Irish international soccer's golden era seems a far way away 

LIAM BRADY'S announcement that he was calling it a day for his punditry duties with RTÉ, draws the curtain on the golden era of football analysis at the station. It comes at the same time many think Irish international football is as far away from its golden era as ever.

And while it was nice to see an Ireland victory for Brady’s sign-off, a 3-0 home victory over Gibraltar did little to impress the man who was probably the most skilful player ever to wear the green shirt of Ireland. It also did little to impress the Mexican wave performing crowds at the Aviva Stadium.

Brady’s retirement brings an end to the era of the fabulous four of Irish match analysis at the State broadcaster. A time when the distinct characters of Johnny ‘Nice Guy’ Giles, Eamon ‘Belligerent’ Dunphy, Liam ‘Grumpy’ Brady, all ably corralled by the late and great Bill ‘Average Man’ O’Herlihy, dominated match analysis, offering Irish viewers and football fans a truthful, non-sugar-coated, entertaining and sometimes controversial insight into the game. All at the same time as the ‘big’ British broadcasters had a procession of consensus-repeating and bland talking heads rolled out for every tournament.

Uncomfortable truth

Of course, it helped that this golden era of TV analysis coincided with the golden era of Irish international soccer from Euro 88 through to the World Cup of 2002, when our appetite for the game was whetted and sated both on and off the field.

With Brady moving on, it is easy to see and experience the rather uncomfortable truth, that this current iteration of the national team is well off the pace of those previous sides that so thrilled and entertained us.

And sadly, Brady confirmed as much in his remarks after the Greece 2-1 defeat in Athens, when he proclaimed that the current crop of Irish international players were the “worst in his lifetime”.

Later, Brady would try to clarify that he didn’t want to be disrespectful to the players, who he said undoubtedly gave their all to the cause and the team.

"But I just feel the talent in this squad just doesn't compare to the teams in the past. The teams I've played in, the teams that Giovanni Trapattoni had, or Martin O'Neill had. I think things have gradually got worse in the players we're producing. It's a worry.” 

And it is worrying. Friday’s defeat and Monday’s victory may have looked rather different on the scoreboard but both games witnessed Ireland struggle to put any semblance of control on the game. They the ball about well enough but it’s often sideways or backwards, we create neat triangles on occasions, but the side rarely actually manages to define themselves or impose a character on the game. It’s like the side are just ive character players in a video game waiting for some instruction from an unseen controller to dictate their actions, raw talent or inspiration seems to be distinctly absent.

High standards

To be fair to the current Irish team, it may be impossible to reach the standards of what Brady expects. One suspects that for former players of the caliber of talent that Brady and Roy Keane possess, they cannot understand why the current crop can’t just do it. ‘There’s the ball, take control of it… win it’. It probably seems so simple in their minds and natural genius for the game, they cannot understand that for us mere mortals what they ask for seems almost impossible.

It may explain the patchy results both these legends achieved as managers too. Maybe they just couldn’t relate what they found natural in the game when it came to dealing with standard or below average talent before them. It may also explain the air of frustration and grumpiness both brought to their punditry. The aggravation of watching other players not grasp what seems so obvious and natural to them must irk them a lot especially at international level.

Brady believes that investment in youth football to identify the best talent could remedy the problem. But that it should have been done 20 years ago. With the pathway to English clubs to develop talent far more restricted due to Brexit and the experience gained on continental clubs still to be developed, the task to develop young stars seems tougher than ever.

The question will we ever see a talent on the level of Liam ‘Chippy’ Brady wear the green shirt again? In current trends, it remains doubtful.