Kenny has become ideal fit for Ireland
DREAMERS do not tend to frequent corporate boardrooms. But Jonathan Hill, the FAI chief executive, in saying it is important that the manager of the national team is Irish, has shared a view that would find ready a greement among many of the most passionate adherents of the Stephen Kenny regime.
This constituency often laid themselves open to the charge of putting high-mindedness over the colder, sometimes grubbier realities that governs sport. They wanted Kenny to succeed because he emerged into the most high-profile job in Irish sport through an unfamiliar domestic route. He was the dream made flesh.
And because of that, the possibility of failure had to be fended off. So, for a time, inadequate performances were attributed to longstanding dysfunction within the FAI. Any merit in this line of defence was undone by the failure to extend such understanding to Mick McCarthy or Martin O’Neill.
After the defeat by Luxembourg, it was argued that results actually didn’t matter as much as performance; the distasteful business of winning and losing tainted the purer pursuit of a way of playing the game that elevated the Irish side out of an approach as rutted and predictable as a cow path.
These ardent champions of Kenny did little to sway the much larger constituency that simply wanted to see Ireland do well, but the potency of their support was founded in a conviction that a native manager, proven in the largely unloved theatres of domestic soccer, would serve Ireland best.
The improvement in performances in the second half of last year was an upswing that buoyed anyone with an interest in how Ireland fare, and even those who thought he could not survive the humiliating Luxembourg defeat should have been pleased for Kenny himself.
One gets the sense that he is not always comfortable with his portrayal as Irish soccer’s man, as one of us proving themselves against the odds.
And if that characterisation didn’t sit easily, it is easy to understand why. Presenting him as the little guy trying to succeed without the advantages conferred by a career in Britain actually diminished him, and the substance of his achievements in a long career here, especially his successes at Dundalk.
If the purists really did believe Kenny could cut it, then they would trust in the effectiveness of his methods and the soundness of his principles, no matter what environment shaped them.
Kenny himself certainly had that conviction, and as the team came good, his self-belief was justified.
The importance of Anthony Barry was well advertised, and it could become painfully clear as Kenny prepares to work without him.
But the affection and respect for Kenny among the wider sporting public is easily discerned, and the value in having a figurehead schooled in Irish soccer is high.
Just because the dreamers insist it means more to an Irish person doesn’t mean they are wrong. Now this is delicate territory, and a razor’s edge separates national pride and darker, uglier impulses. Nor should love for the flag be prioritised over technical accomplishment or the ability to implement a progressive style of play fit for competing against better sides.
But the advantages that come from having an Irish person heading the most powerful sporting collective in the land are clear. They provide inspiration but also reassurance: not even Kenny’s most unreasonable critics could argue that he is in this to enrich himself until a better job offer comes along.
He is in this job because it matters an enormous amount to him. That’s no reason to keep him in it if the team’s results take a turn towards the Luxembourgish, but it’s not a trifling consideration, either.
Hill is an experienced administrator at high levels of the game, and he understands the commercial leverage provided by an Irishman managing a successful team that attracts big support.
Kenny’s story is an irresistible one and, while the romantic version misses out on important details like his hard-earned knowledge and palpable ambition and confidence, home-grown success stories sell well.
Success is the critical word. Kenny got a contract extension not because he is Irish, or because he lives in Louth, or because he has fiercely passionate backers among those devoted to the League of Ireland. He improved the team. Barry’s role should be acknowledged, but so must Kenny’s savvy in appointing him in the first place.
As Ireland improved, so did Kenny’s assertiveness in public – not a minor matter, given the unsparing focus on the Ireland manager. It all seems a better fit.
Kenny is a serious operator – and a home-schooled one, at that.