The latest communications mishap surrounding the Irish football team should have us all clamouring for the return of Liam Brady to the management. The pundit is renowned for talking sense on RTE’s soccer panel and there’s nothing sensible about some of the talk coming from the Irish camp in recent days. Continue reading → 
Stephen Kelly and Giovanni Trapattoni are playing out a nasty tit-for-tat row in the full glare of the media spotlight after the defender stated he was ‘shocked and disgusted’ with the manager’s comments about him this week. Continue reading → 
Once upon a time in Dublin, getting a score from Old Wes meant something entirely different, but it was shift of a different kind at another south Dublin venue that has Irish football fans all hot and bothered. Wes Hoolahan’s cameo against Poland has put a pep in the step of the Irish soccer team and its under-fire manager. Continue reading → 
James McClean and fellow members of the Irish football squad, Kevin Doyle, Glenn Whelan, Stephen Ward, Keiren Westwood, Paul McShane and Shane Long took on Today FM’s Shave or Dye charity challenge ahead of the friendly with Poland at the Aviva Stadium Continue reading → 
The day after he turned 21, all eyes at Wembley will be on Brazil’s latest superstar Neymar but the followers of the Selecao will also be hailing the return of another hero, the grinning teeth and smiling feet of the one they call Ronaldinho Gaúcho. Continue reading → David Meyler and Robbie Brady have signed for Hull City after successful loans spells at the Championship high-flyers. Steve Bruce moved to secure the signings of the players, who both made their international débuts in 2012, as the Tigers seek to maintain their promotion push. Continue reading → 
In a year when the national team performed dismally at a European Championship, there’s a lot of reflecting going on amongst the Irish football team and fans alike but for Seamus Coleman at least, the end of 2012 marked some notable highs. Continue reading → 
Does Ireland have the world’s coolest footballing-loving President?
“Something collective is happening and the people of the country will be behind them” – His words should be as true today as they were last summer. Continue reading → 
This time last year, there were high hopes of transfer movement for Irish stars struggling at club level. A European Championship loomed on the horizon, a competition Marco Tardelli said could serve as a shop window for the Republic squad. The demand for our stars failed to materialise and Poland saw the shop bankrupt. This time however, it’s form players and old reliables that are attracting attention. Continue reading → 
Sat disconsolate, arms barely propping himself up on the Stade de France turf, Richard Dunne was joined by the villain of the piece, Thierry Henry. ‘The Cheat of St Denis,’ as dubbed by George Hamilton, offered his hand to the Irish colossus, a recognition of the heartbreak he and his countrymen had visited upon the gallant Irish in Paris in 2009. As fate would have it, are the two to be reunited as team-mates at New York Red Bulls? Continue reading → Whatever your thoughts about musicians taking part in talent shows, James Arthur has the X-Factor when it comes to class. The 24-year-old has called for ‘He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother,’ the Hillsborough victims tribute single, to reach the Christmas number one spot at the expense of his own song. Respect Mr. Arthur. Continue reading → Heleno de Freitas was a Brazilian footballing superstar in the 1940’s whose fall from grace is featured in the movie ‘Heleno’ released in the USA this week. The Botafogo hero starred for Brazil at the 1948 World Cup but his personal life began to unravel soon after. Heleno developed dementia and attempted suicide. At one point, he ate newspaper clippings that had detailed his triumphs and he died at the age of just 39. Continue reading → 
John Giles famously lamented our young people’s distractions with ‘personal stereos.’ Eamon Dunphy said we needed poverty and dictatorships. Now Liam Brady has blasted social media’s influence on the ever-decreasing Irish talent pool. Continue reading → 
There’ll be no repeat of the scenes in Poland last summer on the cobbled streets of Temple Bar. Unless Dublin is included in Michel Platini’s Euro vision. Ireland’s joint bid with Wales and Scotland to host the 2020 European Championship is dead before it got off the ground. UEFA have granted Platini’s wish to spread […] Continue reading → 
We call ourselves the Best Fans in the World. UEFA even gave us a prize. We went to Poland in huge numbers but we can’t fill Lansdowne now for Ireland games. Our football love is reserved for Premier League clubs, mainly two of them, and mainly from the couch or the barstool. In a special guest post, Minty from YBIG.ie looks at how many Irish people take the easy way out when supporting foreign teams. Continue reading → It was David Beckham’s last game in America but it was team-mate Robbie Keane who finished his spectacular season on a high scoring the clincher in the MLS Cup final. Keane sealed the cup for LA Galaxy winning and converting a penalty to claim a 3-1 win over the Houston Dynamos. Continue reading → Shane Long could be set to follow in the footsteps of John Aldridge by becoming the darling of the Anfield Kop. Ireland’s forward is a target for Liverpool in the January transfer window, according to newspaper reports. The in-form striker has scored seven goals this season to push West Brom to an unlikely fourth in the Premier League. Continue reading → 
He was the butt of world-wide jokes when labelled an ‘unidentified fan’ alongside David Beckham at an NBA game. But Robbie Keane could be set for the last laugh. Becks plays his final match in the MLS this weekend, and Tallaghtfornia’s finest is perfectly placed to take up the mantle as the highest-profile player in American soccer. Continue reading → Sadly, it was inevitable. They’d hovered at the bottom since early in the season and finally the Gary Breen XI have dropped to the foot of the Copa del Póg Mo Goal table. Perhaps there’s a reason Trapattoni won’t watch our players in the Premier League. They’re not very good. Continue reading → 
The three finalists have been announced for the FIFA Puskas Award for the “most beautiful goal of the year.” Radamel Falcao, Miroslav Stoch and Neymar are all in the running for the gong but which one gets your vote? Continue reading → If it can happen at the Aviva Stadium, it can happen at Thomond Park. Limerick FC are set to play Airtricity League football at the home of Munster rugby next season. Continue reading → 
“I was pissed off, 100pc. Angry, yes. Heartbroken, yes. But no, I never thought about not wanting to play…Trapattoni has his ways. He’s stubborn. But I do like him and I think he is the right man for the job and that’s coming from a person who didn’t play at the Euros” Continue reading → 
Review: Mick McCarthy took over at Ipswich Town last week and confirmed he would have said yes to a return to the Ireland job. His arrival at Portman Road drew the inevitable links to Roy Keane’s time in charge of the Tractor Boys. For Irish people, one name usually follows the other and the word Saipan is never far from the lips. Diarmuid O hAinle’s stunning new book It Started With a Handshake takes us back to 2002 but asks what if it had all turned out differently? Continue reading → 
Having shaken off a hamstring strain, and after his heroics for West Brom at the weekend. Shane Long has been named in the revised squad list for the meeting with Greece. But who misses out? Continue reading → The Messi-ah is born!! Hallelujah, hallelujah. The birth of Thiago Messi has kicked off a light-hearted chase for Spain and Argentina to claim the wee dribbler. Continue reading → It was the hand-shake that tremored around the world. Now two giants of Irish football have been reduced to miniature. To celebrate Diarmuid O’hAinle’s stunning book on arguably the national team’s most momentous period, the 2001 Lansdowne Road embrace between Mick McCarthy and Roy Keane has been depicted in Subbuteo form. Continue reading → 
“For me it’s no problem going to games. I can fly every Saturday. The problem is players not knowing if they’re going to play” Continue reading → 
“When I score, I don’t celebrate because I’m only doing my job. When a postman delivers letters, does he celebrate?”
Mario Balotelli, 2012….well, actually Continue reading → 
On this day in 1986: Mick McCarthy scored the equaliser in the first televised Manchester derby. The result saw Ron Atkinson sacked as United manager soon after paving the way for a certain young Scot named Alex Ferguson to take over on November 6th.
The combination of cameras at the ground and the paranoia about travel chaos owing to the first day of bus de-regulation in the city resulted in a sub-40,000 attendance (at the time, the lowest ever at Maine Road).
City were relegated at the end of the season. #Knowledge Continue reading → 
It’s been a rough week for Irish football but a worse one for the people who report on it. The sports hacks as a collective have taken a PR battering and they’ve reverted to their defensive mode by blaming the FAI for the fiasco. Meanwhile, the public remains in the dark. Continue reading → 
As Irish soccer fans settle in for the next nail-biting UEFA Champions League installment, Póg Mo Goal are once again teaming up with Heineken Star Player to invite supporters to be part of every single piece of the action on screen.
Continue reading → 
Robbie Keane was back on the mark for LA Galaxy grabbing his side’s first in a 2-2 draw with San Jose Earthquakes. It was Robbie’s 16th goal in 15 matches and ensures Galaxy finish fourth in the Western Conference. Continue reading → 
“Germany suffered a 5-1 home defeat in qualifying for World Cup 2002. They kept their manager and went on to reach the World Cup Final.
Maybe if they were beaten 6-1 at home they’d have won the World Cup.” Continue reading → 
The FAI have backed Giovanni Trapattoni and he will remain as Irish manager following an EGM of the association in Dublin. Read the full statement: Continue reading → 
Having mauled Ireland in Dublin, Germany thought they were home and leder-hosed when 4-0 up on Sweden in Berlin. Zlatan and co had other ideas though. The Swedes produced a stunning comeback to blow Group C wide open and leave Ireland trailing in third in the early World Cup qualifying running. It prompted a Swedish radio commentator to lose his cool and our own Des Cahill to ask, when have Germany ever thrown away a lead like this before? Continue reading → 
Ireland got their World Cup hopes back on track last night with a 4-1 win over the Faroe Islands but the pitch-forks are still out for the manager. An ogre in the eyes of the press and some supporters, Giovanni Trapattoni answered some of his critics by naming Seamus Coleman, Robbie Brady, and Marc Wilson in the starting eleven but will there be a happy ending or has the page turned on the Trap chapter of Irish soccer? Continue reading → 
God has descended from his heavenly throne to impart some words of wisdom for Irish football fans in despair. Continue reading → 
He led us to the Promised Land of a major tournament but Giovanni Trapattoni will face the wrath of the people if his Irish failures part like the Red Sea against the minnows of the Faroe Islands. Continue reading → 
Shane Long, Andy Keogh and Stephen Ward surprised another lucky Ireland fan by personally delivering the new home jersey to their door ahead of the Faroe Islands clash. In Torshavn, the Boys in Green are looking to deliver three points and redemption for their under-fire manager. Continue reading → 
You can leave the outcry for others. For now, Trapattoni is going nowhere and the silence from John Delaney has been deafening. No one can contemplate another disaster against the Faroes Islands, but it seems many no longer care. The question you might ask is, do our players? Continue reading → 
“My team’s gone cold I’m wondering why
I got out of bed at all
The Dublin rain clouds up my window..
and I can’t see at all
And even if I could, my team can’t play,
Dunphy’s picture’s on my wall
It reminds me, that it is this bad,
it is this bad..” Continue reading → 
Join the debate on Twitter with Ireland’s football blogs straight after the Faroes game. Tuesday, 16th October, 9:30pm by using the hashtag #blogsunited. Continue reading → 
If we were singing different tunes before kick-off, Irish football followers are on the same hymn-sheet now. The calls for the head of Trapattoni are reaching a crescendo. We are falling over ourselves to scream loudest: “Trap out.” And the Germans have noticed it too. Continue reading → 
Irish fans may be deflated after Friday’s lung-sapping destruction at the hands of Germany but the bagpipe anthems seem to have gone down well, particularly with our visitors. Sadly, the Lansdowne Roar was silenced by the home team’s performance and the pipes are now calling for the end of Trap’s reign. Continue reading →