Emboldened Ireland must be fitted out for battle once again
Martin O’Neill has (re)discovered the fact that fortune favours the brave
GETTING TO THE LAST 16 IN THE WAY THEY DID IS A SUCCESS
IN international soccer, management often means little more than glorified caretaking. In well-resourced squads, the man in the dugout is less concerned with technical training than busying himself with tactics and team selection. When Spain were in their prime, the team effectively picked itself, and the tactics borrowed heavily from the Barcelona style, leaving Vicente del Bosque time to work on his Eeyore impersonation.
The apparent talent available to Roy Hodgson, and his struggles to identify a settled team or style, infuriate supporters and the English press. The stars in their squad, as in Spain or in the Germany team, are the players, and when the manager becomes news, it is invariably because of his failings.
Ireland are different. A small country of limited soccer means, the stars in this arrangement are the manager and his assistant. There is no player in the squad with a record to touch that of Martin O’Neill or Roy Keane.
And with the stock of playing talent at its lowest point in 30 years, the importance of the manager has never been so pronounced.
That meant there was significant pressure on O’Neill at the start of this competition. His new contract added to the feeling of expectation, and fresh memories of Ireland’s Euro 2012 humiliation meant there was a minimum requirement understood by all supporters. At the very least, they wanted self-respect to survive, whatever the fate of the campaign.
O’Neill has not merely met that target, he has surpassed it. There has been a long suspicion that he could not be tactically flexible. He has spoken disdainfully of the modern attitude to soccer, and what he sees as the devotion to tactical nuance.
His attitude is a convincing one, but the danger was that O’Neill would stay so far away from any experimentation, he would remain frozen in one style. He disproved that when adjusting Ireland’s approach as they struggled in qualifying, introducing Jeff Hendrick, foregoing wingers and guaranteeing that his teams would not be swamped by modern midfields, typically comprised of three central players.
But last Wednesday, O’Neill took boldness beyond a point few would have envisaged. It was not that he made four changes to the team for the Italy game, but that he dropped his captain and veteran centre half John O’Shea and, even more surprisingly, retained James McCarthy.
His selection was justified by the outcome, but hindsight applies an even more impressive gloss to it. This was the decision of a manager who understood his squad, its limitations and the disparate characters that comprise it.
O’Shea is 35, and had started one league match for Sunderland in the last three months of the season owing to injury and form. Playing three matches in 10 days would have been a forbidding challenge in those circumstances, but making the call to replace him was nonetheless a serious one.
It worked, but the retention of McCarthy was an even bigger success. He was set upon by the usual attackers after the Belgium loss, with one accusing him of costing Roberto Martinez his job as Everton manager.
McCarthy is not a good speaker and he does very few interviews, so has not become a favourite of the presspack or supporters the way O’Shea and Shay Given have done. Poor as his performance in that defeat was, he did not deserve some of the rubbish flung at him.
In retaining him, O’Neill gambled. He could not use the decisive match in a European Championship pool to boost a man’s confidence, but he trusted the virtues he sees in McCarthy’s game could emerge against Italy. Just as importantly, he wagered he would have the confidence to play with the required verve. It paid off. McCarthy was excellent, Ireland won, and O’Neill showed he was capable of daring.
He has to take chances. In the absence of extensive playing options, he must be able to quickly change the direction of his thinking. Twice now O’Neill has done so, with the tactical shift in qualifying and the team he chose to defeat Italy.
Ireland’s triumph has been a victory for O’Neill, too. He can be needlessly touchy, and he is not a man to weigh his achievements lightly. The frequent references to his rich playing achievements and the education he received playing under Brian Clough speak to a need on O’Neill’s part to emphasise his quality. Deeds now match words. Ireland’s last two championship appearances before this were marked by management failures. Wherever one believes right resided in Saipan, the outcome was Ireland’s best player left the squad before a match was played, and that constituted a failure of Mick McCarthy’s management.
No country could have comfortably absorbed the loss of a talent as monumental as Roy Keane, but an Ireland manager has to be particularly vigilant, ensuring his most important resources are fit and ready to play.
In Poland four years ago, the rigidity in Giovanni Trapattoni’s thinking condemned Ireland to a fortnight of rolling embarrassment. He did not believe the team capable of anything but bracing themselves for survival, and the consequences of that
approach became quickly, painfully clear.
The match against France today is not a free shot for O’Neill, but he can reasonably justify retaining the team he picked for Italy, or reintroducing refreshed veterans O’Shea and Wes Hoolahan.
He has given himself options by being bold on Wednesday, and that must partly define expert management.
Martin O’Neill looked tired at his press conference on Thursday. He managed three hours sleep after the Italian match, he said, and it is easy to believe that there was no great pull towards his bed; he must have wanted that night to run on and on.
HE ACHIEVED notable results at Leicester City and Glasgow Celtic, but that match in Lille must rank highly in his career as a manager. He showed moxie and imagination, and his tactics prevailed.
The attention concentrated on an Ireland manager sometimes appears to irritate him. But in the absence of a Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney, Zlatan Ibrahimovic or even a starting Robbie Keane, the focus in the Irish camp swings to the sideline.
Media covering the squad in France have been irritated by occasional cancelled press conferences, but the public do not give a fig for discommoded reporters. Nor should they, and nor does O’Neill, one supposes.
He is a hard-headed operator; men do not tend to survive 30 years in soccer management by caring too deeply about tangential characters in their lives.
Results justify everything. That is how it always will be in sport, and thanks to the win last Wednesday, O’Neill’s approach to Euro 2016 has been validated. Defeat will be stomached this afternoon, once it is honourable.
The 3-0 loss to Belgium was sobering, but nobody gave up – no matter what McCarthy’s critics might have claimed afterwards. Ireland are one of the weaker countries at Euro 2016, beneficiaries of a political stroke by Michel Platini to extend the competition from 16 countries to 24.
Getting to the last 16 in the manner they did, and from the pool they did, constitutes a success, and for O’Neill as well as the players.
France have been diffident in their matches so far, and there are only so many times a country can magic their way to victory through last-minute goals. Ireland know that trick themselves, but France will be confident they won’t need escapology to make the quarterfinals. They are probably right, but Ireland will be fitted out for a battle. They are a team of limited means, but guided by a manager who is correctly calling the most important decisions.
His success meant joy for Ireland once this month, but expecting a repeat could be a wish too far.