Cillian Sheridan walking away from excuses and scoring lots of goals
Sheridan sees space inside the penalty box, points to the winger where he wants the ball played. The goalkeeper sees the intended pass and comes flying out, but Sheridan gets there first. A neat touch with the right is followed by a gorgeous sweep of the left. And the ball is in the net. No doubts, no fuss.
Sometimes you look at a player playing any sport and ask will they ever score again. Other times you wonder how they ever scored in the first place.
And then, by contrast, it can all appear so effortless that you wonder how they ever miss.
That was how Cillian Sheridan looked last Sunday – a natural, high-end goalscorer.
But Cillian Sheridan has never really been a goal-scorer – the statistics don’t lie. Basically, through his professional career, before this season, he never made it to double figures. For a centre-forward, that is not a fact you wish to trail.
He has always been honest and brave and a team player. These attributes have been enough to allow him play for Glasgow Celtic against Manchester United in the Champions League. They have also been enough to see him capped three times for Ireland. They have brought him – most recently – across Europe to play Champions League Football for APOEL Nicosia, and have seen him win cups and leagues on his travels.
And now he plays for Omonoia.
He retains the attributes that brought him a long way, but he has now started scoring goals in increasing number. The goal in the sixth minute last Sunday was followed by another (a left-footed volley) in the second half and he now has 16 for the season. And there are 12 games left for him to add to this tally.
So why is this happening now?
Sheridan is that most rare of beasts in professional sport: he speaks candidly and is brutally honest about himself. His logic on what is now happening is clear: “The caps that I got and all the other things that happened, they all came along without me doing anything exceptional. Basically, I was getting by, I wasn’t really doing very much. I was training and trying hard – but those caps I got just came to me really.
“I was never really much of a goalscorer. I always wanted to be one and I’d set a target for myself at the beginning of the season. But I didn’t really do anything to make it happen for me. And so it didn’t happen.”
Two months ago, he changed this: “I’ve changed how I approach things since Christmas. I was contacted by Niall Stack, a Garda from Ireland who moved out here to Cyprus to work for the United Nations. He is doing a Masters in Sports Psychology and he asked could he work with me. It benefits the two of us: he gets help for his Masters and I get help for the football.”
The pair started working together on January 11 – and Cillian Sheridan is clear that he has become a different player since that point: “What we have done is fairly basic. We have focused on how I apply myself daily to the job. How do I train better? How do I carry a good thing on from one match to the next? I used to play well one week and then hardly get a touch the next week. Now I’m trying much more to get involved, to make myself central to things. I don’t let games pass me by.
“We have set a target for the rest of the season, but that has been put away and we focus in a one-on-one way on the daily stuff. There is nothing that we talk about that I wouldn’t have said to myself before, but the way we do it, makes it feel more real. It’s practical stuff all about preparation.”
Sheridan is not trying to claim that he suddenly has everything cracked (‘This is about changing my mindset and working on it – it’s a work in progress’), but he has no doubts now of how important mindset is: “You see it with players who are technically excellent, but have no attitude – they never make it the way they should.
“It’s about the head, about attitude. I may have been told that when I was younger and not paid a whole lot of attention, but now I’m doing something about it. Being told it and addressing it are two different things.”
And it’s also about the attitude of the clubs: “There’s this thing where you get to a top club and you’re almost expected to be fully ready for it and have absolutely everything needed to make it. Some people do and they are the great ones.
“But there are others who just need a bit more. I was one of them I think. I needed a bit of help. But instead I ended up moving on. That’s not blaming anyone – it’s just the way I see it.”
The last two months have brought one fundamental change that, at its core, involves the commitment to walk away from making excuses: “Like so many footballers, I hid behind excuses. I find it happens a lot in football: if something goes wrong you can always find an excuse or find someone else to blame. I’ve worked on cutting that out and getting on with things.”
There is also a regret in all of this and you wonder in this regret what a Jim McGuinness might have done for him when he first pushed through at Celtic: “It’s something I’d really loved to have had when I was younger. Also, in a way it’s kind of annoying that I’m only figuring it all out now.”
Against that, he remains a very young man, despite his winding career: “I’ve only just turned 27. I’m still young for football. I want to kick on for the rest of the season. Play well, score more. Just kick on.”
He would love to play for Ireland again, but understands that that may be gone from him: “I would love to get back in the squad.
“But last year I was playing the Champions League and I didn’t get called in. It’s hard to see it happening now, but we’ll see.”
He is constantly asked about coming back to the United Kingdom for a crack at the big leagues there: “I don’t miss it at all. So many of the players here are dying to get to the UK, but I’ve seen it already. I’m not in a hurry to go anywhere. I’m happy to stay in Europe, happy to travel further afield depending. But getting back to the UK is not my target – even if it’s what people ask me about all the time. There’s a bigger world out there than just the Premier League and I’m happy in it.”
