Football is weird.
When two sides go head-to-head, the side with the better players will invariably win out. This was ultimately the case between Ireland and Belgium, but despite the fact that they were more talented than Ireland in every single department, there is still a horrible, nagging feeling that we could have done more to avoid such a beating.
All of the Belgian goals were avoidable, particularly the first and the third. On those goals, James McCarthy and Ciaran Clark committed themselves to a tackle while Belgium broke down Ireland's left-wing. On both occasions, neither managed to take the ball, the man, or a combination of both. The failure to stop Belgium ended with Darren Randolph stooping.
Roy Keane faced the media this afternoon, and addressed this failure by both McCarthy and Clark, citing the examples of both the Italians against the same opposition and his own career:
Roy Keane on tactical fouling: "You have to make sacrifices for the team. What do you think I would do?!" #EURO2016https://t.co/bIh67gYxNl
— RTÉ Soccer (@RTEsoccer) June 20, 2016
The advice to be 'more like Roy Keane' is obvious, but worthy nonetheless.
