Yesterday Ireland were re-introduced to the abject reality of Euro 2012: there are a lot of very good football teams out there, many of whom are better than us. French newspaper L'Equipe did not factor in the fact that Belgium had better players in almost every position than us in their player ratings.
Instead of allowing for the fact that our players are more limited, L'Equipe were incredibly harsh on the Irish players. The paper are usually hard taskmasters, but these seem slightly harsh.
Have a look at them below:
A 2 for Stephen Ward is harsh, as are the 3s for Hendrick and Coleman. Equally harsh was 5 for Courtois. This seems more the fault of the Irish team: we gave him absolutely nothing to do.
Also, the 7 for the referee is generous: it would make him the joint-best performer on the field. You can compare L'Equipe's ratings with ours here. We were kinder to the Irish players, aside from poor James McCarthy,who also got a 3.
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