I can't remember the exact situation Ireland was in before i took over but it wasn't anything special. The backroom team was distinctively average, the squad was down on confidence and worst of all, Ireland was sliding down the rankings and had fallen, i think, to a lowly 59th place. My aim is to rejuvenate Ireland and, to start with, get them inside the top 20.
Here's a quick overview of the Irish squad i had to work with:
It's not actually that bad but lacks the real quality needed to compete with the top teams so my tactical genius would have to really show if i was to win anything with Ireland or even achieve a top 20 rank.
The first thing i did was completely reshape my staff. I sacked most of them and moved my current assistant manager to U21 coach. The only staff member to keep his job was the goalkeeping coach and he may still be let go but for now, i think he has just about enough quality. Finding a good staff team was actually easier than i thought it would be; i had to settle for my second/third choice in most areas as the incredible staff turned their noses at me :( Overall, i am happy with what i have working with me.
Upon taking the job i was told that i had to win the Four Associations Tournament which is between Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales (England refused to play in the tournament for fear of being embarrassed....)
The results went as follows:
We played well in both the Wales and Scotland games and deserved our wins (NB - both are ranked higher than us) but we really struggled against the lower ranked Northern Ireland and were lucky to get a draw although we lead for the whole game and they snatched a point in the last few minutes. The results were good enough to see us take the "title" as champions.
Luckily i took over Ireland at the start of the European Championships qualifying campaign so i didn't have to make up for my predecessors mistakes. We had a fairly tough group with Denmark and Holland both chosen to qualify. Our results went as follows:
You are reading it correct :) We managed to beat Holland twice; I couldn't believe it myself. The first game was a dull affair in which nobody really controlled the game and we managed to take our chances and Holland didn't. However, the second game was completely different. They came out all guns blazing and just hammered us for the first 20 minutes; managing to score one along the way. I decided to make a double substitution (not to brag but the two player i brought on were the two that scored :) ) in the 20th minute and change tactics completely and it worked a treat. We really took the game to them; i've never been so proud of my Irish team :)
Those results leave us sitting nicely at the top of our group and in a great position.
The next competition i have to worry about is the world cup. I got a nice surprise when this came through; Ireland was considered in the 2nd tier of European football as opposed to the European Championships where war were in the 3rd tier.
We got a really good draw in my opinion; considering the teams we could have drawn, we were very fortunate:
My aim is to win this group and we'll see what happens at the world cup :)
We have also had some friendlies since i took over which were encouraging and even in the 3-1 lose at the hands of Brazil, we gave a good account of ourselves and could have got something from the game if our finishing had been more clinical.
Finally, i'll leave you with the overview of the Ireland profile. So far during my reign, Ireland have moved up 29 places and are currently in 30th position. However, it gets tougher from here on up as the teams are much better :p
I hope you enjoyed this read and, as always, all your comments are welcome and i will try to answer any questions you have and fulfil any screenshot requests as well.
Thanks,
Atokous
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