? Course he would. Tackling would probably be the biggest challenge, but with two weeks training, they'd easily get to grips with it,

- If you put the likes of Petr Cech and Hilario in midfeild, it would be hard to see how they wouldnt dominate. Any frees that Chelsea get would be as good as scored. Like of Drogba up front would get a few goals. When the likes of Rio and Vidic have trouble with him, then i can imagine your average GAA centre back would find it very tough.

- This is the most important point: The guys from the Chelsea team are proven, world class sports men. It's not as if they're going to be great at soccer, but when asked to catch a ball they'll turn into clumsy idiots. I really do think that if you're a natural sports man, then you'll be good at any sport. Give them a table tennis paddle, and they'd beat the average man on the street!

With 2 weeks training, Chelsea would win by a country mile!

techdiver · 20-02-2009 05:27PM

The GAA team would walk this. You can't just pick up the skills of GAA in a couple of weeks, never mind the fact that most soccer player are wimps and couldn't take a shoulder.

premierstone · 20-02-2009 05:36PM

chalad07 wrote: »

. The lads that maybe train twice a week, that prob go out drinking 2/3 times a week. These guys might be good at a local level, but havent made intercounty.

What kind of club team are we talking about here no decent club players are out drinking and this comment about not making it intercounty wherre do intercounty players come from???

Mr. Incognito · 20-02-2009 05:37PM

but with two weeks training, they'd easily get to grips with it,

FAIL

Orizio · 20-02-2009 05:44PM

Chelsea by a mile. You could teach the 'skills' of Gaelic Football to a chimp in an hour for christ sakes...

pdixon81 · 20-02-2009 05:44PM

GAA team by a mile, it sounds like my kind of team and i know if we were put up against chelsea, with all there professional backup and training we def wouldnt lose!

chalad07 · 20-02-2009 05:45PM

premierstone wrote: »

What kind of club team are we talking about here no decent club players are out drinking and this comment about not making it intercounty wherre do intercounty players come from???

Okay, maybe the drinking is a bit of an assumption, but i dont think that it's far off. Of the three county players i know, two of them like their drinking, and would only lay off properly when it comes to the Championship.

What i meant about not being county standard is that the team is just your local down the road club. Maybe they might have one or two county players, that's it. What i'm saying is that the GAA team, is not comprised of county stars

It boils down to lifestyle. For the soccer players, their whole life revolves around sport and winning. They'll be super fit, really strong and really fast. This alone would tip them over the edge in beating a local GAA team,

Techdiver - soccer players are wimps? Come on, say that to John Terry, or Drogba, or Essien!!

Professional Soccer versus Club Gaa Team at Gaelic football: who would win??

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