give it a lash: The History-of-Irish-Football

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A very rough history of the whole Northern Ireland thing.

Despite the defeat, excitement back home had reached fever pitch. The summer of 1990 was a magical time in Ireland, sometimes referred to as being the country´s happiest post-independence moment, and an Irish equivalent of Britain´s 1967 ¨Summer of Love.¨ Every man, woman and child in the country, many of whom had never watched a football match before in their lives, came out onto the streets to celebrate the team´s success. Ireland had suffered through most of the 20th century with a failing economy and producing nothing that attracted international attention except for the terrorist violence in the North. For the first time in living memory, Irish people had a reason to feel proud of their nationality; it has even been said that Charlton changed the way that the ordinary person felt about the Irish flag, rescuing it from it´s negative associations with the violent nationalism of the I.R.A.
Football, formerly a despised alien sport, had now become Ireland´s favourite pastime, leading to clubs popping up all over the country, even in rural areas which had previously been exclusive GAA territory. When he returned, Big Jack found himself to now be the most beloved celebrity in the country (he proceeded to cash-in on his popularity by making a fortune by appearing in commercials for everything from breakfast cereal to car insurance.) Reportedly, up to 300,000 people showed up in the streets of Dublin to welcome the team home, almost 10% of the country´s population at the time.

Despite failing to qualify for Euro ´92, by 1993, Charlton´s Ireland were one of the best teams in Europe. In August of that year, they were ranked #6 in the world when FIFA published its
World Rankings for the first time (a placing which they haven´t equaled since.) A few months later, they qualified for their second World Cup, with a crucial point being gained in a famously tense 1-1 draw away to Northern Ireland (who had again failed to qualify) in Belfast. In the lead up to the tournament, Ireland achieved one of the greatest results in their history when they beat the defending World Champions Germany 2-0 in a friendly away from home, proving to all that they were deserving of their high placing in the World Rankings. As a mark of the regard in which Ireland were now held, the group they were drawn in (along with their old rivals Italy, as well as Mexico and Norway) was dubbed as that tournament´s group of death.

The group lived up to its billing, being the tightest group in the history of the World Cup.
All four teams finished with four points each, earned after each team won one game, drew one game and lost one game. Ireland´s win famously came against the Italians in the Giants Stadium, just outside New York City, probably the most impressive result in the national team´s history. The only goal was scored, again, by the now 32 year-old hero of Stuttgart, Ray Houghton. The man of the match was Houghton's Aston Villa teammate and former Manchester United centre-back Paul McGrath, who, despite being 34 years of age, produced perhaps the best defensive performance ever in an Ireland game, when he single-handedly marked Italy´s talisman Roberto Baggio out of the match.
McGrath´s heroism in this game, forever cemented him in the hearts of Republic of Ireland fans, to whom he remains probably the most beloved player to have ever played for the national team. A poor performance against Mexico in the next game saw Ireland fall to a 2-1 defeat, with both goals being the result of bad mistakes by the Irish defense. Ireland´s undoing was probably their failure to adequately prepare for the extreme heat that they faced in Florida; Charlton had arrogantly been the only one of the managers participating in the tournament to decline to attend FIFA´s seminar on heat acclimatization before the tournament. A 0-0 draw with Norway was enough to see them through to the second round, before a return to the heat of Orlando saw them completely outclassed by their old rivals the Netherlands, to whom they lost 2-0. Ireland went home where they watched on as the Italy team they had beaten in their first game made it all the way to the final. Despite the Italy game, USA 94 was a relative failure after the highs of Italia 90. In truth, in marked the end of Charlton´s era: teams had now gotten wise to his limited long-ball tactics and many of his star players were now well aging and well past their prime.

Ireland were top seeds for the qualifiers for the 1996 Euros in England and were expected to qualify; especially after a strong start where they beat Northern Ireland (who they had been drawn with for the third time in four qualifying campaigns) 4-0 in Belfast and, in what was to be the last great result of the Charlton era, Portugal 1-0 in Dublin. Unfortunately after that, the team´s form collapsed, suffering a humiliating 0-0 draw away to an amateur Liechtenstein team, two 3-1 defeats to Austria and a 3-0 walloping in the return game against the Portuguese. The Austrian game in Dublin has gone down in Irish football infamy. The team´s poor performance was put down to many members of the squad eating at Harry Ramsden´s Fish and Chip restaurant (a business Charlton had an endorsement deal with) the day before the game, as part of a photo-op. Ireland limped into a special one-legged playoff on neutral ground, where they were drawn yet again, against the Netherlands. Just like Orlando the previous summer, they were completely outclassed 2-0 by a vastly superior, and much younger, Dutch team. It was Charlton´s last game as Ireland boss; he announced his retirement after the game, bringing an end to his ten years in the job.

As of 2021, since Charlton´s resignation from the job Ireland has had six managers, and not one of them has come close to equaling what Big Jack achieved. The football may have been ugly and the team may only have actually won two of the games at the tournaments he qualified them for, but under his management, Ireland went from being European also-rans to qualifying for three major tournaments out of five and scoring victories over many of the world´s top nations. Charlton´s transformation of the team came at a time when the country as a whole was transforming, as the Irish economy was finally beginning to improve after decades in the doldrums, with the country turning from the poorest country in Western Europe to one of the richest in the space of just a few years. As well as the economic growth, the country was changing socially, with the younger generation beginning to reject the repressive dogma of the Catholic Church that had reigned supreme over the country for centuries. Although these major changes would have occurred anyway, it´s likely the ¨feel-good¨ factor associated with the team´s success contributed to a new feeling of positiveity and confidence that made it easier for the people of Ireland to accept the change, as well as a belief that being Irish could mean something other than poverty, violence or conservative Catholicism. When Charlton died at the age of 85 in the midst of the espeically bleak year of 2020, his death led to an outpouring of both sympathy and nostalgia in Ireland that far outweighed the reaction in his native England, despite his status as one of their only World Cup winners. Indeed at the time of his death it was hard to think of any public figure who's passing had occurred without anyone in the country seemingly having a negative word to say about him.

Charlton´s success also elevated football massively in popularity, from being perhaps the fifth or sixth most popular sport in Ireland to being arguably the most popular by the time he left the job. Today, the Republic of Ireland’s squad is now largely made up of Irish born players, with less dependence than during Charlton's day on granny rule players, with players in recent times coming from non-traditional footballing locations such as Tipperary, Wexford, Limerick, Waterford and Cavan, areas that had traditionally been GAA territory. Aside from this, the most lasting change he brought to the national team, and maybe the bedrock on which he built his success, was to finally get Ireland to experience consistency in their results. By focusing on defensive play, Charlton greatly reduced the number of goals conceded and games they lost (before the wheels fell off in his last two years in charge, Charlton´s Ireland had lost only ten games in eight years.) The defensiveness of the team saw an end to the exciting three goal victories over the likes of France or Germany that Ireland enjoyed throughout the first half of the 20th century, with almost all of the wins Ireland have enjoyed over competent opposition in the post-Charlton era being by two goals at most. In return, it also saw an end to the days of Ireland being humiliated by multiple goals by the same opposition (at least in the case of the majority of managers that followed him.) For most of the past 30 years, Republic of Ireland teams have been efficient, hard-working and very hard to beat, albeit as a result, seldom playing particularly entertaining football. When Ireland have succeeded in qualifying for tournaments, it has generally been accomplished by taking maximum points against the weak teams in their qualifying groups and drawing most of their games against the stronger teams, with an occasional dramatic win against a top nation thrown in as a bonus. The score-line that has probably come to define Ireland more than any other is the 1-1 draw, probably the team´s most frequent result against football´s strong national teams since the Charlton era. Dramatic results by this score are usually celebrated by Ireland fans just as much as victories. If international sport truly reflects the identity of the nations that their teams represent, Irish football´s appreciation of draws probably reveals one of the basic truths about the newly confident Celtic Tiger era Ireland; unlike larger countries, the Irish do not need to feel they are better than the great nations of the world to validate their own self-worth. They are satisfied just to feel they are as good as them.

Following Charlton´s resignation, the Ireland manager´s job was given to Mick McCarthy, an English-born former Ireland international, who had been the team captain at Italia ´90. McCarthy was a young manager, fresh off of his first managerial job at First Division (confusingly, now the second division of English football, due to the inauguration of the Premiership) Millwall. He was considered by many to have been an uninspired choice; most observers felt that he was hired due to his close relationship with his former manager and was seen by the FAI as the most direct substitute that they could find for Jack (and also, with little previous experience, he would come cheap.) In his first campaign, Ireland failed to qualify for the 1998 World Cup in France following a serious of poor results.

 

While the senior team were underperforming, the Irish public´s newfound enthusiasm for football was briefly focused in an unexpected direction. In the past, Ireland´s football youth teams had achieved little worth mentioning, typically having been criminally neglected by the FAI. In 1996, Brian Kerr, the successful manager of League of Ireland side Saint Patrick´s Athletic, applied for the joint position of Under 16s, 18s and 20s youth teams manager. Kerr had been inspired to apply for the job after years of putting up with FAI negligence. A few years earlier, he had only learned that his star player at St. Pat´s, Pat Fenlon, had broken his leg while away with the youth team when Fenlon had returned home, with nobody from the Football Association having bothered to so much as give Kerr a phone call. Despite not expecting to get the job, Kerr´s application was successful. With little expected of him, he enjoyed unprecedented success in next to no time. In the summer of 1997, he took the Under 20s away to the FIFA World Youth Championships in Malaysia where they reached the semi-finals. In the second round game against Morocco, star-player Damien Duff (who later became the first major signing at Chelsea after their take-over by Roman Abramovich) became the first player to score a golden goal in a
World Cup competition at any level, a feat he repeated by bagging the winner in the play-off for 3rd place against Ghana.

A year later and Kerr outdid himself; in the summer of 1998, his Under 16s became European champions when they beat Italy in their age groups final in Scotland and his Under 18s did the same only a month later when they beat Germany in Cyprus. Up to that point, no Irish football team had ever won an international competition at any level. None have repeated the feet since. The truly exceptional success seemed to indicate that the future for Irish football was very bright, but, unfortunately, it proved to be something of a false dawn. Despite some members of the various youth teams (such as Duff, Robbie Keane, John O´Shea and Richard Dunne) going on to have successful careers at club level and with the senior international team, the Ireland teams that followed failed to live up to the potential the youth results had promised. When Kerr´s own time as senior Ireland manager eventually came a few years later his tenure was also a disappointment, as his teams failed to qualify for either of the two tournaments he was in charge for.

Meanwhile, Mick McCarthy´s senior team finally succeeded in qualifying for a major tournament at the third time of asking, the 2002 World Cup in South Korea & Japan. Ireland had been extremely impressive in the qualifiers. They had been given little to no chance beforehand, after being drawn in a group with Portugal and (yet again) the Netherlands, the two beaten semi-finalists at the previous European Championships. Surprisingly, Ireland went through the entire qualifying group unbeaten, scoring a bucket load of goals and enjoying one of their most famous victories ever, a 1-0 win against a
world-class Dutch team in Dublin, in what was probably their best result ever at their former home stadium, Landsdowne Road. Despite finishing level on points with Portugal, they still finished behind their rivals on goal difference and had to resort to a play-off to secure qualification; cruelly, Portugal and the Netherlands were the only two teams to score more goals than Ireland in the entire European qualifying competition. Ireland had lost in the playoffs for the last three major tournaments and were superstitious about having to go through another one. Fortunately, this time they prevailed after being drawn with Iran in an intercontinental tie. Most surprisingly of all, as well as the fact that Ireland had regained the form that they had lost since Charlton had left, they were now not just effective but also entertaining as McCarthy had gotten them playing attractive, attacking football. Spirits were high in Ireland, particularly when they were drawn in a relatively easy group. However, many international commentators were less optimistic about their chances, believing they were too reliant on their star player.

By far Ireland´s best player at the time was their captain, Cork man Roy Keane. Keane had played in the 1994 World Cup as a 22 year old, just after he had completed his first season at Manchester United, and had been voted Ireland's best player of the tournament by the watching Irish public. Eight years later and Keane was now United´s inspirational captain and Irish football´s first international superstar since George Best. The most respected defensive midfielder in Europe, he had by now won everything in the club game with Man United, captaining them to their greatest ever achievement, the Premier League, FA Cup and Champion´s League Treble of 1999, and winning the Premier League´s Player of the Season award in 2000. Keane had been the driving force all the way through Ireland´s qualifying campaign, finishing as the team´s joint top scorer despite playing in midfield. Some more cynical analysts had argued that Ireland were a one-man team and had only qualified due to the superhumanly determined Keane singlehandedly dragging the rest of his teammates to qualification along with him. Unfortunately, Keane and McCarthy´s relationship had always been a difficult one and at the World Cup years of tension between the two of them finally exploded at the worst time possible.

McCarthy took the team to the Pacific Island of Saipan in order to let them relax for a few days before the real training would begin in Japan. The perfectionist Keane, used to the highest standards of everything at Man United, frowned on McCarthy´s laid back approach, feeling he was too willing not to question the FAI´s traditional disorganization. After an incident where the squad´s balls failed to arrive in time for their first training session, Keane gave a highly critical interview about the Irish setup to the Irish Times. When McCarthy called a team meeting to discuss the interview, a furious Keane launched a highly personal, expletive laden attack against him where he referred to his manager as a ¨dickhead, a shit manager and¨ (worst of all) ¨an English cunt.¨

To this day it´s still unclear whether or not McCarthy banished Keane from the camp or whether he stormed out of his own accord, but either way the result was the same. Ireland´s captain flew home to Manchester. The news was reported all over the world, even making the front page of the
Bombay Times while it looked like India and Pakistan were gearing up for a war with each other. There was total uproar in Ireland, with the news reported on Irish TV in the same tones as if there had been a natural disaster or a beloved celebrity had died, but despite the intervention of Irish Taioseach, Keane refused to return to Japan. The event was like a civil war in the country, with opinion split as to whether Keane or McCarthy was the villain. Eamon Dunphy, a die-hard Roy Keane apologist, even appeared on TV wearing in the colours of Cameroon, Ireland´s opponent in their first match.

Many expected the team would collapse without Keane, but as Ireland teams so often do, his former teammates rose to the pressure. Both of their first two games, against Cameroon and Germany, began the same way: Ireland played nervously at the start and went behind to an early goal. Both times they grew in confidence as the game went on, being the better team in the second half and earning two 1-1 draws with late equalizers. Robbie Keane famously scored his goal against Germany in the 91st minute, after Ireland had been the stronger team all the way through the second half and probably deserved to win the game. A two goal victory over the already eliminated Saudi Arabia would have been enough to see Ireland through to the second round no matter the result in the other game. Although though they again started nervously against the Saudis, Ireland were far too good for their opponents. They won the game 3-0: the only time they have managed to score more than a single goal in a game at the World Cup or European Championships.

In the second round, they faced off against Spain and gave their best performance of the whole tournament. The same pattern repeated itself again; after a poor first half were they went 1-0 down, Ireland came out like a different team after half time and absolutely battered the Spanish, with Damien Duff in particular tormenting Spain´s full backs. It seemed as though Ireland´s chance had been lost when Ian Harte missed a penalty, after Duff had been tripped in the box. Incredibly, Ireland were given a second penalty in stoppage time, earned after Spain's captain Fernando Hierro had apparently decided he wanted to swap shirts with Niall Quinn before the full time whistle and had forcibly tried to remove the shirt from Quinn´s back without his consent whilst defending an incoming free kick.
Robbie Keane stepped up score to his third goal of the tournament to take the game to extra time.
Spain were hanging on for dear life as Ireland hammered their goal, but the Irish failed to put the ball in the net. Spain had already used their three substitutes when Raul had been forced to come off due to an injury and Spain ended up playing most of extra-time with ten men. A perfect example of the poor organization that had fueled Keane´s tantrum, nobody on the Irish bench noticed and they failed to readjust the team tactically to take advantage. Ireland ended up losing the game on penalties. They were eliminated, leaving the tournament as one of only three teams to go through it unbeaten, with this being the last time they have participated in the World Cup to date. Incredibly, despite the fact that they have only won two of the thirteen games they have played at the World Cup finals, the Republic of Ireland are the only team to have progressed past the first round of the tournament on every occasion that they have qualified; an astonishing testament to the effectiveness of the legendary Irish 1-1 draw.

Throughout the tournament, Ireland played excellent football, but failed to progress further through a lack of self-belief. In a tournament where many of the big teams such as France, Argentina and Italy ended up being eliminated early on, many football fans in Ireland maintain that had Keane played Ireland would have gone a lot further in the competition, maybe even to the semi-final or final (a prospect actually far less unlikely than it sounds; had they beaten Germany and topped their group, Ireland's route to the World Cup final would have been against Paraguay, the USA and South Korea) Like the great successes of the underage teams four years earlier, the good showing seemed to be promising a bright future for Irish football, with young stars like Duff, Robbie Keane and Shay Given emerging in the squad to take Roy Keane´s place. Despite the good results, Mick McCarthy only remained in the manager´s job for another few months, resigning after a defeat against Switzerland in Dublin in the following autumn´s European Championship qualifiers. At the end of the game, sections of the crowd chanted Roy Keane´s name, making McCarthy realize that he had lost the support of the fans.

Irish football began to go steadily downhill after the 2002 World Cup. The promise of the new and exciting players the country had produced ultimately went unfulfilled: Ireland failed to qualify for their next three major championships, under their next two different managers, one of which was the much anticipated tenure of Brian Kerr. During the qualifiers for Euro 2008, they suffered a 5-2 defeat away to Cyprus, which is generally considered to be the worst defeat in their history, a result that would have been considered unthinkable under the management of Charlton or McCarthy. Similarly to when Jack Charlton was appointed in `86, the FAI realized something radical needed to be done.

In May 2008, after a protracted recruitment process, Giovanni Trapattoni was appointed as the new manager of the Republic of Ireland. Trapattoni was one of the most decorated managers in football history, having won numerous trophies with the likes of Juventus, Bayern Munich,
Inter Milan, Benfica and the Italian national team. Trapattoni´s achievements far outshone
anyone else who had ever had the Irish job before. In his career, he had won ten league titles in a still record four different countries, and is the only manager ever to have won all five of the major international club competitions organized by UEFA in their history: the European Cup, the UEFA Cup (or Europa League), the European Cup Winners Cup, the UEFA Super Cup and the Intercontinental Cup. Eamon Dunphy referred to Trapattoni´s appointment as ¨the biggest event in the history of Irish football¨ and, for once, he might not have been exaggerating. A manager like Trapattoni was considered by most to have been out of Ireland´s league in terms of prestige and (more importantly) salary. However, the marquee signing came about when billionaire tax-exile Denis O´Brien offered to donate a million euros a year to the FAI to fund the salary of a top manager. The Irish team saw immediate signs of improvement from the moment Trapattoni took over the job, although that wasn´t difficult considering how poor the team had been for the past number of years. Realizing he had a very limited squad to choose from, Trapattoni built his team around a strong defense rather than on attacking play. The consistency that had been there under Charlton and McCarthy returned. Ireland began grinding out 1-0 and 2-0 wins and became very hard to beat once again, although the football was often painfully boring to watch.

For the qualifiers for the first tournament in which Trapattoni was in charge, the 2010 World Cup, Ireland were drawn in a difficult group which included their manager´s home nation (and defending world champions) Italy. Ireland made it through the group comfortably, finishing unbeaten, but with a deeply uninspiring return of four wins and six draws. All four of their wins had been single goal victories home and away to Georgia and Cyprus. The team were getting results again, but in the least exciting way possible. They finished second behind Italy and earned themselves a place in the play-offs yet again. A fresh controversy soon emerged, as only a few months before the play-offs were drawn, the FAI had written to FIFA asking if the play-offs would be seeded, to which they had received an answer that they would not be. However, with no apologies given, FIFA immediately went back on their word when the lineup of teams for the play-offs was finalized. The reason for this seemed obvious: France (a glamour team), Russia (an economic superpower) and Portugal (the team of the world´s most famous player, Cristiano Ronaldo) had all ended up in the play-offs and it was unthinkable for FIFA that all of these teams should fail to qualify. Even though it was denounced as conspiratorial thinking at the time, in light of all the corruption that has been revealed within the halls of FIFA and UEFA in the years since then, the idea that FIFA would favour the bigger teams no longer seems that unlikely.

Ireland were drawn in a glamorous tie against France. Considered by everybody (likely including the players themselves) to be hopelessly out of their depth against the French, Ireland lost the first game
1-0 after a very poor performance in Dublin. Nobody expected Ireland to get the win they needed in Paris, with the return game being considered nothing but a formality by the time it came to be played the following week. However, with nothing left to lose, Ireland put in what was probably their best performance since the Jack Charlton era, giving a stylish attacking display that went completely against the grain of the stagnant defensive football that they´d been used to playing under Trapattoni. Dominating the whole game, they took the lead just before half time through a goal from Robbie Keane. Ireland´s seeming impossible dream of coming away from Paris with the two goal win they needed was now looking like a reality. Keane, John O´Shea and Damien Duff (who put a shot straight into Hugo Lloris hands when he was one on one with the keeper) had good chances that could have put Ireland straight into the World Cup but, as usual, Ireland lacked the mental self-belief to take their chances.

The game went to extra-time and it was decided in what became probably the most famous moment in Irish football history. France finally scored the goal they needed to progress when a free kick that was about to bounce out over the end line was intercepted by their captain Thierry Henry, who managed to cross the ball across the face of goal for William Gallas to head into the net. The Irish defense had all stopped playing after seeing that Henry had caught the ball with his hand before letting it drop down to his foot for the cross and were completely incensed when they realized the referee had allowed the goal. Ireland failed to score the second goal that they needed before the end of extra time and France went through to the World Cup instead of them. TV replays that were played around the world showed quite clearly that Henry had handled the ball. Just as with Saipan, it seemed that Irish football could never gain the attention of the football world through success on the field or the quality of their play, but only through things going disastrously wrong. The game was the main talking point throughout the football world for the next week, with everybody in the game feeling the need to give their opinions on it. The FAI requested to FIFA that the match be replayed, with the request being predictably denied. It was this incident more than any other that finally prompted FIFA to begin looking into video refereeing, even if it did take them a further eight years to actually implement it at the World Cup in 2018. It later emerged that FIFA had given the FAI a gift of five million American dollars (which they had accepted) a few months after the incident in order to fall silent on the matter. Dark rumors also abounded that Ireland were rewarded for their suffering with a favourable draw the next time they reached a play-off, just two years later.

Ireland were drawn in an easier qualifying group for the 2012 European Championships, with Russia and Slovakia being the only two strong sides that they had to face. The performances, style of football and the results were similar to what had gone before under Trapattoni, this time with Ireland picking up six wins against weaker opponents, as well as three draws and one defeat that came in the game at home to Russia. The entire campaign had been a series of solid and respectable performances, despite not providing the Irish public with a single outstanding result worth remembering. Finishing second behind Russia, the play-offs beckoned again. This time the footballing gods (or more likely, UEFA and FIFA corruption) were a lot kinder. Ireland were drawn with the minnows of Estonia, a tiny Baltic nation of only a million people with little or no footballing tradition who had surprisingly beaten Slovenia and Northern Ireland to reach the play-offs for the first and only time. In a refreshing change of pace, Ireland made light work of a team that they were clearly superior to, battering the Estonians 4-0 away from home before settling for a 1-1 draw in Dublin. After a decade in which rugby had come to challenge football´s popularity, the qualification meant that football fever gripped Ireland again, and expectations were probably unreasonably high for the upcoming Euros. Even Ireland being drawn in a nightmare group with the world and European champions Spain, as well as Italy and Croatia did very little to dim the Irish public´s enthusiasm.

Those who were more knowledgeable about football were quick to point out that, although Ireland had had a very good year in 2011 (they had lost only once all year in a friendly against Uruguay and had recorded the only win over a top team of the Trapattoni era with a memorable 2-0 friendly victory over Italy), the team hadn´t beaten a strong team in a competitive game for a decade and, in comparison with the squad Ireland had taken to their last major tournament that had contained stars from teams like Man United, Leeds and Newcastle, the entire 2012 squad were now playing at bottom half
teams in the bottom half of the Premier League like Wolves or Sunderland. Despite the words of warning, the Irish public continued to revel in their optimism until the tournament kicked off the following summer. There, they were given a harsh reality check as Ireland were heavily beaten in all three of their games (including a humiliating 4-0 defeat against Spain), leaving with their tail between their legs having conceded nine goals and scored just one. It was the first and only time when an Irish appearance in a major tournament offered absolutely nothing positive on the pitch for fans to celebrate at all. The only highlight for Ireland came when the Irish fans had demonstrated the nation´s famous fighting spirit during the closing stages of the Spain defeat, when they had loudly sung the classic folk song and sporting anthem The Fields of Athenry.

The public had wanted Trapattoni out of the job the moment the Euros had ended, but he stubbornly refused to leave, not wanting to break his lucrative contract, which the FAI had foolishly extended before the tournament. An even worse result came soon after, when Ireland suffered a 6-1 defeat against Germany in Dublin, their worst-ever home defeat. It was now clear to everybody that
Trapattoni´s tactics were completely beyond their sell by date yet the Italian still refused to resign. At press conferences, he seemed genuinely offended when he was criticized for the poor results, as if he felt that the Irish public should have been grateful to him simply for qualifying a team with such a limited body of players for any tournament at all. Trapattoni´s mistake was that he failed understand the Irish mentality. Most Irish fans were not angry simply because they team had been eliminated from the tournament early; the one thing that Irish fans would not accept was to see an Irish team go to a tournament and come home after getting humiliated. Had Ireland lost each game at Euro 2010 2-1 or 1-0, and put in some good performances, the public reaction would likely have been a lot more forgiving. Trappatoni stubbornly held onto his job for another year, when two defeats in a week to Sweden and Austria ended Ireland´s chances of qualifying for the 2014 World Cup. He left the job by mutual consent with the FAI, in what eventually proved to be his last job in football.
 

Irish football was at a desperately low ebb when the new national team manager was appointed only two months later. The man who got the job had been the dream choice of many Irish fans for many years: Martin O´Neill, the Catholic who had captained Northern Ireland to their triumph at the 1982 World Cup. O´Neill had gone on to have a highly successful career in management in British football; winning two League Cups with Leicester City on a shoestring budget, and numerous trophies with Celtic (being a successful Celtic manager was enough to forever cement him in the hearts of most southern Irish football fans, even if he came from the North.) Winning domestic trophies with Celtic is hardly a particularly impressive achievement, but O´Neill had also enjoyed exceptional success with Celtic in Europe. In 2003, he had led them to the final of the UEFA Cup, their first final of a European Cup competition since 1970. Although they lost the final 3-2 to a Porto team managed by a then little known Jose Mourinho, by taking the team that far O´Neill became the only Irish manager ever to bring a team to any European final. The following season, they knocked Barcelona out of the same competition, proving their run the previous year hadn’t been a fluke. O´Neill had been considered for the Manchester United job and had even done a secret interview for the position as England manager, an absolutely unthinkable position for an Irish man to be in! When he became Republic of Ireland manager, his choice of assistant manager earned a lot of newspaper headlines, as he gave the job to Roy Keane, with whom he had become friends while they were working together as football analysts on British TV.

After years in the doldrums, 2016 proved to be the best year for Irish football across the entire island for decades. Despite a very uneven start to their qualifying campaign (including a very disappointing defeat to Scotland) O´Neill lead the Republic of Ireland to qualification for the 2016 Euros in France. In doing so, he became the first Ireland manager since Jack Charlton to qualify for his first tournament in charge. Qualification was achieved after an historic 1-0 win over Germany in Dublin, Ireland´s first-ever competitive win over the reigning World Champions, and a very comfortable win over the highly rated Bosnia in a play-off. Results were inconsistent, but Ireland seemed to have found the confidence to actually beat allegedly superior teams that they had completely lacked under Trappatoni; the win against Germany was their first competitive win over a team higher up the FIFA rankings than them for fourteen years. These results were particularly impressive given that O´Neill had a much weaker squad to work with; many of the players played in the Championship (the new name for the constantly the second division of English football) with a far lower percentage of the squad now playing in the Premier League than when Trapattoni had taken over.

Even more surprising than the Republic´s qualification was the almost magical resuscitation of the form of Northern Ireland. After their great over-achievement in the 1980s, Northern Ireland had spent three decades mostly getting the kind of results a team representing a country with a current population of just 1.8 million people could realistically expect. The team's rapid decline that had begun immediately after their participation in the 1986 World Cup had reached in nadir in the early 2000s when they set a then European national team record for the longest time without a goal, going 13 games over the course of two years without scoring. This slide had been arrested by former international Lawrie Sanchez, best remembered as a player for his time with Wimbledon. Sanchez worked wonders with a painfully limited squad and under his stewardship it briefly looked as though Northern Ireland were about to enter a new golden era. They famously defeated England 1-0 in a World Cup qualifier in Belfast in 2005 and seemed to be well on their way to qualifying for Euro 2008 after they enjoyed an amazing start to their qualifying group, inspired by David Healy who scored a record 13 goals in the campaign, beating Spain and Sweden at home. Unforuntately for them, this turned out to be a false dawn, similar to that experienced by the Republic during their post 2002 dry spell, as Sanchez left half way through the campaign for a more lucrative job at Premier League side Fulham and their charge to the Euros faltered.

After this heartbreak, things finally began to improve for real from 2011 onward with the appointment of Michael O´Neill as national team manager. In contrast to the Republic´s new manager, who had had a long and successful career in British football management, the other M. O´Neill´s greatest achievement up to that point had been leading Shamrock Rovers to two League of Ireland championships in the Republic. Despite his underwhelming CV, O´Neill outdid even Sanchez in his new position as national team manager. Although their qualification attempt for the 2014 World Cup had been typically unimpressive, there were signs of improvement towards the end of campaign, with the team enjoying a highly creditable win over Russia. Cynical “Norn Iron” fans might have been inclined to not get overly excited about the positive result, for fear of it being another road to nowhere like that which had started with the win over England but ultimately ended with the team no better off than it had been before.
With the Euros expanding from 16 teams to 24 in 2016, many football pundits predicted that many weaker countries would qualify, diluting the quality of the competition. Although this proved to be the case, when it came to Northern Ireland they did not perform like a weaker country in qualification, actually winning their group over Hungary, Romania and even group top-seeds Greece, who they beat home and away. O´Neill´s achievements were made all the more impressive when taking into account the lack of quality in his squad; only six of Northern Ireland´s final 23 man squad that went to France were playing in the Premier League, with all the rest being in the lower divisions of English football or at weaker teams in Scotland (i.e.; not Celtic or Rangers), a squad that looked threadbare even when compaired with the Republic's contemporary player poo.l Northern Ireland´s surprise success meant that for the first time ever both Irish teams would compete in a tournament together.

Both Irelands ultimately proved to be successful at the tournament´s finals. The Republic were drawn in the competition´s group of death along with Sweden, tournament dark horses Belgium and (for the fourth time in a major tournament) Italy. Despite a heavy defeat to Belgium, they progressed through to the second round after a dramatic last minute win against the Italians, their most memorable result at the finals of a tournament since they had beaten the same nation in the World Cup 22 years earlier. In the last 16, they were only a half an hour away from pulling off a huge shock when they took the lead against the hosts and tournament favourites France, via a penalty scored by Norwich winger Robbie Brady (who had also scored the winning goal against Italy) in the second minute. They held the lead for over an hour until constant French pressure saw them conceding two goals from Anton Griezmann in the space of a couple of minutes which ultimately lead to their elimination. Northern Ireland also made it to the second round. Despite losing group games against Germany and Poland, a surprise win against the Ukraine was enough to put them through to the last 16, where they were eliminated by the tournament´s surprise package Wales. Similarly to the 80s, both sides of Northern Ireland's divided community celebrated the team's success, with many Catholics delighted that they now had two Irish teams to shout for and not seeing much difference between the two of them. Michael O'Neill was even awarded an MBE by the Queen for his services to football, such was the value of his team's shock run deemed to be worth to the province's moral.

As well as the two national sides' good fortunes, probably the most impressive, and certainly the most surprising, Irish footballing success of 2016 was actually one that came after the Euros. In the autumn, Dundalk FC, a team in the Republic´s League of Ireland who came from a provincial town on the border with the North, enjoyed the most successful European run in the history of Irish club football. Although Dundalk had traditionally been among the more successful teams in the league´s history, during the 2010s they were at the beginning of what eventually proved to be be their most successful ever period. Dundalk were under the management of Stephen Kenny, who, although a relatively young manager, was already a successful veteran in League of Ireland management, having won trophies with Bohemians, Derry and Shamrock Rovers. Kenny had won the two previous years´ LOI titles with Dundalk and was known for getting his teams to play attractive, passing football that delighted purists and was deemed to be rather stereotypically “un-Irish.” After a memorable win against Belarussian champions
BATE Borisov, Kenny led his team into the final qualifying round for the Champions League.
Although they lost to Polish team Legia Warsaw, they were rewarded with a place in the first group stage of the Europa League.

Dundalk´s achievement in reaching the group stage of a UEFA competition was not without precedent;
although no Irish team had ever progressed past the first round of a major UEFA club competition, Shelbourne had battled their way through two rounds of qualifiers in the 2004 Champions League to set up a third and final qualifying tie against Deportivo La Coruna, with the prize for the victors being a much coveted spot in the competition's highly lucrative groups stages. Although they unsurprisingly lost, they were still awarded with an automatic place in the first round of that season's UEFA Cup but, as that competition was still played in a straight knock-out format, by going on to lose that tie against Lille, they still did nothing to better Irish club football's miserable record of perpetually failing to progress past the first round of continental competitions. Since the transformation of the UEFA Cup into the Europa League and the addition of a first round group stage, Michael O´Neill´s Shamrock Rovers team had also reached the same stage several years prior to 2016. However, whereas Rovers had finished the group without a single point, in their first game Dundalk drew away to Dutch team AZ Alkmaar and then followed that with a win against respected Israeli outfit Maccabi Tel Aviv at home. With four points from their first two games, things were looking good for the Lilywhites when they went 1-0 up away to group top seeds Zenith Saint Petersburg in the next game, but, unfortunately, they ended up losing a tight game 2-1. Although they also went on to lose their next three games and failed to progress any further, they still given a good account of themselves; all four of their defeats had been by just a single goal and they hadn't looked out of place in the competition.

Dundalk´s Europa League run was by far the greatest performance ever by any Irish club in Europe, all the more impressive when realizing that Kenny had achieved it with virtually no money and a team entirely consisting of Irish players (he had no foreign imports at all) who had not been considered good enough to forge careers in England. The club´s star player, Darryl Horgan, was called up to the Republic of Ireland squad before making the inevitable move across the water to Preston. Dundalk were awarded seven million Euro from UEFA in prize money; the equivalent of winning the League of Ireland approximately 60-70 times. The money helped Dundalk to continue to dominate the domestic game, finishing the decade with a total of five league titles and five domestic cups and more importantly secured them financially and allowed them to continue to maintain their facilities at a professional standard, a rarity in the league of Ireland were they remain who of a hand full of clubs to still be financially stable; despite the Irish economy improving throughout the decade the continued lack of interest in the general public towards the league of Ireland meant that the majority of clubs remained on shaky financial grounds and saw a gulf opening up between Dundalk and a few others (the likes of Shamrock Rovers and Bohemians) and the rest.

At the end of 2016, both Ireland teams were riding high in their respective qualifying groups for the upcoming World Cup, the Republic sitting on top of their group after an impressive 1-0 win away to Austria in Vienna (particularly impressive as it was their first competitive win away to a team ranked higher than them since they had beaten Scotland in 1987) and Northern Ireland in second place in theirs, second only behind the world champions Germany. Despite the majority of players in both squads now playing in the lower divisions in England as opposed to the Premier League, it was possible to say, with a certain amount of cautious optimism, that the future, yet again, surprisingly seemed to be bright for Irish football.

Despite the excellent year, those with their ears closer to ground than the average armchair fan knew that holding a positive view of the state of football on the island as really being far harder to maintain when everything was taken into account. Following the Republic of Ireland's humiliation at the 2012 Euros, a journalist at the Irish Times wrote an opinion piece asserting that football had simply moved on to a point where it was now impossible for Ireland, with it's small population, public interest divided between too many sports and (worst of all) lack of investment and proper footballing infrastructure, to catch up. Looking at how football has fared all over the island in the years since 2016, it is not hard to believe that this thesis may have been correct, with it being possible (from a very pessimistic point of view) to see the success enjoyed by Dundalk and both national teams in that year acting as a kind of farewell tour for Irish football fans who may have very little to look forward to for quite some time. Since then things, have gone from bad to worse for football in Ireland with one disaster after another seeming to befall it. Both national team’s have failed to qualify for any of the interceding tournaments (with the Republic’s 5-1 defeat to Denmark in the playoffs for the 2018 World Cup, a tournament that by rights they should have already have been qualified for had they maintained the form leading up to the Austria game, being an all time low,) the club sides have failed to push on in Europe (despite Dundalk managing a follow-up Europa League appearance in 2020,) the defection of English born starlet Declan Rice to the national team of his birth even after playing three friendly games for the boys in green, the dwindling numbers of Irish players getting game time in the Premier League and the eye-watering revelations about corruption, embezzlement and greed by the FAI’s former chief executive John Delaney (with millions having being squandered on his enrichment and that of many other board members that could have been spent on developing the league or youth players) being the most egregious examples but sadly not the only ones. The bizarre managerial mix-up where (in order to please all factions) the doomed-Delaney hired both Mick McCarthy AND former Dundalk boss Stephen Kenny as successor national team managers when the O’Neill and Keane team left by mutual consent following a particularly miserable year in 2018 seemingly put the icing on the cake for Delaney’s decades of mismanagement, but it may (finally) have been his final significant action that could eventually be the act that lit the twinkling light at the end of the tunnel. The future is very uncertain for Irish football, but despite much initial criticism and several terrible results, when finally given his chance as national team manager in 2020, Stephen Kenny did as he had promised and began to get the Irish team to move away from decades of pragmatism and long ball football and started to engender in his players a more modern passing style of play. Although it took results a while to turn around, towards the end of the second year of his tenure, in 2021, Kenny’s team began getting results, hammering several, admittedly weaker teams like Qatar and Luxembourg, while bossing possession stats and passing their opponents off the field. Regardless of the limited squad that he’s working with, Kenny’s style seems to be winning over the Irish footballing public indicating the possibility of an eventual change in Irish football culture. The future is not necessarily rosy for football in Ireland, but for the first time in a long time, it is possible to see a glimmer of hope on the horizon. Perhaps most interestingly of, Kenny’s squad now includes four players of Nigerian origin, indicating that in our diverse modern Ireland, the boys in green are now becoming something more akin to a rainbow nation.


 

 

Irish Football Statistics

 

Northern Ireland (formerly known as Ireland)

• Association: Irish Football Association (founded 1880)

• First International Match: Ireland 0 – England 13 (Belfast; 18 February 1882)

• Biggest Win: Northern Ireland 7 – Wales 0 (Belfast; 1 February 1930)

• Biggest Defeat: Ireland 0 – England 13 (Belfast; 18 February 1882)

• Most Frequently Played Opponents: England (37 Matches)

• Highest FIFA Ranking: 20 (September 2017)

• Lowest FIFA Ranking: 129 (September 2012)

• Honors Won: British Home Championship 1914, 1980, 1984

• Most Capped Player: Steven Davis (124)

• Top Scorer: David Healy (36)

• Most Successful Manager: Billy Bingham (1967–1971, 1980–1994)
  Plyd: 138 Won: 48 Drawn: 37 Lost: 53
  Qualified for World Cup 1982, World Cup 1986
  Won British Home Championship 1980, 1984

 

• National League: Northern Ireland Football League (formerly Irish League – founded 1890)
  Most Successful Team: Linfield (52 Titles)

• Domestic Cups:
  Irish Cup (founded 1881)
  Most Successful Team: Linfield (43 Titles)
  
  Northern Ireland Football League Cup (Founded 1987)
  Most Successful Team: Linfield (10 Titles)

Northern Ireland National Team Record at Major Tournaments

 

World Cup Sweden 1958

Group 1
Northern Ireland 1–0 Czechoslovakia

Northern Ireland 1–3 Argentina

Northern Ireland 2–2 West Germany

Group 1 Play-Off
Northern Ireland 2–1 Czechoslovakia

Quarter-Finals
Northern Ireland 0-4 France

 

World Cup Spain 1982

Group 5
Northern Ireland 0–0 Yugoslavia

Northern Ireland 1–1 Honduras

Northern Ireland 1–0 Spain

 

Second Round Group D
Northern Ireland 2–2 Austria

Northern Ireland 1–4 France

World Cup Mexico 1986

Group D
Northern Ireland 1–1 Algeria

Northern Ireland 1–2 Spain

Northern Ireland 0–3 Brazil
 

European Championships France 2016

Group C
Northern Ireland 0–1 Poland

Northern Ireland 2–0 Ukraine

Northern Ireland 0–1 Germany
 

Round of 16
Northern Ireland 0–1 Wales


Northern Ireland Tournament Stats:
Played: 17 Won: 4 Drawn: 4 Lost: 9 Goals For: 15 Goals Against: 26

Biggest Win: Northern Ireland 2–0 Ukraine
Biggest Defeat: Northern Ireland 0–4 France
Most Appearances:
Billy Hamilton, David McCreery, Sammy McIlroy, Jimmy Nicholl, Norman Whiteside
(8 – All appearances made at World Cup 1982 & World Cup 1986)
Top Scorer: Peter McParland (5 - All goals scored at World Cup 1958)
Most Frequently Played Opponents: Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, Spain (2 matches played)

 

 

 

 

Republic of Ireland (formerly Ireland & Irish Free State)

• Association: Football Association Of Ireland (founded 1921)

• First International Match: Ireland 1 – Bulgaria 0 (Paris; 28 May 1924)

• Biggest Win: Republic of Ireland 8 – Malta 0 (Dublin; 16 November 1983)

• Biggest Defeat: Republic of Ireland 0 – Brazil 7 (Uberlandia; 27 May 1982)

• Most Frequently Played Opponents: Poland (28 Matches)

• Highest FIFA Ranking: 6 (August 1993)

• Lowest FIFA Ranking: 70 (June & July 2014)

• Honors Won: None

• Most Capped Player: Robbie Keane (146)

• Top Scorer: Robbie Keane (68)

• Most Successful Manager: Jack Charlton (1986 – 1995)
  Played: 93 Won 46 Drawn 30 Lost 17
  Qualified for Euro 1988, World Cup 1990, World Cup 1994

 

• National League: League of Ireland (Founded 1921)
  Most Successful Team: Shamrock Rovers (17 Titles)

• Domestic Cups:
  FAI Cup (Founded 1921)
  Most Successful Team: Shamrock Rovers (24 Titles)

• League Of Ireland Cup (Founded 1973)
  Most Successful Team: Derry City (11 Titles)

Republic of Ireland Record in Major Tournaments
 

European Championships West Germany 1988

Group 2
Republic of Ireland 1–0 England

Republic of Ireland 1–1 USSR

Republic of Ireland 0–1 Netherlands


World Cup Italy 1990

Group F
Republic of Ireland 1–1 England

Republic of Ireland 0–0 Egypt

Republic of Ireland 1–1 Netherlands

Round of 16
Republic of Ireland 0–0 Romania (Republic of Ireland win 5:4 on penalties)

Quarter-Finals
Republic of Ireland 0–1 Italy

World Cup 1994 USA

Group E
Republic of Ireland 1–0 Italy

Republic of Ireland 1–2 Mexico

Republic of Ireland 0–0 Norway

 

 

Round of 16

Republic of Ireland 0–2 Netherlands

World Cup 2002 Japan & South Korea

Group E
Republic of Ireland 1–1 Cameroon

Republic of Ireland 1–1 Germany

Republic of Ireland 3–0 Saudi Arabia

Round of 16
Republic of Ireland 1–1 Spain (Spain win 3:2 on penalties)

 

European Championships 2012 Poland & Ukraine

Group C
Republic of Ireland 1–3 Croatia

Republic of Ireland 0–4 Spain

Republic of Ireland 0–2 Italy


Euro 2016 France

Group E
Republic of Ireland 1-1 Sweden

Republic of Ireland 0–3 Belgium

Republic of Ireland 1–0 Italy

Round of 16
Republic of Ireland 1–2 France

Republic of Ireland Tournament Stats:

Played: 23 Won: 4 Drawn: 10 Lost: 9
Goals For: 16 Goals Against: 27

Biggest Win: Republic of Ireland 3-0 Saudi Arabia
Biggest Defeat: Republic of Ireland 0–4 Spain
Most Appearances: Steve Staunton
(13 - World Cup 1990, World Cup 1994, World Cup 2002
- Staunton has played in every one of Ireland´s games at the World Cup to date.
*Staunton is also the only player to have scored more than one “Olympic Goals”, a goal scored directly from a corner, in international football. He scored two, one against Portugal in a friendly in 1992 and the other against Northern Ireland in a World Cup qualifier in 1993.)
Top Scorer: Robbie Keane (3 - All goals scored at World Cup 2002)
Most Frequently Played Opponents: Italy (4 matches played)

 

 

Combined Ireland Teams Tournament Stats:
Played: 40 Won: 8 Drawn: 14 Lost: 18
Goals For: 31 Goal Against: 53

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