Group C

[FORZAINTERMILAN]

3 POINTS FOR CROATIA
3-1

 

[junkie]

super marioooooooooooooooo

 

[visionary]

The hell with the defence.
Underestimated Croatia tbh.

 

[Mad Biscione]

wow, so unlucky twice

Croatia looks nice

 

[Howl]

mcgeady off

still no long okerface:

 

[FORZAINTERMILAN]

3 Croatia
1 Italy
1 Spain
0 Ireland

 

[sanka]

Fair enough Croatia played better.

 

[danny275]

Croatia were miles better and deserved to win, regardless how lucky 2 of their goals were. Sorry if that sound like I'm doing them a disservice.

We're stuck with Trap now for a further 2 years, which in my opinion is a serious worry. In the qualifying, you can get lucky despite giving the ball away constantly but when it comes to big tournaments, you can't do that. We have better midfielders than what are constantly on show in Andrews and Whelan but they'll never be picked under Trap. We'll continue to play dire hoof and hope football and that is the worst thing.

Oh well, hopefully we don't get hammered too much by Spain and Italy. That seems to be the best we can hope for now

 

[Bzzlightyear]

^to be honest i would be happy if Ireland get Hammered, but to be honest they dont show any kind of football. What i did see was long ball forward and that was the plan from Irish side, as i didnt notice any kind of control of the game.

 

[danny275]

^to be honest i would be happy if Ireland get Hammered, but to be honest they dont show any kind of football. What i did see was long ball forward and that was the plan from Irish side, as i didnt notice any kind of control of the game.

Well I know you'd be happy with that

Imagine how we feel. Don't think any Irish fan wants to see that type of football. Believe it or not, we have players who can actually pass and play football but they're not picked.

 

[Bzzlightyear]

^sorry for my comment, but to be honest its not right to see this kind of football, i did hope for a cracker ggame when it was 1-1, but somehow Croatia closed well down.

Ireland from WC 2002 played nicely, but now

 

[sanka]

Same shit as Greek football tbh.At least you tried there and showed some will in some phases.Let's consider the oponnent Croatia had quite more quality in their squad as units so guess you were the underdog tonight before the start.In many cases it was like i was watchin my NT.Had that feel.

 

[The Wall]

Nice win. Concerned with our defence though, Ireland were abusing us in set-pieces and pretty much won every long, high ball. I'm well aware that's their style and Spain/Italy don't have so much tall and strong players but still...

 

[danny275]

^sorry for my comment, but to be honest its not right to see this kind of football, i did hope for a cracker ggame when it was 1-1, but somehow Croatia closed well down.

Ireland from WC 2002 played nicely, but now

No need to say sorry, you're right, I wouldn't even try dispute what you're saying. We should try take a leaf out of your book. Armenia improved immensely over the qualifiers and actually played football. It says a lot that when you came to the Aviva, you had far more possession!

Mick McCarthy's team were fantastic and I wish he was manager again

 

[Dylan]

Imagine how we feel. Don't think any Irish fan wants to see that type of football. Believe it or not, we have players who can actually pass and play football but they're not picked.

Who? Fahey and McCarthy?

I don't see this as a major problem, those 3 goals on a different day might not have happened, very, very scrappy. It's just a shame McClean or Long (earlier) didn't get a chance as they off way more.

I disagree with the hoofing you said to be honest, didn't see much of it. I just saw us stuck in our own back 4 with too much Croatian pressure and nobody in midfield with enough quality to get up and make a pass.

I feel for Trap to be honest, probably his last tournament and I just hope he doesn't fizzle out.

 

[Cal]

Imagine how we feel. Don't think any Irish fan wants to see that type of football. Believe it or not, we have players who can actually pass and play football but they're not picked.

Here mate, imagine how WE feel havin to watch another tournament on the tele with that dobber craig levein in charge. Oh and btw, one of the center mids your refering to should be ours so consider yourself lucky

 

[Dylan]

I'm more disappointed than anything. I wouldn't mind losing to a piece of good play from Modric or something but those are the one thing we should be able to stop happening.

 

[danny275]

Who? Fahey and McCarthy?

McCarthy and in previous years, Steven Reid and Andy Reid both of who were treated extremely poorly by Trap. It's not even just CM, Ciaran Clarke doesn't get so much as a chance, same with Coleman.

Obviously McCarthy is out for personal reasons but if those personal reasons didn't exist, he wouldn't even be in the starting XI.

I don't see this as a major problem, those 3 goals on a different day might not have happened, very, very scrappy. It's just a shame McClean or Long (earlier) didn't get a chance as they off way more.

Is that the best we can hope for? On another day, they might not have scored? I'll be the first to admit our pool of players isn't exactly great but we can do better than we are, imo. McClean should have started, as should Long but Trap doesn't seem to trust either player enough to play them

If you give the ball to your opponent constantly like we did tonight, you will concede goals. You can get lucky the odd time but if you keep doing it against quality opposition when you don't defend right and you will concede

I disagree with the hoofing you said to be honest, didn't see much of it. I just saw us stuck in our own back 4 with too much Croatian pressure and nobody in midfield with enough quality to get up and make a pass.

We did hoof the ball. Virtually any time Dunne, O'Shea or Ward got the ball, they hoofed it in an attempt to find Poor Kevin Doyle who was hardly had any chance of winning any of the balls.

 

[KevinB]

Here mate, imagine how WE feel havin to watch another tournament on the tele with that dobber craig levein in charge. Oh and btw, one of the center mids your refering to should be ours so consider yourself lucky

Just try to Imagine how we Belgians feel. Our generation should be winning all those titles (Like the media constantly say but we fail )

Italy - Spain

Well I was expecting a major fail by Italy, but they actually played good, if they keep on playing like this, I can say they are another outsider for the championship. I liked De Rossi, Chiellini, Pirlo, Maggio and Cassano. They played very good. Marchisio on the end starting to play better too. Balo was a fail. I mean you're a striker! Run to that goal and blast that fucker in! Or pass to Cassano, Don't wait minutes to decide what you're going to do Di Natale was instantly more dangerous then Balo on the whole game. I also liked Giovinco. Showed a lot of creativity and movement on the ball. Spain on the other side was again doing Barca mode. Pass-pass-pass-pass.. I wonder when they are actually going to shoot the ball. The goal they made sure was pure class. And I did see why Del Bosque wanted to play without striker, if you see Torres
MOTM : De Rossi/Chiellini/Iniesta

Ireland - Croatia

Croatia was better. Modric reminded me a lot of Sneijder. He controlled the game (although he plays lower than Sneijder) Ireland showed a lot of heart today, but I feel a team with Keane as striker is doomed. The guy is a fuckup with so many nice clubs he has played for. . Well I must admit I was supporting for the Irish. Trapp and their Crowd! Amazing sphere there. Although I feel that Ireland will be the weakest team in this Euro. Shame because they play with their heart. Croatia will have to play massive against Italy and Spain to get the qualifaction. But I don't think they will succeed. Unless Spain/Italy fucks it up.
MOTM : Mandzukic. Also Perisic played a nice match. But the 2 goals did it.

 

[Dylan]

McCarthy and in previous years, Steven Reid and Andy Reid both of who were treated extremely poorly by Trap. It's not even just CM, Ciaran Clarke doesn't get so much as a chance, same with Coleman.

Obviously McCarthy is out for personal reasons but if those personal reasons didn't exist, he wouldn't even be in the starting XI.

I think at the time when Trap began the 2012 qualifying campaign none of those players were showing signs of becoming good enough to play regularly and I'm not sure he wanted to start blooding new players. I couldn't blame him at the time, he has the experience.

Is that the best we can hope for? On another day, they might not have scored? I'll be the first to admit our pool of players isn't exactly great but we can do better than we are, imo. McClean should have started, as should Long but Trap doesn't seem to trust either player enough to play them

If you give the ball to your opponent constantly like we did tonight, you will concede goals. You can get lucky the odd time but if you keep doing it against quality opposition when you don't defend right and you will concede.

All to do with Trap's reluctance to not include new faces, I'll give him the next two games to prove himself but after that then that's a major flaw.

We did hoof the ball. Virtually any time Dunne, O'Shea or Ward got the ball, they hoofed it in an attempt to find Poor Kevin Doyle who was hardly had any chance of winning any of the balls.

I saw us hoofing the ball forward more as Croatian pressure made players like Richard Dunne have to play it around the defence which he isn't able to do. The wingers were certainly a lot les involved than they would want them to.



Trap has a contract for 2014 and if he just uses this as a last hurrah for some of the seniors I won't mind, hopefully the experience will help.

Coleman, O'Dea, Clark, McCarthy , Fahey, McClean and Long should all be playing the majority of the World Cup Qualifyinf campaign.