Leagues of Opportunity

23 players will board the plane for Ireland’s first involvement in a major tournament in 10 years.

A squad with players plying their trade in England, Scotland, US of A and Russia.

A squad with Premiership experience - Champions League too.

And a squad with 610 games in the League of Ireland between them.

Of the group still in with a chance of starting the tournament, there are no fewer than 7 players who have strutted their stuff in this islands own League.

An absolute testament to how the standard of talent in the League of Ireland has risen in the last ten years.

Stephen Ward, James McClean, Kevin Doyle, Shane Long, David Forde, Keith Fahey and Seamus Coleman.

All stand a chance of being in the final squad for Euro 2012.

All played in the League of Ireland at some stage in their career.

And the list doesn’t stop there.

Calls for Wes Hoolahan of Norwich have been loud.

Daryl Murphy at Celtic, Conor Sammon at Wigan, Noel Hunt at Reading, David Meyler at Sunderland and Brian Murphy at QPR were all on the periphery of the squad over the last season.

All together making 457 appearances in the League at home.

A League that has risen in stock.

And keeps rising.

Having knocked on the door of the group stages of Europe for a few years, it was Shamrock Rovers who finally made the break though only last season.

Aston Villa were the first to identify the talent from that pool of players.

And with our options at left back in the senior team limited - how long before we see Enda Stevens gain international recognition?

The standard of the English Premier League has of course risen in this time as well.

Pushing Ireland’s best - lower down the ranks.

The lower they fall, the more the League of Ireland presents it’s appeal.

In search of either redemption or simply a continuation of their craft, the option to return home is far more enticing of late compared to even the early ‘00’s.

Any young Irish player contemplating a return home need look no further than the success story of Keith Fahey.

Having spent 2 seasons at Arsenal and a further 2 at Aston Villa, Keith found himself playing for Bluebell United at the age of 20.

9 years on and he’s heading to Poland for a major championship.

Roy O’Donovan, Gary Deegan, Karl Sheppard to name but a few have all come home for a period and headed back over after very successful spells.

The League of Ireland also has great offerings on the pictch too, for players outside the Premier League.

Shamrock Rovers’ squad got to play in 12 European games this season.

Against some quality opposition.

Even lesser teams like St. Pats made it through 4 rounds of European competition when Keith was their talisman.

Sligo, Derry, Cork, Bohemians and Shelbourne have all had great success in Europe too.

An unlikely occurrence for those plying their trade in the Championship or lower.

It can provide opportunities for players who can look beyond the Premier League bubble as well.

Padraig Amond, Dominic Foley and Shane Robinson all earned rewards to the top divisions of Portugal, Belgium and Finland respectively, after being spotted while playing in European competition.

Managers too.

Brian Kerr went from managing St. Pats to landing the biggest job in Ireland.

Lawrie Sanchez went from Sligo to the Premier League to the biggest job in Northern Ireland.

Michael O’Neill has that hotseat now.

And there was Sam Allardyce at Limerick too.

Stephen Kenny, Jim Gannon and now Pat Fenlon have all engineered moves to bigger clubs after successful periods managing at home.

But of course for every success story of players going back across to bigger clubs -  there are those who ended up in League 1, 2 or lower.

Roy O’Donovan, Joe Gamble, Dave Mooney and Alan Bennett were star players for Cork around the same time as Kevin and Shane.

But they couldn’t match the success they found.

Instead they found their level.

The league still granted them the opportunity to go higher, they just couldn’t find the path.

But it is giving the opportunities to these players.

No many had heard of James McClean at the start of the season.

But that’s because attendances are low in the league.

For those of us who did see him for the candystripes - we knew how good he was.

Good enough to have the whole nation demand he gets an opportunity against Spain.

Good enough to ensure a Derry City player gets the opportunity to finish a season at a European Championships.

Good enough to take his opportunity...

Only intelligent football supporters will have seen how good Rovers were against Tottenham.

‘If Harry hates the Europa League he’s really going to hate playing against these plodders’.

‘C’mon you Spurs. Beat this pub team from Ireland today’.

‘Shambolic Rovers’.

Just some of the comments I saw on Twitter last Thursday.

Pretty much summed up how Tottenham fans were feeling.

And who could blame them.

It took Real Madrid to knock them out of Europe last season.

They are used to judging their team against the best in the world.

But now they were only facing the best in Ireland.

Not in the same league at all.

Except the Europa League of course.

Because that’s where Shamrock Rovers find themselves these days.

A place were most Irish ‘fans’ felt they would be disgraced on Thursday.

But it was far from it.

Tottenham Hotspur got to the last 8 of the Champions League last season.

They topped a group including Internazionale and knocked out AC Milan.

Only two weeks ago, they smashed four past Liverpool.

Yet after 59 minutes at White Hart Lane - Shamrock were winning.

Sorry, Shamrock ‘Rovers’ were winning.

The pub team from Ireland were beating one of the best teams in the world.

Sure they were lucky at times.

Sure Tottenham were a bit wasteful.

But it was no different to Ireland vs. Russia last month.

Or any team against Barcelona really.

Rovers defended heroically.

Got bodies back.

Gave everything they had.

Exactly what you need to do when playing against a superior team.

We see it every week in the Premier League when the big four play at home.

Yet leading after an hour wasn’t enough for most to see how far the standard in the League of Ireland has come in the last 10 years.

They just see Tottenham’s ‘reserves’ going on to score 3 goals to secure victory.

But take the reserves of any of the teams from this seasons Champions League Quarter Finals and you’ll see quality everywhere.

They had Defoe and Pavlyuchenko up front.

Their 2 fullbacks represented England in the European U21 championship this summer.

Aaron Lennon and Giovani Dos Santos have played in World Cups.

Yet some Irish people will remember it as the night Tottenham’s reserves beat Rovers 3-1.

They’ll judge the League of Ireland against the Premier League as always.

Instead of comparing it to the Swedish, Norwegian or Scottish leagues.

We should be measuring Shamrock Rovers not on how far they have to go.

But rather on how far they’ve come.

A long way during this generation.

But a distance only intelligent football supporters will have seen this week...

Go see Shamrock Rovers play? Sure they can’t even beat a team like Rubex Kazan at home...

This is what I overheard in a bar the other day.

It was from a football fan having a chat with his mate who supports Shamrock Rovers.

He had a jersey of a ‘foreign’ football team on.

So the conversation started about how well Rovers had played the night before.

A sentiment I agreed with entirely.

But they lost 3-0.

At home.

To a team called Rubin Kazan.

Not Rubex Kazan.

A top Russian side.

Winning the league in ‘08, ‘09 and coming 3rd in ‘10.

But they don’t play in the English Premier League.

Or Scotland.

So this Irish fan had never heard of them.

Thus he felt Shamrock Rovers should be beating them as they are only a “mickey mouse side”.

A bit like the Irish fans who booed of the national team against Slovakia two weeks ago.

If they don’t play or have played in or around England, they can’t possibly be good.

But this Rubin Kazan side are.

In 2010 they drew with Inter Milan in the Champions League group stages.

Inter went on to win the trophy that May.

They also drew with Barcelona the same season.

And again in 2011 they drew with the Spanish giants in the group stages.

Barcelona went on to not only win the Champions League last season but also get labelled with being one of the greatest sides of all time.

Not bad results for a “mickey mouse side”.

Even if they are not as glamorous a name as some European sides this season like Birmingham City or Stoke City.

I actually said well done to Shamrock Rovers for their performance.

They may have lost, but the defeat was not an embarrassing self-destruction through a bad performance full of schoolboy errors.

They were beaten by a better team.

Who scored some really well crafted goals.

They were technically superb.

But Shamrock Rovers played as well as I’ve seen them all season.

They just showed first hand the difference between qualifying for the group stages and competing against teams who can hold their own against the likes of Barcelona and Inter Milan on a regular basis.

A tough stepping stone for Rovers.

But one they are trying to get over.

And are going the right way about it.

Bringing up the standard of the Irish league along the way.



As for our friend in the bar.

He was wearing a Celtic jersey...