‘I love doing what I do. Certain things I’ve mellowed at, but not football, not competing’
At 60, with close to 1,000 games as a manager, McCarthy’s passion burns as hot as ever
‘IF WE’RE ON TOP WITH 15 MINUTES TO GO, I’D FANCY US TO WIN IT’
IN Mick McCarthy’s garage at home in Bromley lie the spoils of 57 Republic of Ireland battles, 22 of them as captain. His jersey boys. ‘Aye, I’ve a few good ones in there. Hagi’s was still moving about in the box when I looked the other day,’ he said in a light-hearted reference to the time he kicked lumps out of Gheorghe Hagi – the Maradona of the Carpathians – up and down Genoa in the 1990 World Cup finals.
McCarthy was all smiles after the penalty shoot-out win over Romania but was a raging bull of Barnsley a few days later when Ireland lost 1-0 to Italy in the quarter-finals.
And whose jersey did he end up with that night in Rome? ‘It was Baresi’s. He followed me up the tunnel. I was steaming.’
McCarthy couldn’t recall whose shirt he swapped from his first competitive game with Ireland against Denmark in Copenhagen in 1984. ‘They were like the red arrows, they ripped us apart that night.’
As for the return in Dublin the following year, when all was lost in the World Cup, therein lies a tale.
McCarthy missed the 4-1 loss in November 1985, which some folk mistakenly claimed was due to an injury sustained in a sprint against sports journalist, John O’Shea.
A strident critic of the central defender, O’Shea challenged McCarthy to a race over 100 yards, which McCarthy accepted, perhaps unwisely.
While he won handy enough, when he picked up an injury in training the next day, manager Eoin Hand found himself on the losing end of a PR battle.
Hand had signalled his intent to stand down before the game and was unable to raise a gallop from a very fine Irish team – Brady, O’Leary, Stapleton, Lawrenson, Beglin, McGrath, et al – who were blown away 4-1 on a lumpy Lansdowne Road pitch in front of just 15,154 fans.
Watching on, McCarthy grimly acknowledged the debonair Danes.
‘They murdered us in Dublin on the bumpiest pitch ever. Johnny Sivebaek ran through for a goal from their half, right through the middle and lashed it in.
‘Their captain who became manager, Morten Olsen, he was fabulous. (Soren) Lerby played half a game and flew off to play for his club (Bayern Munich). That was the biggest p*sstake ever, someone should have rattled him.’
That someone would have been McCarthy, an old-school defender who played with his heart on his sleeve, and would have crawled on broken glass to Dublin for a game.
It’s why he is understood to be utterly perplexed at his namesake, James McCarthy, asking for family time this week, rather than playing against New Zealand.
Football was, and is his passion. For all that he dabbles in golf and enjoys his cycling spins, nothing fires up McCarthy more than football.
He missed his brother’s wedding to fly halfway around the world for his first Irish cap and left his wife, Fiona, as she was about to give birth, to play for Manchester City – he got back in the nick of time.
When his Dad, Charlie, passed away in March 2001, McCarthy flew home to Barnsley to squeeze in the funeral between World Cup qualifiers in Cyprus and Andorra.
He could have easily left Ian Evans in charge for the second game but McCarthy, as Irish manager, would have none of it. At 60, and closing in on 1,000 games as a manager, don’t anyone be fooled that he’s heading for easy street.
‘I love doing what I do. It’s hard to describe. Anyone who works with me will tell you I’ve not lost the passion for it, or desire to win.
‘Certain things I’ve mellowed at and have a different perspective towards, but not football, not competing.’
He could readily understand Pep Guardiola’s touchline passion last Sunday at Anfield. ‘I suspect if it was me and Neil Warnock we might have got a booking for it,’ he said wryly.
McCarthy will bring his wolf whistle and Yorkshire bark to the Aviva Stadium tomorrow for the final Euro 2020 qualifier against Denmark.
He has moved on from Thursday’s 3-1 win over New Zealand and his focus is entirely on finding a way to beat the Danes, who need a draw to be sure of a top-two finish.
‘Will they come here and try and shut up shop? I can’t see that. If it’s 0-0 with 15 minutes to go, that’s not a bad scenario for us. Would I rather be two goals up? Yes. Is that likely?
Maybe not, we’ve only scored six goals so far.
‘It depends who’s on top in the game, we don’t know what it will be like. If we’re on top with 15 minutes to go, I’d fancy us to win it next Monday.’
Ireland have scored late goals in the group, against Denmark, Gibraltar, Switzerland, but have rarely come from behind to win a competi- tive game – Kazakhstan in October 2013 was the last occasion – so the omens won’t be good if they concede the first goal tomorrow.
‘It is not like we haven’t tried to score more. All of our training sessions are about trying to score more goals.
‘To put balls and crosses in the box, to put good deliveries in, and tray and play through people and so score goals.
‘But we haven’t done it. Are we not good enough or is the opposition good in defence?
‘A clean sheet is going to be really bloody helpful for a team to win a game when we don’t score that many goals.
‘We’ve beaten Gibraltar by two, Georgia by one, beaten Gibraltar by one, so the importance of conceding no goal is evident.
‘I want to score early and we’re not going to sit back. But there is a difference between sitting back and being forced back.’
Pretty much all of Ireland’s outstanding results over the years have been 1-0 wins.
Think of England (1988), Italy (1994), Holland (2001), Germany (2015), Italy (2016), Austria (2016), Wales (2017).
To that, McCarthy quipped, ‘I hope there’s another one looming.’
For a while on Friday night, it looked like Ireland might need a two-goal win over the Danes as the Swiss stumbled about in the dark against Georgia, before a late winner rescued them.
Assuming the Swiss see off Gibraltar tomorrow on The Rock, any win for Ireland, 1-0 to 4-3, will edge out Denmark on the head to head.
All week, there has been mention of the 5-1 loss to Denmark in Dublin two years ago, if not the subsequent three draws between the teams. McCarthy reckons the World Cup play-off tanking has ‘no bearing’ on tomorrow’s reunion.
‘If you’re in the same league for years, you play the same team twice. If you look back at the last time you got beat and think “Oh God, we got beat here last time” you’re always in trouble.
‘It doesn’t affect me like that. I wouldn’t even bring it up. Our last game against Denmark was 1-1. We played well, and we could have won it by the way.’
Yet, there is an edge to the game, if not the 5-1, then the unflattering comments by the Danes towards the Irish style of play. Peter Schmeichel, father of keeper Kasper, said last month ‘Ireland are so bad.’ Midfielder Thomas Delaney also pitched in with his ‘can of beans’ comment. That stuff rankles and will be used by McCarthy and his players as a self-motivating tool tomorrow.
‘They don’t regard us with enough respect, I don’t think. Well, they said it after (the Georgia game). They’ve said it. They will not want to lose against us. That would p**s them off,’ said McCarthy.
‘I think you should respect your opponent, go and play them and do your best to beat them. But you know, as a player people wound me up (with comments), that’s just what it did. It didn’t wind me up to play badly, I played better.
‘See when you make those comments? You have to win then. You have got to win if you diss (disrespect) the opposition, and I make a point of never doing it.’
For McCarthy, this isn’t quite the Last Chance Saloon as the play-offs loom in March, but he’d love it, just love it, to dash the Danes’ unbeaten record. The players will have heard Harry Kane’s anticipation about playing England’s group games at their Wembley home next summer – a similar Dublin incentive awaits.
So far, Ireland have mixed the decent with the dodgy across seven qualifiers. They need a collective heave tomorrow and all the key props – Randolph, Duffy, Whelan, McGoldrick – are in place.
Should Ireland win, the draw for the Euro 2020 finals are in Bucharest on November 30. McCarthy might even pack Hagi’s jersey in his suitcase for the trip.