YOUNGSTER OFFERS HOPE FOR AN IRELAND SIDE IN NEED OF A REBOOT —
But fans look to a new hope...
A competitive cap for Obafemi could, in time, be savoured
THAT the match was practically meaningless was fitting. The national soccer team has been slipping out of relevance for 12 months now, and that decline is being accelerated by outside factors, too.
This has been a year of extraordinary achievement by Irish sportspeople in international competition, from rowers to athletes to hockey players.
The most immediate and probably the most powerful example of all came only three days ago against New Zealand.
Misery and mediocrity are plunging Ireland into irrelevance, while around them stories of their compatriots soaring abound.
It made sense, then, that the international year would clatter to a close with another display in which Ireland were sieged by opponents who themselves won’t re-write any records.
Even the ordinary can feel superior against Ireland now.
A competitive cap for Michael Obafemi could, in time, be savoured as the one meaningful legacy of this match.
There is no Irish person with even a glancing interest in the team who will not wish the 18year-old well, but he has committed his future to a team that is in desperate need of a reboot.
The most obvious way to provide that is by changing the management team. Nothing that unfolded over 90 ragged minutes made a convincing defence of the leadership provided by Martin O’Neill and Roy Keane, or argued that they are the men who should be in charge come the spring and fresh qualification matches.
Tactical rigor mortis is the gravest problem diagnosed in O’Neill’s Ireland, but the lack of energy is as problematic.
A team can set out for the start of a match with crude plans, but through hard work, speed of movement and energy they can discommode a technically better opposition.
Ireland don’t do that. Instead, they sand-bag their own goal with players hoping to poke a boot into the patterns being woven around them.
Jurgen Klopp talked once about those sides that face Manchester City with tactics that revolve around defending deeply and trying to disrupt them through numbers.
Klopp dismissed it as hoping for a lottery win, and he was right. All of the momentum is conceded to the more skilful side before the first whistle.
Thereafter, it’s a matter of hoping that reactive play will suffice and Klopp knew that it invariably doesn’t.
This was an unremarkable Danish team shorn of a number of its regular players. They could call upon the scheming of Tottenham’s Christian Eriksen but around him was middling talent. And when he was taken off at half-time, the game lost its one vividly accomplished player.
Yet Ireland did not press the Danes, just as they hung back against the Welsh in Cardiff. The home team hogged the ball and created almost all of the good chances. Their ineptitude and typically redoubtable performances from Darren Randolph, Shane Duffy, Richard Keogh and Seamus Coleman kept Ireland level.
The mistakes of cowed players repeatedly crept into the Irish performance, though, from Robbie Brady passing the ball over the sideline under no pressure, to Kevin Long taking a throw and tossing the ball out of play only metres up the line.
Aiden O’Brien spent much of his time pleading with team-mates to push up in support, or upbraiding them for leaving him isolated in the Danish half of the field.
Reports emerged on Saturday morning claiming that the Ireland manager could lose his job were the team to lose here by a punishing margin.
But scorelines don’t adequately convey the sclerotic ineffectiveness that has reduced Ireland’s play to a stumble under O’Neill and Keane.
The need for change is obvious and it has been since the humiliation in Cardiff at the start of September.
Trusting that the start of conventional qualifying for Euro 2020 in March can suddenly stir competitiveness from this current arrangement is said to be the FAI policy. It is illogical and looks to have no chance of succeeding.
Comparisons with the national rugby team are understandable but also justified. Joe Schmidt’s team aren’t now a match for the best in the world thanks to streaky results or meaningless intangibles like ‘spirit’.
It’s because of excellent coaching and rigorous structures throughout the professional game that are pegged to the highest international standards.
The rugby set-up gets the absolute most out of its resources.
This might be difficult for some soccer die-hards to accept, but begrudging rugby (or the GAA) only makes Irish soccer look smaller.
These outstanding sports should, rather, be a consolation: Ireland can reach and maintain high levels of sporting excellence.
The Irish soccer side have had their great days at Lansdowne Road, most recently the night Shane Long’s goal beat Germany.
That was in October 2015 and was vital to winning the play-off place they eventually claimed over two legs against Bosnia.
The win against Germany was, frankly, harum-scarum, achieved in part thanks to their wasteful use of the possession they dominated.
But achieving in spite of the odds or the opposition or their own obvious limitations was mostly the story on Ireland’s fevered days.
No longer: now, even in a time of flat-lining expectations, the team cannot live up to them.
And if direct comparisons with a rugby system that keeps all the players on this island and in teams answerable to a central system are not possible, the management of two groups of professional athletes certainly is.
Schmidt is wringing his resources dry, inspiring and cajoling. O’Neill simply isn’t, and performances suggest he hasn’t been able to do so for months now.
The match meant nothing, and it will be quickly forgotten. And all the while, the Irish team will lose their colour and the unflattering comparisons with other sports and teams will continue.