European Football Championship 2012 / Ireland

This article covers the Irish national football team at the 2012 European Championship in Poland and Ukraine . The Irish team took part in a European Championship finals for the second time and was eliminated as the bottom of the group in the preliminary round. When they first participated in 1988 , the group stage was finished third.

qualification

Ireland completed the qualification for the European Championship in qualifying Group B .

Games

date	Venue	host	guest	Result	Goal scorers
09/03/2010	Yerevan Hanrapetakan Stadium	Armenia	Ireland	0: 1 (0: 0)	0: 1 Keith Fahey (76.)
07.09.2010	Dublin Aviva Stadium	Ireland	Andorra	3: 1 (2: 1)	1-0 Kevin Kilbane (15th), 2-0 Kevin Doyle (41st), 2-1 Cristian Martínez (45th), 3-1 Robbie Keane (54th)
10/08/2010	Dublin Aviva Stadium	Ireland	Russia	2: 3 (0: 2)	0: 1 Alexander Kerzhakov (11th), 0: 2 Alan Dzagojew (29th), 0: 3 Roman Schirokow (50th), 1: 3 Robbie Keane (72nd), 2: 3 Shane Long (78th)
10/12/2010	Žilina Štadión pod Dubňom	Slovakia	Ireland	1: 1 (1: 1)	0: 1 Sean St. Ledger (16th), 1: 1 Ján Ďurica (36th)
03/26/2011	Dublin Aviva Stadium	Ireland	North Macedonia	2: 1 (2: 1)	1-0 Aiden McGeady (2nd), 2-0 Robbie Keane (21st), 2-1 Ivan Tričkovski (45th)
06/04/2011	Skopje Philip II Arena	North Macedonia	Ireland	0: 2 (0: 2)	0: 1, 0: 2 Robbie Keane (8th, 37th)
02.09.2011	Dublin Aviva Stadium	Ireland	Slovakia	0-0
09/06/2011	Moscow Olympic Stadium Luzhniki	Russia	Ireland	0-0
07/10/2011	Andorra la Vella Estadi Comunal d'Andorra la Vella	Andorra	Ireland	0: 2 (0: 2)	0-1 Kevin Doyle (8th), 0-2 Aiden McGeady (20th)
10/11/2011	Dublin Aviva Stadium	Ireland	Armenia	2: 1 (1: 0)	1: 0 Valeri Aleksanjan (43./ET), 2: 0 Richard Dunne (59.), 2: 1 Henrich Mchitarjan (62.)

table

space	team	Sp	S.	U	N	Gates	Diff.	Points
1.	Russia	10	07th	02	01	17: 04	+13	23
2.	Ireland	10	06th	03	01	15: 07	+ 08	21st
3.	Armenia	10	05	02	03	22:10	+12	17th
4th	Slovakia	10	04th	03	03	07:10	- 03	15th
5.	North Macedonia	10	02	02	06th	08:14	- 06	08th
6th	Andorra	10	00	00	10	01:25	−24	00

Playoff games

For runners-up playoff matches, Ireland was seeded alongside Croatia , Portugal and the Czech Republic according to the UEFA coefficient .

date	Venue	host	guest	Result	Goal scorers
11/11/2011	Tallinn A. Le Coq Arena	Estonia	Ireland	0: 4 (0: 1)	0: 1 Keith Andrews (13), 0: 2 Jonathan Walters (67.), 0: 3, 0: 4 Robbie Keane (71., 88./FE)
11/15/2011	Dublin Aviva Stadium	Ireland	Estonia	1: 1 (1: 0)	1: 0 Stephen Ward (32nd), 1: 1 Konstantin Vassiljev (57th)

The top scorer was the record scorer Robbie Keane with seven goals, who scored his 50th international goal on June 4, 2011 in the 8th minute of the European Championship qualifier against Macedonia.

preparation

The Irish team played two test matches just before the European Championship: on May 26th they played against Bosnia-Herzegovina for the first time in Dublin (1-0, goalscorer Shane Long ) and on June 4th in Budapest against Hungary (0-0).

Games of Ireland

EM preliminary round

At the draw, the Irish, as well as Italy and Croatia, were drawn to the world and European champions Spain, who were set as group head of group C. The record against Italy is negative (2 wins and 2 draws with 7 defeats before the EM), was positive against Croatia (2 wins, 3 draws, 1 defeat before the EM) and negative against Spain (4 wins, 7 draws, 13 defeats before the EM). Most recently, Spain and Ireland met in the second round of the 2002 World Cup , where the Spaniards prevailed on penalties. The last game against Croatia on August 10, 2011 ended goalless and Italy was last won 2-0 on June 7, 2011.

Preliminary group C:

All games took place in Poland .

Pl.	country	Sp.	S.	U	N	Gates	Diff.	Points
1.	Spain	3	2	1	0	006: 100	+5	07th
2.	Italy	3	1	2	0	004: 200	+2	05
3.	Croatia	3	1	1	1	004: 300	+1	04th
4th	Ireland	3	0	0	3	001: 900	−8	00

Sun., June 10, 2012, 8:45 p.m. in Poznan
Ireland	-	Croatia	1: 3 (1: 2)
Thursday, June 14, 2012, 8:45 p.m. in Gdansk
Spain	-	Ireland	4: 0 (1: 0)
Mon., June 18, 2012, 8:45 p.m. in Poznan
Italy	-	Ireland	2: 0 (1: 0)

Squad

On May 7, 2012, national coach Giovanni Trapattoni named the squad for the 2012 European Football Championship . The most experienced players in the squad were record international Shay Given , record scorer , Robbie Keane and Damien Duff , who had also played at the 2002 World Cup . Except for three players who played in Russia, Scotland and the USA, all players were active in English clubs in the Premier League or the Football League Championship . The Russia legionnaire Aiden McGeady from Spartak Moscow and the USA legionnaire Robbie Keane from the Los Angeles Galaxy were also the only two "non-Great Britain legionnaires", Keane even one of only two legionnaires in the tournament who are not in the UEFA area were under contract. McGeady and Kean were the first two players since John Bryne and John Aldridge to stand as non-UK legionnaires in the Irish national team for a tournament. John Bryne and John Aldridge had participated in the 1990 World Cup as legionaries in France and Spain, respectively. While Bryne played at AC Le Havre , Aldridge was under contract with Real Sociedad San Sebastián .

Jersey no.	Surname	society	Games	Gates	debut	Sp.	Gates	red	G / R	yellow
goal
23	David Forde	Millwall FC	002	00	05/24/2011
01	Shay Given	Aston Villa	125	00	03/27/1996	3
16	Keiren Westwood	Sunderland AFC	010	00	05/29/2009
Defense
05	Richard Dunne	Aston Villa	076	08th	04/26/2000	3
13	Paul McShane	Hull City AFC	027	00	10/11/2006
12	Stephen Kelly	Fulham FC	030th	00	05/24/2006
18th	Darren O'Dea	Celtic Glasgow	014th	00	05/28/2010
04th	John O'Shea	Sunderland AFC	079	01	08/15/2001	3				1
02	Sean St. Ledger	Leicester City	030th	03	06/06/2009	3	1			2
03	Stephen Ward	Wolverhampton Wanderers	015th	02	05/24/2011	3
midfield
08th	Keith Andrews	West Bromwich Albion	032	03	11/19/2008	3			1	2
11	Damien Duff ( )	Fulham FC	100	08th	03/25/1998	3
21st	Paul Green	Derby County	012	01	05/25/2010	1
15th	Darron Gibson	Everton FC	019th	01	08/22/2007
17th	Stephen Hunt	Wolverhampton Wanderers	039	00	02/07/2007
22nd	James McClean	Sunderland AFC	002	00	02/29/2012	1
07th	Aiden McGeady	Spartak Moscow	052	02	06/02/2004	3
06th	Glenn Whelan	Stoke City	042	02	06/24/2008	3				1
attack
20th	Simon Cox	West Bromwich Albion	015th	03	05/24/2011	3
09	Kevin Doyle	Wolverhampton Wanderers	050	10	03/01/2006	2
10	Robbie Keane	Los Angeles Galaxy	120	53	03/25/1998	3				1
19th	Shane Long	West Bromwich Albion	027	07th	02/07/2007	2
14th	Jonathan Walters	Stoke City	010	01	11/17/2010	3
Trainer
	Giovanni Trapattoni	Italy			06/01/2008	3

Notes: Data based on information provided by the Irish Association and UEFA as of June 18, 2012, after the match against Italy.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ FIFA.com: Trapattoni appoints Irish European Championship squad
2. ↑ In the last group game captain on the occasion of his 100th international game [1]
3. ↑ The FAI only names 117 games after the game against Croatia archive link ( memento of the original from June 15, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , UEFA already 119 after the game against Spain. Archived copy ( memento of the original from June 15, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
4. ↑ fai.ie: Campaign Squad Profiles ( Memento of the original from April 30, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.