STOKE SAGA SHOWS US WHERE WE STAND
Great dignity has been lost and the Ireland jersey cheapened by O’Neill’s will-he-won’t-he fiasco
FAI DESERVE CRITICISM FOR ALLOWING CONTRACTS TO GO UNSIGNED
LET there be no confusion from here on. No doubt, no equivocation, no uncertainty: Ireland’s place in the soccer world is now very clear indeed. A middling team with middling prospects is a barely perceptible dot in a rich, hard business.
Even humble Stoke City tower over Ireland, the nation of John Giles, Liam Brady and Paul McGrath.
Ireland are, in a world defined by the money, profile and talents of the club game, little more than an irrelevance.
They are not alone in enduring this fate. International soccer was long ago overtaken by its club version. The great talents of the sport will be engaged in the knockout stages of the Champions League and the title chases in the domestic leagues of Spain, England, Italy and Germany.
There is a far more concentrated level of quality in these competitions than will be on show in the World Cup in Russia come the summer. And the best players need the best managers, so it is in the club sphere where the game’s leading coaches and visionaries work.
It is predicted, for instance, that Joachim Low of Germany will manage Real Madrid from next season. He is in charge of the most exciting young team that will be on show in Russia, but the big prizes — and rewards — are elsewhere, leaving even the reigning World Cup holders Germany at the mercy of the all-powerful clubs.
And if the Germans are helpless in this environment, then God help poor Ireland.
That is why it is understandable that Martin O’Neill’s interest would have stubbornly snagged on the possibility of a return to the Premier League. It is the wealthiest and most exciting challenge in the world.
Even being stationed at struggling Stoke constitutes a major upgrade on trying to alchemise Ireland’s willing but ordinary talents into qualifiers for international tournaments.
Judging by his comments in public, O’Neill is possessed of a very well-fortified ego. It would appeal to a man such as him — one who liberally alludes to his two European Cups and his playing days under Brian Clough — to be pursued by a Premier League club, even one struggling against the relegation vortex.
However, if the cold certainties of the sporting world left us sorely aware of Ireland’s sorry perch in its order, that doesn’t stop supporters — and Irish players — feeling extremely angry about what was a week of doubt, confusion and plain embarrassment.
Because humble as Ireland are in an international climate eclipsed by the club game, there is still no more important sporting team in the country than the national soccer side.
They are the national team, Ireland’s representatives in the most popular sport in this country and, of course, on the planet.
They struggle and they endure the odd humiliation, but they do so in the name of Ireland, and on behalf of the men, women and children that pay to see them or that support Irish soccer through playing, coaching or attending at various levels across the country.
The expectations of Irish soccer supporters occasionally require readjusting, and some in their number are too quick to buy easy lines about players who could transform us into world-beaters.
The soccer star hasn’t been born who could turn the ragged Irish forces into an elite team.
However, there is still no bigger job in Irish sport than leading this side, but its status has been diminished by the carry-on of recent days.
There was great umbrage taken on the part of the press at O’Neill’s refusal to speak to a roomful of journalists at Friday night’s dinner hosted by the country’s soccer writers in a Dublin hotel.
The snub to the media was not important, but the silence was. O’Neill needed reminding from John Delaney and the FAI this week of the importance of his job. It wasn’t good enough that nothing was said for days on end – by either O’Neill or his employers.
The public deserve better than that, but with nobody opening their mouths, conjecture and rumour took hold like virulent funguses.
As to the criticism of the FAI, they deserve it for allowing contracts with O’Neill and his staff to go unsigned, but, really, the manager and his assistants are grown men. If they strike a deal, they should sign off on it and get busy improving their team.
The details of any agreement, verbal or otherwise, are unknown, so fulminating about O’Neill talking to Stoke after committing to Ireland remains a baseless rage; his agreement may have included a clause that allowed him to speak to a club in say, England’s top division if they contacted him.
But that nobody said anything and saw no reason to provide illumination is flabbergasting.
Silence does not equal control, in this instance; it was a tattered and transparent cover for chaos.
This matters, because the Ireland team matters. Their failures in modern times, the controversies that attended some of Delaney’s conduct, and the flare-ups around Roy Keane since his arrival as O’Neill’s assistant have lent the boys in green a motley look on occasion.
But Ireland still matters. With every twist in the O’Neill-Stoke drama, its importance was undermined, but what did the most damage was the silence from the FAI and the man paid a fortune to manage their team; our team. The Irish jersey is a fuzzy green distraction in the rich and clamorous world of club soccer, and there is no one who can doubt that this morning. Someone has to stand up for the shirt, though.
That simply hasn’t happened.
It would constitute an act of pitiful delusion to believe that any Ireland manager can never look sideways at another job. That isn’t how any industry works. If
someone believes they can better themselves, they are entitled to pursue that ambition.
It may lead to fraught discussions with employers, but pragmatism is the most powerful negotiator in professional sport. Money always finds a way. Fans cannot expect any Irish coach to immediately consider their professional goals met when they stand in the dug-out at Lansdowne Road.
What they are entitled to expect, though, is someone to maintain the dignity and meaning of a shirt worn on some of the momentous occasions in Irish history.
In the midst of the vast silences of recent days, that has not been done.
Someone will wear the tracksuit and pick the team and offer rallying words when the Republic of Ireland resume action in March.
They will be confronted with the limited playing stock and they will have to try and find a way to make little go far, all the way to the 2020 European Championships.
It is not a glamorous posting. It registers as a meek blip when even Stoke City can sound siren songs from the Premier League.
But it matters. The Irish team have brought people together like no other force in this country on their best days.
The hours of glory, what pass for it in our circumstances, have passed, for now.
They can come again, even if that sounds like a deluded fancy today.
Even fantasy is preferable to the continuing silence that is a deafening reminder of our current station.