In hindsight, it's easy to say that Ireland were putrid under Trapattoni. We knew it at the time of course but when we managed to qualify for Euro 2012, things were swept under the rug a bit. We were back in a major tournament after a ten year absence and we didn't give a damn how we got there.
Anything was possible. We knew our limitations but we had a wily old manager who could set us up for tournament football. Then came the group draw. Spain, Italy, Croatia, Ireland. Dear God that's a tough one.
Nevertheless, we powered on in the early months of 2012 in the belief that we were solid if unspectacular. Then came the tournament itself. Effectively a massacre, if anything time has only increased the pain of that summer's humiliation. We licked our wounds and consoled ourselves with the belief that 'at least the fans enjoyed themselves in Poland'.
It's taken a couple of years but we've managed to erase the horror somewhat. Now we're back anticipating a Euro group draw and hoping against hope that we're not as unlucky as we were last time. But judging by history we easily could be.
Jonathan Liew of the Telegraph has compiled an extremely interesting analysis of the 'Group of Death' and it shows some very interesting things. Liew has come up with a system to devise the most difficult groups in the history of major championships.
The only problem with this is that the only way to objectively analyse the strength of teams is through the FIFA world rankings. Given that they only came into being in 1993, the 'history of major championships' in this instance starts at the 1994 World Cup.
Not that we care of course, we still want to know if our deep held belief that we've been dealt some shit hands in major championship draws is correct. And what do you know, we're not crazy after all. Ireland have been well and truly screwed when it comes to the group stages of the World Cup and European Championships.
Liew uses a system whereby the FIFA rankings are distilled down to the number of teams in the competition so that the highest team in the FIFA ranking gets one (obviously enough( and the lowest gets 24 in the case of Euro 2016. From there it's possible to find an average strength value for each group drawn in the World Cup and Euro Championship between 1994 and 2014.
The ultimate takeaway is that Ireland and Romania are seriously due some good luck in Saturday's draw.
Our 1994 World Cup group was statistically the toughest of the tournament.
Our 2002 World Cup group was of average strength.
And Euro 2012 was once again 'a stinker'.
All that means that, alongside Romania, we've had by far the worst luck of any of the teams in the draw for Euro 2016.
There's a lot more to Liew's analysis than just that of course but we tend to suffer from a horrible case of tunnel vision when it comes to Ireland and tournament football so that's all we're seeing. Our persecution complex has been backed up by science and we're happy to wallow away in our own self pity.
On the other hand, if you want to delve in the full analysis you can do so here. We'll just be in the corner rocking back and forth and praying that we get a manageable group this time around.
