Brian Kerr is not a man who shies away from saying what he feels.
The former Ireland boss is an absolute fountain of knowledge on football on this fair isle.
However, his comments on our Irish football culture might not go down to well with some fans in the build up to next month’s Euro 2016 play off.
Irish fans were left with mixed feelings, this week, after we drew Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The eastern Europeans are set to bring the likes of Miralem Pjanic and Edin Dzeko to Dublin next month.
They are accepted as being a much more technically proficient side than Martin O Neill’s charges and, speaking on the Second Captains podcast this week, Kerr explained why Irish teams will always struggle to match their European counterparts in the skill stakes.
The Dubliner blames our history of playing sports such as GAA and rugby for our less than heralded football on the international stage:
“Why are they technically better? I think our culture is contaminated by the fact that we have a lot of rugby and a lot of soccer and we’ve too much Gaelic as well and hurling.
“And what happens when you’re playing in school, you have to play – or if you’re from my area you had to play – the hurling and the Gaelic and you were definitely not to play soccer. That’s had an impact on the style of the game in Ireland and that nobody comes from a culture where it’s only and specifically soccer and the influence is we just play it like we should play it.
“We come from a background where we boot it as far away as possible as you can [because] that’s what you used to do in Gaelic. We have a culture, it’s a bit of a mongrel dog soccer style we have, and that’s not going to change too handy.”
The point that Kerr is trying to make, we imagine, is that children are being taught various sports with emphasis on different skill levels at school. It can be argued that it ends up diluting the skills which would be transferable to international level football.
Kerr then explained why Bosnia’s history and culture, within the former state of Yugoslavia, means they are coming to football with a different approach to Irish teams:
“All the great teams and styles they had within the old Yugolsavia Republic, when it broke up, the seven nations have continued on in that vein and and that style of football, which is a very technical style of football and it’s built into the culture and coaching of the people.
“It’s a bit like the history and tradition in Kerry and Kilkenny with Gaelic and hurling and it is and passed down through generations. Yugoslavia had that in the past and it’s going on with the other countries. It’s also combined with people who haven’t had it too handy and an army background and physical strength.”
“We’re a bit of a mongrel and we’re going through a stage I’d call Netherlands-Lite. We’re all playing 4-3-3 at underage and we’ll all be members of the non-tackling union in future. It’s all nice, nice, nice but jaysus don’t put any passion into it.”
The comments certainly are an interesting way to look at things and as we build up to next month’s action but we can see some GAA and rugby people not being too happy with his observations.
Brian kerr puts our lack of a technical footballing style down to the influence of GAA on our soccer heritage #secondcaptains
— The Opel Jersey (@TheOpelJersey) October 21, 2015
@SecondCaptains Hmm. I don't agree with Brian Kerr's… rugby killing policy. But I do approve of his GAA killing policy!
— Paulie Haych (@paulski1983) October 22, 2015
https://soundcloud.com/secondcaptains-it-com/live-and-sexy-with-second-captains-irish-rugby-cadaver-david-odoherty-superfan
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