A back 4 means not playing one of Doherty, Coleman or Stevens. They are our 3 best players, we don't have enough good ones to hold back any of them. Tadic is a champions league player playing against a championship midfield, he's finding space if we play 6 lads in there. Over all its not the worst result, that goal at the end could be big. Portugal should take 6 points off both of us, that means we only have to match Serbia in 4 games against Luxembourg and Azerbaijan and then beat Serbia 1 nil at home on front of fans hopefully.
Doherty was one of the worst players last night so I’d of happily sacrificed him in the team If you close off the lines between defence and midfield it makes it harder to find space - we made it easy for him to do that and putting 6 players in there as you suggested makes it impossible
I firmly believe John Delaney is one of the main reasons. Ever since he got the top job all he cared about was impressing suits in UEFA and keeping in with smaller clubs all over the country so he could control the support for him. The Genisis Report was never fully implemented. Also I think the success of the Dubs and GAA has probably had an impact more than Rugby. There is bigger pattern now of kids choosing their main sport at 10-12 and a lots of kids in Dublin want to be the next Bernard Brogan rather than the next Robbie Brady. Even other county underage systems are run like professional outfits, more much structure than in soccer.
When I look back I wonder how much a role the FAI played in developing the best talent to come out of Ireland in previous generations, and I reckon it wasn't a lot. You didn't play international football until you were 15 at the earliest, even then there wasn't a lot of coaching done in those gatherings. Most of those players were off to England at 16 so it was mainly the schoolboy club and then the English club who developed those players. The likes of McGrath,Whelan, Keane never saw an Ireland shirt until they were at English clubs, players like Duff and Robbie Keane got the vast majority of their football education outside of FAI circles and that's before you consider how many of our best players didn't grow up in this country. I don't think it's up for debate that there's far less talent at schoolboy level than there used to be, a scout I know who was sending players to England by the plane load in the 90's said that's definitely his view. The FAI are a joke and need to do more, but I don't think the difference in the amount of talent now compared to the 70's/80's/90's is because they stopped what they were doing well as they weren't doing that much to begin with. There's probably lots of factors that caused the reduction like kids becoming less active and parents having to become more cautious but one thing I don't think is mentioned enough is how much it costs to play football these days. I wouldn't have been able to afford 300 or 350 euro a year which I'm told is about the average in a lot of clubs so is it any wonder some parents would encourage their kids to turn up at the local GAA club instead where things are much cheaper? I'd also say creating these elite clubs at schoolboy level is going to see a lot of players dissappear through the cracks who might not have in a system where other clubs are allowed to compete on a level playing field. It was a bit of a cesspit back in my day in the top schoolboy leagues, I can only imagine how this new system inflates the kind of issues that made it such a toxic environment then.
I don't think anyone was giving the FAI any credit for the players we produced in the 80s and 90s. The system was in place for them through the English and Scottish leagues, all they done was spend the money these guys made them. The criticism comes from the fact they continued to do nothing when it became obvious Man Utd and Liverpool weren't going to take the best 4 kids every year, they were looking further a field. For 20 years now the English clubs have been bringing in foreign players and its only in the last 3 or 4 the FAI have tried to do anything about it. And what they have created is a sham. The have created a league of Ireland for underage kids will essentially the same as it was for the Dublin sides but now they have St Pats or Bray on their badge instead of Cherry Orchard or St Joseph's. The problem I see with is these clubs will have squads of 22 players, half won't play and they will fall through the gaps. Where previously they may have played with the Sunday team and stayed in the game now they are 15 year old boys facing the stigma of not playing for a LOI club. There is some good stuff going on, Shamrock Rovers set up is hugely impressive, they will start producing plenty of players, so will Bohs (Kevin's) but I'd argue in both cases this would have happened anyway in the old set up and is in spite of the FAI. Maybe outside of Dublin they will see improvements and benefits, thats possible I suppose. Lastly on the money side, I'd like to think that isn't a factor. The bigger clubs wouldn't let good players go over €300 and I don't think its as expensive at the smaller/normal clubs.
Wouldn't disagree with any of that Bob except the last paragraph. I agree the clubs will find ways to get the majority of those showcasing their talent into the club,but the reason I said slip through the cracks is the headline money figure will mean a lot of players never arrive at their door in the first place. It's not the ones they know are good players I'm talking about,it's the ones who never get the chance to show they are or develop into one. At every level a decent percentage of those who seem the most talented often get overtaken by those who develop later. Make it as cheap and as inclusive as possible,and the percentages of producing more players gets better.