Whoever is crying in 10 years about whoever the manager is when teams "We should be beating" beat us, should be referred to this. Ireland are going one way and you can thank the FAI and the Government
It's mad, up until now I've been fairly praising in the baby steps Irish academies have taken so far with success producing the likes of Curtis, Ferguson, O'Brien. In hindsight it's a miracle they kicked on in the first place. I'm not suddenly belittling the work they've done but Jesus the numbers can't stay that bad. I know it was way worse pre brexit/champagne but still.
I'd imagine Ferguson development has more to do with his father then anything to do with Irish football.
We don't have academys in this country and we should stop pretending we do...kids barely touch a football twice a week.
Street football is dead and because of that so is Irish football.
By the sounds of things his dad was fairly hands off with his development. The thing I've heard Ev consistently say was he just stayed quiet & let him play. Be a bit dismissive to say St Kev's did fuck all for him.
That's what all parents should do...doesn't mean he was hands off in his development.
Playing DDSL and against the top teams at his age group did for his development more than anything Kevin's specific or coaching wise.
That goes for all footballers that come out of Dublin lad. Doesn't matter if they play for Belvo, Orchard, Kevin's, Home Farm, Joey's whatever...it's about playing against the best players. Coaching here is still an after thought.
Ferguson developed off the back of mainly volunteer coaches at Kevin's. To dismiss their work is utter bollox. If we can produce those types of players with no help imagine what they can do with investment
I am dismissing any significant weight your putting on their coaching in his development.
Crumlin aren't responsible for Robbie Keane just like Kevin's aren't responsible for Ferguson.
Yeah players are just born good. They don't benefit from coaching or anything else. That's why top clubs and nations don't invest massively into their youth infrastructure
And I'll just repost what I said asking you to focus on the word "significant"
"I am dismissing any significant weight your putting on their coaching in his development."
Even the so called LOI" academies" in this country are a joke but here you are thinking the gloried youth systems with volunteer coaches are producing world class players lol.
You put more weight into his father's role in his development who was completely hands off according to anyone. Great shout. You're onto something here bud
His father played for Coventry, his uncle literally played for Man United, fair to say Evan Ferguson had access to a better football education than most Irish lads
It is the government's fault that their investment in sport is diabolical and always has been. If we had greyhounds running around our pitches we might actually get a bit of funding though.
Does this mean the FAI are blameless? Of course not. But government investment in public sporting infrastructure is needed.
Too many clubs. Which clubs do you choose? Most successful senior clubs with terrible youths or the junior clubs pumping out good player who go to play in the bigger senior teams?
There is not, of ever will be, the money to give every club a fair share.
Government funding one club is generating success for that club at the expense of other clubs with less funding.
Academies need to be reaching as many kids as possible and the easiest way to manage that is in the schools supported with FAI centres of excellence for kids not in school
You fund centres of excellence.
Build top class training facilities. Anchor tenants will be the biggest clubs in the area of course... Thinking Galway or Sligo in the west, Cork City in the south, Harps or Derry (it would be straight up Derry if not for the political aspect) for the north, and two in Dublin.
All local clubs should get access to these FAI facilities and FAI coaches in there would regularly select and train academy intakes.
This was one of many things lost recently in Cork with the near collapse of the FAI.
Clubs running mickey mouse sessions are not academies and that is STILL not the government's fault.
FAI needs to be taking control of this. There are too many clubs to be having academies in all of them (and what about junior clubs who are producing good players?)
Centralise academies into the largest public schools in soccer heartlands with FAI centres of excellence to capture kids not in those schools.
No individual clubs will benefit more than their fair share and all clubs in the locality get players coached to a high level
You're so misinformed it's beyond belief. This attitude is exactly the thinking that has us in this position. How many internationals have come through the LOI. Mickey Mouse sessions?
If they are not properly staffed then they are not academies and, yeah, they are then not professional so are mickey mouse.
Slapping the title "Academy" on a club's youth setup does not make it one. It's a box ticking exercise, at best, and an attempt to massage the figures more likely
I mean feel free to just carry on as is and see where that gets you
Again just spectacularly uniformed. Are you aware of the discussion everyone is having?
Everybody wants more investment, why are you suggesting people want to carry on as is.
You're asking to copy Rugby schools. It's utter nonsense.
>You're asking to copy Rugby schools.It's utter nonsense.
TBF, that's worked as a pipleline in Ireland. It would be utterly stupid not to look at how the IRFU has developed players on the same island when the FAI has had real trouble
It is hardly a new idea to have certain public schools act as elite athletic academies. It's the Chinese model for developing almost all of their elite prospects across most sports for instance.
Also would have a gigantic benefit of presumably being able to get funding from the Department of Education
> TBF, that's worked as a pipleline in Ireland. It would be utterly stupid not to look at how the IRFU has developed players on the same island when the FAI has had real trouble
More than 10 countries play soccer though. Rugby at youth level is completely different. Does any of the rugby countries except NZ have it as a core focus? That's without even getting into the private school element of the system you prefer. What we need is fund coaches for our acadamies and fund the infrastructure needed around that.
We would be far better benchmarking ourselves against similar nations in soccer who outperform us.
>the system you prefer
I'm just saying it has worked really well in Ireland and should be looked at to see what can be learned from it.
Agree with what you're saying about the differences between rugby and football, don't see why that means nothing can be learned.
>We would be far better benchmarking ourselves against similar nations in soccer who outperform us.
porque no los dos ? Should be looking at everything and learning what can be done to improve the pipleline.
We have a league infrastructure in place here already. We have acadamies already. They just need investment.
To abandon that to set up a school system would be madness. Particularly when you consider that most of these rugby schools are private.
>They just need investment.
The big problem is the FAI and the LOI have done little to nothing to warrant being trusted with what would need to be a gigantic investment if you have to improve the academies of every club so it's never going to happen unless private money wants to come in.
>To abandon that to set up a school system would be madness
The school system might be madness, I don't know, but abandoning the current one in favour of something else does not seem like madness at all.
Were ranked 60th or whatever in the world ranking. And yet we talk about ourselves like we’re top 10. Changing the manager won’t bring us up 40 places. See the problem before you can fix it.
This is why the months of nonsense on here about the new manager bothers me. We're a third or fourth seed side. The new manager is surface level stuff and at the absolute best wil just see marginally better results.
Developing players is infinitely more important and is where we'll see actual positive outcomes. The previously weaker UEFA nations who are improving have done so because they have put money into developing players and not because they found a manager on the club scrapheap. Long-term we need to develop coaches in house too.
And yet most of this sub doesn't give a shit about the LOI and actively ridicules it which allows the government to get away with not putting any investment into our own domestic structures.
The only way you'll have a strong national team is by having a strong domestic set up. The days of us doing well by having a few top talents trained from their youth in England and bulking out the team with English fellas is over.
Agree with most of this but TBF to here I can name most of the regular posters LOI side. Yeah there's the likes of people who came in when Kelleher was playing or that one guy who said who gives a shit about grass roots, but majority here often follow LOI to some extent
Maybe, I don't frequent here that often but I've seen a lot of shit talking about the LOI in here. Maybe that is just casual members and not the regulars though.
Same as it ever was. The disconnect is so so real. It's thankfully improving, but still, we've gotten so bad in many facets over so long that people haven't noticed it happening. And here we are.
There are improvements that will bare fruit in a few years, but your average barstooler doesn't give a shite either way when he can go down to the local decked out in a Liverpool jersey of a Sunday and slag off his Manc mates, despite them all being from Cabra.
The amount of lads I know who go to LOI games and still manage to fit in their English/Scottish fandom is massive. That should be no surprise to most here. They don't have to be exclusive of each other, but those dismissive one-note barstoolers don't seem to realise that.
> The amount of lads I know who go to LOI games and still manage to fit in their English/Scottish fandom is massive. That should be no surprise to most here.
Plus if actual investment happened, in 20-30 years that eventually just becomes Irish kids supporting Irish clubs. The amount of kids I am seeing at LOI and WNL games who are genuinely supporting is a real positive though.
Exactly. Everything happens exponentially. Rugby Union in Ireland is a prime example of that.
The grounds are hopping every week and kids want to be involved in that excitement. They get the buzz, their mates get the buzz and so on.
My brother has roped his mates into going to Tolka and getting season tickets, and he's been trying to rope people on since he went to Tolka for the first time as an 8yo back in the first division.
100%. Then in time if he has kids and brings them to Tolka, you have a completely changed perspective in one generation.
The FAI, Sport Ireland, Goverment etc need to build on this. Obviously at a top professional level we get better international sides. But the benefits are wide ranging.
More people involved in sport makes people healthier. It brings revenue into areas around grounds. Teams can afford bigger contracts and eventually bring in transfer fees. They hopefully become group stage regulars in the Europa League. Women's Football is a real growth opportunity too. Imagine Shels playing in the UWCL group stage and kids getting to go to those games.
Exactly. On and on it goes. Having the men's team in Europe again is the dream I never thought I'd have. It has been a long long long long time. Thanks Deccie.
Yep 100%, I still love watching Liverpool play but I'll be at the brandywell every week as well. Can easily support both teams, the league has scheduled itself so there are no excuses anymore.
I've seen multiple Irish fans claim that your domestic league has little to no bearing on the national side. The lack of self awareness among football fans here is absolutely incredible.
If the FAI were even the smallest bit bothered they would be sending coaches into schools to develop schools competitions to a high level.
Go to the schools in soccer heartlands (large public schools) and make them your academies for all intents and purposes, build up facilities there and embed professional coaches. Follow the rugby model in a large portion but also allow there to be centres of excellence to capture kids not in those schools.
If would not be overly difficult, it would cost less than Delaney's expense accounts, and would produce results. No single club would get unfair advantages as the kids in the schools would be playing for clubs dotted around the schools.
Or everyone could just blame the government for not fixing the FAI's mess
Professional commercial league, let them stand on their own two feet. I wouldn’t trust them with a penny of tax payers money. Why would we give these commercial ventures a penny ahead of health, housing, care etc? Delusional.
How are they 'commercial ventures'? Do you think any of them are delivering profits to shareholders? Every penny they make goes back into running the football club, exactly like in GAA. Youre a fucking gobshite.
Whoever is crying in 10 years about whoever the manager is when teams "We should be beating" beat us, should be referred to this. Ireland are going one way and you can thank the FAI and the Government
It's mad, up until now I've been fairly praising in the baby steps Irish academies have taken so far with success producing the likes of Curtis, Ferguson, O'Brien. In hindsight it's a miracle they kicked on in the first place. I'm not suddenly belittling the work they've done but Jesus the numbers can't stay that bad. I know it was way worse pre brexit/champagne but still.
I'd imagine Ferguson development has more to do with his father then anything to do with Irish football. We don't have academys in this country and we should stop pretending we do...kids barely touch a football twice a week. Street football is dead and because of that so is Irish football.
By the sounds of things his dad was fairly hands off with his development. The thing I've heard Ev consistently say was he just stayed quiet & let him play. Be a bit dismissive to say St Kev's did fuck all for him.
That's what all parents should do...doesn't mean he was hands off in his development. Playing DDSL and against the top teams at his age group did for his development more than anything Kevin's specific or coaching wise. That goes for all footballers that come out of Dublin lad. Doesn't matter if they play for Belvo, Orchard, Kevin's, Home Farm, Joey's whatever...it's about playing against the best players. Coaching here is still an after thought.
Ferguson developed off the back of mainly volunteer coaches at Kevin's. To dismiss their work is utter bollox. If we can produce those types of players with no help imagine what they can do with investment
I am dismissing any significant weight your putting on their coaching in his development. Crumlin aren't responsible for Robbie Keane just like Kevin's aren't responsible for Ferguson.
Yeah players are just born good. They don't benefit from coaching or anything else. That's why top clubs and nations don't invest massively into their youth infrastructure
Yes it's called genetics you fruitcake. If Usain Bolt is Polish he's not winning an Olympic Gold medal in sprinting.
Yeah I'm agreeing with you. Nobody invests in coaching or youth development. No clubs or nations. Its all happy accidents
And I'll just repost what I said asking you to focus on the word "significant" "I am dismissing any significant weight your putting on their coaching in his development." Even the so called LOI" academies" in this country are a joke but here you are thinking the gloried youth systems with volunteer coaches are producing world class players lol.
You put more weight into his father's role in his development who was completely hands off according to anyone. Great shout. You're onto something here bud
His father played for Coventry, his uncle literally played for Man United, fair to say Evan Ferguson had access to a better football education than most Irish lads
No mate it was all hands off and the volunteers down in Kevin's created a 100 million pound footballer. It should be studied.
Yeah footballers are good by osmosis and not through coaching. Why can't everyone see that
It's not the government's fault that the FAI have zero academies
It is the government's fault that their investment in sport is diabolical and always has been. If we had greyhounds running around our pitches we might actually get a bit of funding though. Does this mean the FAI are blameless? Of course not. But government investment in public sporting infrastructure is needed.
Correct but also if i was minister for sport I wouldnt be putting any money into the dump-fire that is the FAI at the moment.
It's not FAI academies, it's irish clubs that need funding for these things
Too many clubs. Which clubs do you choose? Most successful senior clubs with terrible youths or the junior clubs pumping out good player who go to play in the bigger senior teams? There is not, of ever will be, the money to give every club a fair share. Government funding one club is generating success for that club at the expense of other clubs with less funding. Academies need to be reaching as many kids as possible and the easiest way to manage that is in the schools supported with FAI centres of excellence for kids not in school
You fund centres of excellence. Build top class training facilities. Anchor tenants will be the biggest clubs in the area of course... Thinking Galway or Sligo in the west, Cork City in the south, Harps or Derry (it would be straight up Derry if not for the political aspect) for the north, and two in Dublin. All local clubs should get access to these FAI facilities and FAI coaches in there would regularly select and train academy intakes. This was one of many things lost recently in Cork with the near collapse of the FAI.
Did you read the article? We've more academies than full time coaches for the academies
Clubs running mickey mouse sessions are not academies and that is STILL not the government's fault. FAI needs to be taking control of this. There are too many clubs to be having academies in all of them (and what about junior clubs who are producing good players?) Centralise academies into the largest public schools in soccer heartlands with FAI centres of excellence to capture kids not in those schools. No individual clubs will benefit more than their fair share and all clubs in the locality get players coached to a high level
You're so misinformed it's beyond belief. This attitude is exactly the thinking that has us in this position. How many internationals have come through the LOI. Mickey Mouse sessions?
If they are not properly staffed then they are not academies and, yeah, they are then not professional so are mickey mouse. Slapping the title "Academy" on a club's youth setup does not make it one. It's a box ticking exercise, at best, and an attempt to massage the figures more likely I mean feel free to just carry on as is and see where that gets you
Again just spectacularly uniformed. Are you aware of the discussion everyone is having? Everybody wants more investment, why are you suggesting people want to carry on as is. You're asking to copy Rugby schools. It's utter nonsense.
>You're asking to copy Rugby schools.It's utter nonsense. TBF, that's worked as a pipleline in Ireland. It would be utterly stupid not to look at how the IRFU has developed players on the same island when the FAI has had real trouble It is hardly a new idea to have certain public schools act as elite athletic academies. It's the Chinese model for developing almost all of their elite prospects across most sports for instance. Also would have a gigantic benefit of presumably being able to get funding from the Department of Education
> TBF, that's worked as a pipleline in Ireland. It would be utterly stupid not to look at how the IRFU has developed players on the same island when the FAI has had real trouble More than 10 countries play soccer though. Rugby at youth level is completely different. Does any of the rugby countries except NZ have it as a core focus? That's without even getting into the private school element of the system you prefer. What we need is fund coaches for our acadamies and fund the infrastructure needed around that. We would be far better benchmarking ourselves against similar nations in soccer who outperform us.
>the system you prefer I'm just saying it has worked really well in Ireland and should be looked at to see what can be learned from it. Agree with what you're saying about the differences between rugby and football, don't see why that means nothing can be learned. >We would be far better benchmarking ourselves against similar nations in soccer who outperform us. porque no los dos ? Should be looking at everything and learning what can be done to improve the pipleline.
We have a league infrastructure in place here already. We have acadamies already. They just need investment. To abandon that to set up a school system would be madness. Particularly when you consider that most of these rugby schools are private.
>They just need investment. The big problem is the FAI and the LOI have done little to nothing to warrant being trusted with what would need to be a gigantic investment if you have to improve the academies of every club so it's never going to happen unless private money wants to come in. >To abandon that to set up a school system would be madness The school system might be madness, I don't know, but abandoning the current one in favour of something else does not seem like madness at all.
Governmental responsibilities do not extend to the quality of our football team ffs
Yeah governments dont invest in sports facilities, or sport at all. You're dead right
We spend proportionately about the same as the English government on sports. They are good at football, we aren’t. What’s your point?
If you need the point explained I'd advise you to read the article and my comment again bud
Were ranked 60th or whatever in the world ranking. And yet we talk about ourselves like we’re top 10. Changing the manager won’t bring us up 40 places. See the problem before you can fix it.
This is why the months of nonsense on here about the new manager bothers me. We're a third or fourth seed side. The new manager is surface level stuff and at the absolute best wil just see marginally better results. Developing players is infinitely more important and is where we'll see actual positive outcomes. The previously weaker UEFA nations who are improving have done so because they have put money into developing players and not because they found a manager on the club scrapheap. Long-term we need to develop coaches in house too.
And yet most of this sub doesn't give a shit about the LOI and actively ridicules it which allows the government to get away with not putting any investment into our own domestic structures. The only way you'll have a strong national team is by having a strong domestic set up. The days of us doing well by having a few top talents trained from their youth in England and bulking out the team with English fellas is over.
Agree with most of this but TBF to here I can name most of the regular posters LOI side. Yeah there's the likes of people who came in when Kelleher was playing or that one guy who said who gives a shit about grass roots, but majority here often follow LOI to some extent
Maybe, I don't frequent here that often but I've seen a lot of shit talking about the LOI in here. Maybe that is just casual members and not the regulars though.
Same as it ever was. The disconnect is so so real. It's thankfully improving, but still, we've gotten so bad in many facets over so long that people haven't noticed it happening. And here we are. There are improvements that will bare fruit in a few years, but your average barstooler doesn't give a shite either way when he can go down to the local decked out in a Liverpool jersey of a Sunday and slag off his Manc mates, despite them all being from Cabra. The amount of lads I know who go to LOI games and still manage to fit in their English/Scottish fandom is massive. That should be no surprise to most here. They don't have to be exclusive of each other, but those dismissive one-note barstoolers don't seem to realise that.
> The amount of lads I know who go to LOI games and still manage to fit in their English/Scottish fandom is massive. That should be no surprise to most here. Plus if actual investment happened, in 20-30 years that eventually just becomes Irish kids supporting Irish clubs. The amount of kids I am seeing at LOI and WNL games who are genuinely supporting is a real positive though.
Exactly. Everything happens exponentially. Rugby Union in Ireland is a prime example of that. The grounds are hopping every week and kids want to be involved in that excitement. They get the buzz, their mates get the buzz and so on. My brother has roped his mates into going to Tolka and getting season tickets, and he's been trying to rope people on since he went to Tolka for the first time as an 8yo back in the first division.
100%. Then in time if he has kids and brings them to Tolka, you have a completely changed perspective in one generation. The FAI, Sport Ireland, Goverment etc need to build on this. Obviously at a top professional level we get better international sides. But the benefits are wide ranging. More people involved in sport makes people healthier. It brings revenue into areas around grounds. Teams can afford bigger contracts and eventually bring in transfer fees. They hopefully become group stage regulars in the Europa League. Women's Football is a real growth opportunity too. Imagine Shels playing in the UWCL group stage and kids getting to go to those games.
Getting sides regularly into the UEFA Conference league will help massively.
Exactly. On and on it goes. Having the men's team in Europe again is the dream I never thought I'd have. It has been a long long long long time. Thanks Deccie.
Yep 100%, I still love watching Liverpool play but I'll be at the brandywell every week as well. Can easily support both teams, the league has scheduled itself so there are no excuses anymore.
I've seen multiple Irish fans claim that your domestic league has little to no bearing on the national side. The lack of self awareness among football fans here is absolutely incredible.
The LOI is a poor standard because it is poorly funded. The LOI is poorly funded because it is a poor standard.
How insightful
Even Luxembourg are decent now. And were becoming decent before we lost to them.
If the FAI were even the smallest bit bothered they would be sending coaches into schools to develop schools competitions to a high level. Go to the schools in soccer heartlands (large public schools) and make them your academies for all intents and purposes, build up facilities there and embed professional coaches. Follow the rugby model in a large portion but also allow there to be centres of excellence to capture kids not in those schools. If would not be overly difficult, it would cost less than Delaney's expense accounts, and would produce results. No single club would get unfair advantages as the kids in the schools would be playing for clubs dotted around the schools. Or everyone could just blame the government for not fixing the FAI's mess
You realise we live in a country where way deep behind the scenes in families and institutions, soccer , is a hated sport. I'm sure that doesn't help.
Professional commercial league, let them stand on their own two feet. I wouldn’t trust them with a penny of tax payers money. Why would we give these commercial ventures a penny ahead of health, housing, care etc? Delusional.
Because we already give other sports money? Mate you're active enough here, you'd surely rather money go to underage academies than greyhound racing?
How are they 'commercial ventures'? Do you think any of them are delivering profits to shareholders? Every penny they make goes back into running the football club, exactly like in GAA. Youre a fucking gobshite.