The Energizer Bunny Era Begins For Irish Football

Come this Friday the tandem of Martin O'Neill and Roy Keane comes to life at the Aviva against Latvia. My honest opinion I hope it works for the good of country (but doesn't stop me from believing we could have done better) as we need to qualify for the Euro's in France in over two and half years time. The chances are good with the way UEFA have expanded the tournament to 24 teams but I will come to that later in the future.

For now, the "dream ticket" as has been mentioned numerous times is being for by Denis O'Brien as with Trappatoni the FAI, some of the most mentioned pundits believe its a great thing for Irish football. Personally, the fact a businessman has to come in and pay for a manager of our country while our national association can't says that all needs to be said about the acumen of Delaney and his cohorts in the offices of the FAI. Our previous manager described our national game to such a degree he labelled us not having our own league, that goes deeper which as all League of Ireland fans know all too well is nothing new in this country when it comes to the care of the national game at domestic level by the FAI.

Entirely not wanting to bash the FAI throughout this post but how hard is it not too?

The meal ticket of O'Neill and Keane only serves to placate a minority of football fans in this country who go along with what the FAI serve up every year. Going from one qualifying campaign to another and not actually planning for the future with a manager that plays the football heir coaching programmes tell aspiring coaches in this country to play "the Barcelona model".

Thankfully some club's coaches/managers adhere to that policy especially at my local club and the benefits can be seen due to the conviction one man has implemented throughout the club(some people who read this will know who the club and man I am referring too). The structure is their and are more organised as a Junior club side than our own International side tells it all for me. If someone like that can put something in place why are the FAI employing foreign coaches when they have the people here in this country who actually adopt the philosophy that the FAI portray on their coaching courses.

I got told  the above when I did my Kick Start course and this was TWO years ago, Martin O'Neill nor Roy Keane just like Trappatoni are the people who are/were going to be leading that model(which throughout their coaching careers(so far in Keane's case) haven't played that way) which is still being coached at these courses. The whole situation is maddening to say the least for my point of view.

The FAI in my honest opinion need to look closer to home as to what they exist to be -- are they a football governing body that actually governs the game properly or are they financially motivated/quick fix organisation which is becoming more apparent as time passes?? It's been a long time since they acted as a governing body.