Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is an Irish independent podcast.
Hey, welcome everybody. So, look, I think we all felt a key component of the healing process was sitting down last night to watch Denmark beat Czechia 6-0 and console ourselves that, well, you know, Prague isn't worth dwelling on. We were never going to beat Denmark. And just as the scab was starting to take shape, it's been ripped off again. Czechia at the World Cup.
I have to watch Czechia at the World Cup.
Chapter 2: What issues did Ireland face in the World Cup playoffs?
Hey, Will. Hey, Joe. Dan McDonald with us. Hi, Dan.
It's the worst. It is the worst.
So do we all prefer if Denmark qualifies? Because I actually prefer Czechia being there than over Denmark. Denmark have not done anything for us. Oh, yeah. And they bring nothing to a major tournament either. All they do is qualify. And they never...
Chapter 3: How did the performance against Denmark affect Ireland's morale?
I don't feel like they have any good memories in the last long period of time. I'm happy for Czechia to be there, actually.
And listen, I will say, great bunch of lads. In terms of as hosts, I didn't find the Czechs annoying. Yeah, Ireland were buying frees and penalties as much as they were. But no, I wanted Denmark to win 4-0. Because I think, and the conversations I was having with people, I think if you could come out of the window thinking, well, look,
sure you let them off the ropes lost in penalties but let's be honest you would have probably lost to a superior force anyway you're going to have to sit in the summer and see a team play in the World Cup in Guadalajara that you were 2-0 up against you had them on the ropes you let them off and they are there making their memories I still feel a certain kinship when I stay up at 3 o'clock in the morning to watch them play South Korea in their opening game
I'll actually feel a certain kinship. I don't know, for some reason, I don't feel burned and scarred. When I think of Czechia, I don't put them on a pedestal with some of the other teams that have broken our hearts over this. I don't know why that is.
Chapter 4: What are the implications of Czechia qualifying for the World Cup?
Maybe I have Stockholm syndrome or something.
It's like a personality analysis. I mean, maybe that speaks to something good in your character. But to me, to me,
maybe for me it's like i've always had the world cup on this pedestal that it's so hard to qualify for like it's harder than a you know doing a 24 team euros to be a now 16 team previously 13 team european qualification to see teams there that you know that you can beat and in this case should have beaten yeah that cuts deeper i get that makes prague a crime scene in my book
Prague now is a boy where, you hear Prague now, I think, oh, like it's one of those where it's like Yerevan has that thing now. Yerevan gets dropped into conversation now. It's like Yerevan, man. It's like, oh yeah. Vietnam, you weren't there, man. You wouldn't understand. Like there is, there are, like Nicosia. I hear Nicosia is like Cyprus.
Even San Marino, there's that element of you hear the place or the city, the country or the city, and it transports you back to a feeling. I think Prague now to me, But people will be going there in their stag parties or whatever they're going to do. To me, Prague is just death.
Yeah. So check you at the World Cup. Indosport podcast at independent.ie is where you can get your emails. Gary Breen is going to join us very shortly. Our football coverage is, of course, sponsored by Sky Sports. With Sky Sports and Sports Extra, you can watch every live Premier League match this season.
with Sky Sports Premier Sports TNT Sports you can get Sky Sports and Sports Extra on Sky or you can stream them with Now we should mention by the way it was Denmark 2 Czechia 2 after extra time 1 all after normal time Czechia opening goal beauty and then 3-1 on penalties the Danes twice missed the target
One was saved as well, Rasmus amongst the missers, Christian Eriksson, the lone Denmark player to score. And so our Czechian friends bridge a 20-year gap.
I will say the penalty shootout was taking place while Hamer was chatting to the press. It was sort of a side huddle that we'll maybe get to later on a bit with Gary. But John O'Shea was watching the penalties on my phone. And he was very much like, we were just watching the penalties on my phone. And there was, I think, a split.
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Chapter 5: What are the concerns regarding Ireland's set-piece defending?
But, but, but, this was not a kind of backs to the wall job. Bosnia-Herzegovina, 22 shots, 11 on target to Italy, seven with three on target. So three times as many shots as their Italian counterparts. They were very good in this game. And for Italy, it's the third time in a row they've missed out in the World Cup. Obviously, they've won the Euros in the midst of it all.
Gennaro Gattuso is the manager I presume for not much longer and so what yes Sweden did them over two legs in 18 North Macedonia yeah did them in 22 and now Bosnia Herzegovina on penalties Italy not at the World Cup I saw the tweet no Italy at an American World Cup no Ireland at an American World Cup
they should just get together and play a friendly around June the 18th you know for the anniversary of 94 and even their last two World Cups they've been in they didn't get out of the group either so their last knockout game was the World Cup final they won in 2006 so it'll be over 20 years it's crazy It's amazing.
It's amazing that like in the midst of this period of misery, they still did England on their own turf. A documentary of like Italian international football across a 10 year period is crazy. Even from World Cup to Euros between the two, it would be sort of amazing.
It's amazing. Will mentioned Democratic Republic of Congo. I hand over to Fox Sports 1.
So it'll be an in-swinging ball towards the near post. Sneaks through. It's in. Axel Twanzebe is broken through for DR Congo. 1-0 in extra time. It's words that have never been spoken before. DR Congo is going to the World Cup.
not strictly true they were there in 1974 but listen nonetheless he didn't quite meet the moment never before wow why was he saying oh because they were Zaire then ah yes the guy running out of the wall and belting the ball away yes that's a technicality though yeah well he did say never the words geopolitical maybe it's a bit like a lot of Premier League commentators will talk about the first before 1992 like you know it kind of does happen
They're obviously a very interesting case study. I think people generally know the grim history of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Second largest country in Africa, 124 million people. Belgian rule until 1960. The horrors there are stomach churning, if you care to look back to Leopold and friends. French, the official language. But even post 1960, it's just been war torn history.
To this day, fighting in the east of the country, rebel groups running various cities there. You might remember in 23 at the AFCON, the players, this very famous, their anthem, they put one hand over their mouth and the other hand like a gun to their temples during the anthem to say, like, things are not good. And then...
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Chapter 6: How does the team plan to improve under Heimir Hallgrimsson?
Their National Federation hasn't had no leader since 2021. So if you look up their 26-man squad even this week, 10 were born in France, five in Belgium, two in Switzerland, one in England. You had eight born in the Congo, but most of those moved to Europe early. So actually only two of their entire squad have played club football for a Congolese side.
So it's a strange kind of team in terms of its relationship with the homeland. But I don't know if you've seen scenes from, you know, various villages and people just going bonanza at like one in the morning, lashing rain. There in 1974, beat Jamaica. Jamaica had been in France in 98. That's 10 African teams at this year's tournament.
But that's, you know, that is a story, albeit, you know, grim backdrop.
Yeah, the African countries, like, you know, we've seen some amazing stories develop around them because, and this sounds like terrible generalisation mode, but you do, you're dealing with some extraordinary circumstances behind some of those teams and very different types. We've seen some of the Ghana stories at certain World Cups.
you know that was very different set up the the convoy of bringing money and bonus money for the players and a lot of these federations like are can be a little bit it can you know they're dealing with unbelievable circumstances you know but it is the power of the tournament that uh the scenes of joy that you're you're watching well this uh tournament not political enough let's get a rack in there
Let's get Iraq in there, this American World Cup, for God's sake. Final team in. What does this tournament need? It needs some Iraq. So they're the 48 team in. They've beaten Bolivia 2-1. Their last appearance at the World Cup came, Will, in? 1986. Yes. Interestingly, they wanted this game postponed against Bolivia because they had to travel to Mexico.
And obviously, Middle East, not so good at the moment. So they had like a three-day journey to get to Mexico.
began in baghdad they had to cross jordan by land it was a mess but they got there they won so they'll join france senegal and norway iraq are in there you know there's some very random groups we need to we need europe needs to get back in on the inter confederate confederation playoffs like you think like arden playing iran in the playoff was just a completely random thing as a product of how the draw was set up at that time there was an extra one in europe and they had to play the team
Yeah, I just think, you know, UEFA just need to get back on board with this.
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Chapter 7: What are the challenges facing Italy in their World Cup qualification?
So what do you want to say about last night?
Listen, in terms of reviewing it, which was a cruel, kind of torturous game for the lads to have to go through anyway... I was kind of like thinking, well, I'm going to go into a real deep dive into it. I was watching the game thinking, now this is unnecessary as such.
But something really ugly really said, and I just thought, oh my God, this is, I just don't know where we're going here with this. And it just kind of like gave me more questions that I felt I had to try and find answers to. I understood in terms of, you know, a team needs to emerge now for the Nations League. So time is going to be of the essence.
We can't be kind of like, it can't be a fact-finding mission like it was when Heimer first came in in the last Nations League campaign. He knows who his players are. He said initially to us, his remit was finding 15 or so players he could regularly rely on. So I understood in terms of that, playing the same kind of team.
But I did think like, you know, these lads could have stepped away from it, maybe give an opportunity to others. That's fine. The game kicks off, Joe, and I'm thinking, okay, you know, I can understand, like, the hurt of the players still trying to get rid of that type of pain. And we saw a perfect example of it when Seamus berated them, didn't he?
I'm not sure what minute it was, quite early on when they weren't showing for a throw-in and he was literally expletively saying, come on, liven up, lads, we're walking. Now, they were shot. But the thing that really stuck to me was on about seven minutes, seven minutes 30, Seamus went bursting forwards. And he kind of, the ball broke to him and then he kind of bounced into central midfield.
He was five or six yards away then, but doing a counter press, going after their midfielder who hadn't secured the ball, he's bouncing in around him. He literally turned his back on him and sprinted back into a back five. And when he did that, he had seven men behind the ball already in place. And yet he didn't.
He went against all his natural instincts when you think of how good he is at harassing people. He didn't go that six yards to put the pressure on. And I'm thinking, this isn't his decision. This is by instruction. So I'm thinking, OK, so we're still going to play that way, are we? A low block five, narrow midfield four, one up front against North Macedonia, who conceded 11 goals in two games.
And then 10 minutes into the game then, so three minutes after that, we put a high press on their goalkeeper playing out from the back, the goal kick. We've got five people there. He looks up, he clips a ball to his inside left forward who brings it down. And I'm thinking, surely our defenders are competing for that ball. It's a floated delivery. They're not.
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Chapter 8: How does the coaching style of Heimir Hallgrimsson impact the team?
I'm always feel like I just can't get a read on Heimer at the moment. And I don't know why that is. I'm finding it really difficult to see. And there've been so many positive stuff about what he has done. And he reads the room really well. He's an intelligent man. There's no doubt about that. And I think the fact that he's better with the press is important.
I like his soundbites because I want to know what he's saying. I want to hear what he's saying so I can kind of gauge what he may be saying to the team in terms of that scenario. And I think he's got a really good way about him in a way that, say, Mick was a bit gruff. Martin might have been a bit spiky. And, you know, Steve and Kenny looked uncomfortable at times.
In the grand scheme of things, you might think that doesn't really matter, but it does matter in terms of understanding what the players are seeing. So all of that, all that kind of administrative stuff that he does, he's excellent at, you know, talking about the psychology that's needed, all that type of stuff.
Even to the extent of saying he's going to move where the away fans sit to try and get those, you know, those little bit of gains. Ultimately, as a manager... What are you doing on the pitch? What are you doing tactically to make us win? Because we can talk about, you know, managers having a massive role in terms of, I don't know, like really inspiring you.
I can't remember one instance when Mick McCarthy or Brian Kerr said anything inspiring to me that I wasn't thinking already as a kid dreaming of playing for Ireland. It was just white noise. All I wanted to hear from that manager was, how are we going to win? Not why we need to win or who we're winning for. How are we going to win?
Dan I'll bring in in a sec please come in off the back of this fascinating to know what you think as well could I just push back Gary and shoot this point down but when you say like got his hamer a bit all over the place I'm sort of looking at him in recent times and thinking well I kind of see the bones of a team and a bones of consistency here like keeper boxed off the back three boxed off and you've got you know John Egan gets a bit of game time there's going to be injuries that's fine as well but that Collins O'Shea Jacob Bryan back three beautiful
Two good options at left back in Scales and Manning. Coleman's future up in the air and there needs to be new blood there, but that's beyond any manager's control. And then in terms of the formation, you've got Malumby, you've got Knight, you've got Josh Cullen to come back in. Broadly, we know there's probably two there.
Ogbene, Azaz, Parrott, that feels fairly locked in with Ferguson to come back in. Maybe that changes the formation. But look, I take your point. He messed Coleman around. The players are there. But also the bones of a kind of...
a foundationer there as well no like I'm very interested in your concerns because I looked at last night and just thought well like Coleman running back maybe he's 37 he's tired look I'll just I'll just I look at last night and see it as a bit of a kind of you'd sort of forgive anything because they're probably just fatigued and it's just that kind of a strange 100% in terms of how the players adapted themselves but did you not think that that felt exactly like Armenia at home that first half how turgid it was in terms of
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