Irish National Team
Aside from the tournaments, International football doesn't really interest me. I find most of England's games rather depressing to watch - even with the recent good results, Gareth Southgate's brand of football makes me miserable.
But this post isn't about England, it's about our close neighbours, the Republic of Ireland. The World Cup qualifiers started this week and have been of little interest to me until I saw a news article this morning. The Republic of Ireland lost to Luxembourg 1-0. I had to check a few sources to be sure this wasn't an early April Fool's prank and it wasn't. It was true.
The Republic of Ireland LOST to Luxembourg.
They lost to Serbia in midweek which was no great surprise given Serbia's higher place in the rankings. But to put this into context, Luxembourg are 98th. That's lower than Vietnam, Madagascar and a country I've never heard of - Kyrgyz Republic.
So did Ireland play a weakened side? Well by the looks of it, no weaker than usual and I count 6 Premier League players amongst the starting 11. Admittedly, we're not talking top 6 teams, or even mid table but still, it's a Premier League which has never seen a player from Luxembourg represented.
Now Luxembourg are improving football-wise but even still, this is the most embarrassing result that I can remember for the Irish - long gone are the days of Italia '90.
