The full time score from last night’s match: Ireland 0-1 Scotland. Ireland are out of Euro 2013. Ireland have two remaining Euro 2013 ties, both of which are away fixtures. Sue Ronan’s side faces the annoyingly unstoppable France on 15th September next and Israel on 19th September. Here’s your post-match analysis.

While Ireland’s rugby side enjoy mixed fortunes in the Six Nations, our footballing side (or soccer, if you’re so inclined) have failed to secure a victory in the Algarve Cup invitational.

While men’s football went into convulsions yesterday over Fabio Capello’s shock resignation as England manager, this writer learned about the naming of the Irish squad for this year’s Algarve Cup. Taking place at the end of the month and into March, The Algarve Cup will provide an ideal opportunity to field the national side and integrate the team’s new players ahead of the remaining Euro 2013 qualifiers later this year.

It’s a gloomy, rainy Monday. Are you in any kind of mood for work? Hell no! So here’s a round-up of some of the headlines that caught our eye over the past day or so. Enjoy.

Homare Sawa has been awarded FIFA’s coveted Ballon d’Or Women’s World Player of the Year for 2011. We take a look at the final nominees and longlisted players.

Today sees the closing ceremony of the 8th Gay Games in Cologne, which kicked off on 31st July – and a well-deserved rest for the 100-odd members of Team Ireland. And bloody hell, didn’t Team Ireland do well?

If you’re not attending today’s Dublin Pride celebrations, why not tune in to the final of the UEFA Championship, where Ireland’s under-17 women’s squad takes on Spain? Kick-Off: 12:30pm Irish time.

We hear a lot about the boys in green but what about the girls? Well tonight sees the Irish U17 girls team take on the so-far unbeaten German side for a place in the UEFA Championship final, it doesn’t get much better than this.

I realise that for some people the World Cup is a nightmare. Football and more football every day and night for weeks, to me that sounds like heaven. I’m not crazy, I just love the beautiful game. Let me try to explain

A week before ‘International Day Against Homophobia in Football’ sees the FA having to rethink their anti homophobia video due to the league’s star players snubbing the venture.
It’s more than disheartening to see the FA’s efforts at ending homophobia stilted by the players themselves.

Homophobia in football is a subject that gets right between my teeth. I love the game with a passion but just can’t understand why we don’t have a Gareth Thomas or a Martina Navratilova of our own. It makes no sense to me. Recently an Italian footballer posed in a gay mag. And for that, he looks like he is in trouble with his club, Napoli.

Ireland are in Paris tonight hoping to overturn a one goal deficit to book their place in next summer’s FIFA World Cup 2010 being hosted by South Africa. It’s a cliched “must-win” game for the Irish who have at least 90 minutes to make an impression on the sophisticated French side. All TVs will be tuned to RTE 2 tonight!

So many people are coming out these days but for some reason this seems less accurate in the case of sports stars. Could the crowds be at fault?

[All links open in a new window] This evening’s Germany v Turkey semi-final of UEFA’s Euro 2008 marked the anti-racism theme of the tournament with speeches from the team captains on the subject. Brandished about during the competition have been flags, banners and badges with the word “RESPECT” proudly displayed. Yet, the organisers of Euro [...]

Turkey are through to the quarter finals of the European Championships at the expense of the Czech Republic. Leading by two goals with 15 minutes of the game to go, it looked like goals from Koller and Plasil had seen the Czechs safely through to the knock-out stages. Turkey pulled a goal back on 75 [...]

The world champions humiliated by Van Basten’s men. “Humiliated” doesn’t even do it justice. Italy were sliced open, torn apart, run ragged by the Netherlands, all the cliches you can think of and then some. They were trying, they knew what they wanted to do but their bodies wouldn’t carry it out. Their age was [...]

So I’ve been thinking… What makes a great player? I mean, a world class player on the lines of Pele and Cruyff. The term gets thrown around a lot these days but players like Best and Platini don’t come along often and I’m thinking maybe calling a player “the best in the world” puts to [...]