TAKING THE NEXT STEP
Liberated and confident Ireland are building on solid foundations as they add a new dimension to their game
ON THE train journey from Budapest city centre to the Hidegkuti Nándor Stadium, it’s easy to discern the full extent of Viktor Orbán’s football obsession. We passed row upon row of pristine Astro pitches last Tuesday evening, one or two in use but many more lying idle.
We also trundled by the impressive-looking Groupama Arena, which hosted the 2019 Women’s Champions League final, and the Puskás Arena, the glittering jewel of Orbán’s stadium-building frenzy, which when eventually completed had construction costs which were well north of half a billion euro.
The autocratic prime minister will suggest they are getting bang for their buck as a venue for Euro 2021 as well as last May’s controversial Europa League final between Sevilla and Roma, but the wider public, in a country where more than 30 per cent of families live near or below the breadline, might disagree.
Since a populist landslide made him Hungary’s leader for a second time in 2010, Orbán has exerted such an iron grip on power that the European Parliament has claimed the country can no longer be considered a full democracy and was now an ‘electoral autocracy’.
He has rewritten the constitution, filled the judiciary with political allies, painted migrants as ‘enemies of the people’ and has continually tried to strip away LGBTQ+ rights.
Orbán has been able to take his country down this dangerous path by using the game that is loved by both him and the whole country. He has gained considerable political capital by pumping money into football. So far, the nationwide investment in stadia and facilities is estimated to have cost the Hungarian exchequer around €2.7billion – and it’s still rising. It puts into some perspective the €690million which the FAI have requested in government and public funding to upgrade Irish football’s chronically out-dated facilities.
MTK’s curiously compact ground with a concrete wall behind each goal, where Ireland played on Tuesday, was a relative snip at €27m, although that was still 50 per cent over budget. It was funded both by the Hungarian state and through Orbán’s controversial scheme which allows corporations to divert profits into sports clubs to avoid paying tax on them.
IT’S hoped that such large-scale investment will restore Hungary to its glory days, but it will take time and as we saw on Tuesday night, their women’s team are still some way off the elite level. Even if half-a-dozen of their players hadn’t been waylaid by a virus, the hosts – who are ostensibly the second-strongest team in Nations League Group B1 – would still be far inferior to Ireland.
However, the reason Ireland find themselves in the second tier of the Nations League is because of slipups against that kind of opposition in the previous two campaigns, such as drawing at home to Slovakia or conceding a last-minute equaliser away to Greece.
And that was one of the most impressive aspects of Ireland’s performance last Tuesday night. In the not-too-distant past, this team might have been content to sit on a single-goal lead, but the players put their foot down. They scored four, but given the hatful of chances created, they could have easily added to that tally.
A beaming Denise O’Sullivan in Budapest exemplified a lightness of being within the Irish camp that was simply not evident in Australia. It was telling that the players used words such as ‘freedom’, ‘liberation’, ‘confidence’ and ‘enjoyment’ immediately after the 4-0 victory in Hungary.
No mention was made of the previous regime, but none was needed. While the two clean sheets are indicative of the solid foundations left by the last manager, the sense has been for some time that the players feel they are ready to take the next step.
There were plenty of mistakes made in Budapest on Tuesday, and at the Aviva last Saturday, but the difference now is that the players aren’t frightened to make them. Mistakes are part and parcel of football, especially when you are trying to be brave in possession. The courage to make mistakes has been a salient difference from the way that the team played in their first World Cup.
Heather Payne appeared to be one of the most liberated players over the last two games. Against Australia and Nigeria in the World Cup (she missed the Canada clash through injury), the Ballinasloe native rarely ventured past the halfway line. And that was on instruction. Against Hungary, she played much higher up the pitch, almost scoring early on with a cross/shot and feeding Kyra Carusa for her goal early in the second half. But the Roscommon native cautioned that despite the positive nature of the opening two Nations League games, the opposition needs to be taken into account.
‘If you look at the opposition in the World Cup, it was three top teams, so there was a need for me and Katie (McCabe) to be a lot deeper,’ she pointed out.
‘It is nice to play these sort of teams and attack a lot more. We probably need to work on attacking, getting more goals and creating more chances. We have a solid base now, with three or five at the back, and it is good now to have two centre-forwards. Because we have two strikers now, we can press and win the ball back and we are able to go forward quicker.’
The seamless reintegration of Tyler Toland into Ireland’s midfield, after such a difficult spell in international exile, showed what Ireland were missing for the past few years. And all because of Vera Pauw’s intransigence. If Toland had been part of the squad in Australia, for example, there would have been no need for a frustrated O’Sullivan to be sitting at the base of midfield in the first two games.
On the field, it’s all very positive, with both Colin Healy and Emma Byrne having a significant part in the coaching. Eileen Gleeson is on course to be the most successful interim manager in Irish football history.
Depending on how quickly the FAI director of football Marc Canham can find a suitable candidate, the Dubliner could end with a record of winning all six games in charge. And that may strengthen the case for Gleeson to be retained in the post.
However, it can be argued that her main role as FAI’s head of women’s and girls’ football is much more important.
The issues around the Metropolitan Girls League (MGL), which has produced the likes of Abbie Larkin, Izzy Atkinson and Australia’s Mary Fowler, prove that. A dispute with the North Dublin Schoolboys League (NDSL) means that some of those young girls whose dreams were sparked by going to Aviva Stadium last Saturday had no game to play last weekend. So, there are issues for Gleeson and the FAI to resolve.
As Orbán’s obsession in Hungary shows, having nice facilities and stadia don’t matter much unless you have the players to play in them.