FAI must ensure women’s game maintains its growth spurt
IN late 2018, after Ireland had achieved a quite remarkable 0-0 draw away to the Netherlands in their bid to get to an inaugural World Cup, manager Colin Bell was preparing to outline his proposals for how the sport should develop in this country. Ultimately, neither ambition was achieved; Ireland slipped to a familiarly disappointing conclusion in their qualification group while the Englishman had long gone before he had an opportunity to deliver his proposed blueprint.
Bell’s sudden and bitter departure eventually prompted the arrival of Vera Pauw, head-hunted by her Dutch compatriot Ruud Dokter, the FAI’s high performance director, whose presence at her unveiling marked his most recent public appearance.
Still, it’s been quiet at the FAI, one supposes.
In any event, Pauw’s appointment, as Bell’s had been, was touted as the opportunity for the sport to make a meaningful breakthrough in this country.
“We’re at a tipping point in terms of women’s sport, never mind football,” beamed Noel Mooney, who was minding the Abbotstown house as the walls around him were slowly tumbling down as in a Buster Keaton silent movie.
Twelve months or so down the line, Irish women’s football finds itself at another crossroads.
All logic points to another qualification campaign ending in disappointment as even a play-off spot seems out of reach barring a sequence at odds with logic.
And, given that Pauw’s ambitious attempts to transform how the game is coached and developed in this country remain merely expressed thoughts, for now at least, the situation the sport faces is eerily similar to that which it confronted in 2018.
Qualification for the next European Championships might have been transformative, as it was for the Scottish game, where Pauw had laid the building blocks for a quiet revolution.
Ireland may miss the chance to make their mark on the global game.
Unless they beat Germany in Tallaght tomorrow and Ukraine lose their remaining game against Montenegro, a major tournament in England, a potential bonanza for the sport here, will elude the Irish.
Competitive
There is likely to be no competitive games for them next year, as the postponement by one year of the European Championships, now to be held in 2022, means the World Cup has been pushed on too.
The squad’s remarkably open access to the public via the media and primetime coverage of their qualification matches may, again presuming the worst tomorrow, not be available for some time.
Pauw, whose contract expires when her side’s qualification hopes do, has not yet decided whether she would like to re-commit.
Unlike her predecessor, who was not universally popular within the squad, and not merely for his relatively defensive style of play, the 57-year-old is a firm favourite of the team captained by Katie McCabe.
To a player, all have voiced their support for Pauw to remain on but she has stuck to her game-face, stressing that she will make no decision on her future until after tomorrow night’s game.
But it is clear that no matter what her fate, or that of the team, many of the bold aims that an exasperated Bell felt needed to be fulfilled remain beyond the compass of an FAI fighting fires in so many other areas in a post-pandemic, post-Delaney era.
To their credit, the FAI have not fallen short in providing as much as they can for the squad.
The provision of a charter flight and training base in Ukraine ahead of their last two qualifiers was an encouraging step, given that three years ago many of the same players had to change clothes in airport toilets in order to hand back their tracksuits to the FAI. But there are deep-seated structural flaws in the sport here which cannot be so simply ameliorated.
“The biggest thing is to get a top sport, an elite-sport environment on a daily basis and we’re working hard on that to see what we can do within the structure of Ireland,” Pauw said last week. The words virtually echo what Bell had said in late 2018.
He wanted Ireland to train six days a week, which would have included club teams here augmenting their training with boys’ clubs; Pauw is in agreement.
The unstated acknowledgement is that the Women’s National League is not fit for professional purpose, for obvious reasons, as it is amateur.
Some extraordinary players, like Áine O’Gorman, can bridge the gap from domestic to international level but most, like Rianna Jarrett, must be exported to other countries, just like Louise Quinn (Italy), Amber Barrett (Germany), Denise O’Sullivan (USA) or Katie McCabe (England).
Ireland’s case is not unique and yet, despite the notable improvements in coaching pathways and player participation, the elite status of the game here has not kept pace.
At international level, the margins at times seem impossibly thin – remove a few appalling individual errors and derelict concentration lapses at key moments and Ireland would have sauntered into a play-off ahead of a limited Ukrainian outfit.
Unlike the squad who competed in the World Cup qualifiers, there is a real sense that this collective would have been a far more coherent, competitive side who would have been able to mix a competent, defensive game with some enterprising attacking play. Sadly, it seems unlikely to be unveiled on what would have been a grand stage in England two years from now.
Whether Pauw remains to finish – or at the very least continue – what she had started remains to be seen.
As was the case with Bell, will her ambitions chime with those of everyone in this country?
One senses they simply must.
Qualification for the next Euro Championships might have been transformative