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Tight bonds with fans and his squad have emboldened Irish boss Kenny
HE SIGNED up for national service in the last weeks of the old order. None of us knew it on that November Sunday in the Aviva Stadium, but the announcement of Stephen Kenny as Ireland Under 21 manager and next in line to the newly unveiled Mick McCarthy as senior chief, was the last great flourish of the John Delaney age.
It was in deep winter 2018 that a beaming FAI chief executive revealed his masterplan for the national teams. Within six months, the FAI were in turmoil, Delaney’s reign crumbled, and the future of Irish soccer was bleak.
Off the field, the recovery job has been painstaking, as rivalries and tensions that outlasted the scandal had to be defused.
But the FAI is rehabilitating, and the renewal is most vividly felt on the pitch. The women’s senior team reaching a World Cup play-off under Vera Pauw has brought their development to the cusp of unprecedented success.
Their application on the field and the courage shown by the manager and her players off it on a range of issues has inspired thousands.
There is no bigger team in Irish sport than the men’s senior side, and under Kenny, they have succeeded
There is a reason why Wayne Rooney made Jason Derby captain
in one area at least, as tight bonds have been formed between the team and their fans.
More tangible change is evident, too, with the transformed style insisted on by Kenny resulting in inconsistent but occasionally buoyant performances.
The stats people would agree that Ireland are trending upwards.
Over three years on from those bewildering weeks when the old order collapsed, Kenny is working in a very different organisation.
More, he is doing his bit to introduce change of a less traumatic nature, to the playing pitch.
‘There are great things happening with the women’s team and we wish them luck in the play-off, and with the Under 21s next week,’ says Kenny.
‘Obviously, we had to experience a bit of pain in terms of results with our development as a team, and I do feel that when I go travelling through airports every week.
‘I’m just overwhelmed by people stopping and saying how they relate to the team, how they enjoy watching the team,’ he says.
‘A lot of them manage kids’ teams themselves in different parts of the country or are involved in grassroots clubs.
‘They relate to the team and are excited by it and stick with it. They want to be a part of that, I get that.’
‘That’ is the new Ireland Kenny has spent the better part of two and a half years piecing together.
The swings from optimism to deflation have been pronounced, but so has the overhaul in playing personnel.
This is a topic he regularly references, but there is bountiful evidence to support him.
Gavin Bazunu, Caoimhín Kelleher, Andrew Omobamidele, Nathan Collins, Chiedozie Ogbene and Jason Knight shimmer as the promised stars of this coming generation.
Knight, despite now playing in England’s third tier with Derby County, still stands apart as officerclass for this new age.
He was, now famously, made captain of Derby by Wayne Rooney when he was still a teenager. Rooney praised him as ‘a manager’s dream’.
The Dubliner, still only 21, has made a similar impression on his Ireland manager.
Kenny is asked if he was surprised no Championship club tried to sign Knight over the summer.
Kenny explains the potential complications around valuations and negotiations that attend every transfer, and he highlights the potential expense for any club in England’s second level in trying to buy a player of Knight’s talent.
That cost would be less onerous for a Premier League club, but moving to that division comes with the risk of less playing time.
‘I think there was a lot of interest in Jason, for sure,’ says Kenny. ‘His attitude is incredible. He’s such a very focused young man. He’s very mature for one so young. He’s a very focused individual.
‘There’s a reason Wayne Rooney handed him the captain’s armband at such a young age, because he leads by example, the way he trains.
‘Every day you see what you get.’
Knight’s values are ones obviously admired by Kenny, and he had praised Collins in a similar way during an earlier interview.
The presumption may be that every player that reaches the upper levels of the professional game adheres to the same standards.
Life tends not to run that straight, though.
And at international level, those variations in background, outlook and expectations present their own challenges for the man in charge.
‘As an international manager, it’s different to club management because in club management you can buy and sell players,’ says Kenny, explaining how to find the ideal mix.
‘In international management, and particularly in nations with smaller populations, your job is to maximise the talent.
‘Obviously we have a clear vision of what we want. We wanted to change the style of play, we wanted the team to play different, we wanted the supporters to really identify.
‘We’re creating the identity of a team that people can relate to. They know it’s different, they relate to it.
They’re inspired by it. There is a new younger generation now that relate to all these players coming through.
‘Ultimately, the endgame is to qualify for a tournament and then that becomes really special.
‘Have I got a tick box about who’s a good person or not? No, I don’t.
‘I’m not qualified to make those assumptions because we’re all different: from different socio-economic backgrounds, different family backgrounds, different levels of education, different upbringings.
‘You have to have that adaptability to manage whoever it is.’
Seamus Coleman is not, one suspects, one of the knottier difficulties Kenny has had to confront in his Ireland role.
His dedication to his career, but also his devotion to the Ireland cause, is one of the mainstays in a time of flux.
He will be 34 next month, though, and his playing time at Everton has been reduced to a start in the League Cup this season. Injury was a factor, but so is the slew of defenders Frank Lampard brought to the club this season. Coleman will not be fancied to start against West Ham this afternoon.
His Ireland status was shaken, meantime, by his performance in the dismal defeat away to Armenia in June.
‘If everyone judges him on Armenia, people are saying, “Oh, he’s finished”.
‘But we all learned a lot of lessons in that because he probably shouldn’t have played in that game,’ Kenny retorts.
‘But the way he thinks is, “I can’t play for Everton and not play for Ireland because Ireland is the most
important to me, so if I play for Everton I have to play for Ireland”.
‘Those are his values,’ says Kenny, arguing that Coleman had been hampered by a long-standing hamstring issue last season, which was corrected by surgery in the summer.
‘He knows he needs to play football but it can change with one injury and he can get back in the team, have a sustained run. He probably played more games than any of our players in the Premier League (last season).’
That statistic is unlikely to survive another season, given Coleman’s travails and Bazunu’s move to Southampton.
But the two, at opposite ends of the career register, embody in their different ways the challenges and possibilities of the Kenny era.
Irish soccer feels vibrant again.
We’re creating an identity of a team that people can relate to