Spain 4 - 0 Ireland

Well it's all over for the Irish team, at least we won something....we were the first team to get knocked out!!

I have to say though I am so proud to be Irish today.  The hairs were standing on the back of my neck listening to the Irish fans sing The Fields of Athenry and we were 4-0 down....what other fans in the world would do that!  It's just such a pity we don't have an equally as amazing team.

To start, Trappatoni's team selection was questionable, Robbie Keane up front on his own?  Only if he was in form, which unfortunately in this tournament he has not been.  Maybe he's getting too much sun in LA but the Robbie of old was nowhere to be seen.  He then chose Cox over Doyle to make up the 4-5-1 formation.
Again, like Sundays game against Croatia, we conceded a goal within the first 4 minutes of the game when Torres smashed a shot passed Given and into the back of the net.  It was not a good start and looked all too easy for Spain.  The remainder of the first half was dominated by Spain, who lay siege on Given's goal but couldn't convert any of the chances.

The second half started and Trap changed Cox for Walters, which was a bit strange as Cox wasn't doing too bad, although Walters is a bit more physical.  Devastatingly we conceded another goal less than 4 minutes into the second half, an all too familiar occurrence for this Irish team, with Silva getting through the Irish defense with ease to put it in the bottom corner of the goal.  I think it was then we realised there was very little chance of us coming back from this, and just how many more goals were Spain going to score.

With twenty minutes remaining Torres got his second goal and was eventually substituted for Fabregas.  When I saw him coming on I had this feeling in my gut he was going to score against us too, but how many would he score was the question?  In the 76th minute Trap finally put McClean on for his first competitive international game with Ireland, replacing Damien Duff.  However, we were caught sleeping again when Fabregas easily got the better of Paul Green (who came on for Whelan in the 79th minute, although god only knows why Trap put a defender on when we were 3-0 down!) and slotted home Spain's fourth and final goal of the match.

On a final note, I'm just going to leave you with the below video of why I am so proud to be Irish and contrary to what Roy Keane said, singing did not make the defeat acceptable, however our fans should be proud of themselves in a tournament where hooliganism and racism have been all too prominent.

In the 87th minute our amazing fans sang The Fields of Athenry until stoppage time.