Kieran Shannon: Don’t just scapegoat Stephen Kenny. Find answers with a real plan for Ireland’s future
OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS: If we want an Irish team playing in a major tournament, planning needs to start now and go beyond criticism of manager Stephen Kenny.
While it could seem as if the gods are mocking us that Ireland’s next opponents should be Qatar, given it’s the one place we already know our team won’t be next November 12 months, maybe they’re also warning us with the choice of venue for tonight’s friendly: Hungary.
When I was growing up, that nation had a relevance in European football. While they weren’t quite the mighty Magyars that had schooled England at Wembley and reached World Cup finals in 1938 and 1954 and the last four of the European championships of 1964 and 1972, they were still a constant presence at major tournaments.
Ahead of the 1982 World Cup, I remember salivating at the prospect of one particular night’s football: not only would the Brazil of Zico and Socrates be going head-to-head with a Scotland team of Dalglish and Hansen, but Maradona’s Argentina would be up against a Hungary team of Nyilasi who my preview magazines had bigged up as the Platini of the east.
Initially the Hungarians seemed as if they’d live up to the hype, pummelling poor El Salvador 10-1 in their opening group game. As it would turn out, Maradona would prove to be too much for them, just as Zico & Co were for the Scots, both South American sides sweeping away their European opponents 4-1. But Hungary were still a respectable outfit, drawing their remaining game with a Belgium side that had beaten the Argentinians and would meet them again in the semi-finals of the following World Cup.
The Hungarians made it to Mexico as well, the ninth time they qualified for the World Cup proper in 12 attempts. But then they failed to qualify for Italia ’90. Despite being able to call on a creative midfield talent like Lajos Detari, they had the misfortune to encounter in that campaign a growing and unlikely force in European and indeed world football: Ireland.
Once Paul McGrath volleyed to the net on a glorious Sunday afternoon in Dublin, prompting the terraces to strike up its first renditions of ‘Que Sera, Sera’ and ‘Olé, Olé, Olé’, it was the moment one country was on its descent to irrelevancy for the next quarter of a century while another was going to Italy — and beyond.
At the same time we were experiencing the phenomenon that was Jack, Hungary was also about to undergo seismic change in the form of the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the communist system, leaving many of its leading clubs in financial ruin. The Bosman ruling further weakened its top clubs, and in turn, its national team. The world had changed and Hungarian football had been unable to change with it.
It’s often the way with European countries with a population of 10 million or less: they only have a certain lifespan in the sun unless they have a clear plan and vision to stay or get back in the sun. Scotland made every World Cup bar one from 1974 to 1998, then failed to qualify for any other major tournament until Euro 2020.
Bulgaria, former World Cup semi-finalists, have also only featured in one major tournament since 1998. Austria, who like the Magyars, were World Cup semi-finalists in the 30s and 50s and still relevant into the early 80s with their own Nyilasi in Hans Krankl, haven’t qualified for a World Cup in over 20 years.
Then you’ve Northern Ireland, one of the most formidable teams in Europe for the first seven years of the 1980s, but, for all Michael O’Neill’s fine work, not a major player since. And now, very likely, we’re looking at a similar decline and probable descent into irrelevancy in the case of the Republic of Ireland.
If losing to Luxembourg is indeed unacceptable and below a country of our supposed footballing standing, the interventions and solutions need to be more fundamental and imaginative and wide-ranging than that. The commentary of the likes of McGrath and some of his former teammates reek of entitlement and a clinging to a bygone era.
Put it this way: if the Republic were playing the USA, as Northern Ireland were at the weekend, a large section of the public and our pundits would expect us to get a result, as if it were still 2002 or 1994. The USA have players at Juventus, Chelsea, and Barcelona. Because they planned for it. Over a decade ago they laid out a clear vision and plan aiming to reach the last four of the World Cup from 2022 on.
When Belgium at Euro 2000 were one of the few host countries in recent history to fail to emerge from their group and deemed it to be unacceptable, their response wasn’t to say their manager wasn’t up to it but rather their whole system and pathway wasn’t up to it; likewise Germany they finished last in their pool at that tournament. It’s been well documented in these pages and elsewhere how they changed their entire coaching outlook.
Irish football is now at that juncture. While Ruud Dokter and his predecessors have all rolled out various emerging talent pathways and development programmes, they haven’t been as all-encompassing and inclusive as they need to have been, and as those of the Belgians and Germans were.
Take something as fundamental as the Kennedy Cup. Is it really working in its current guise, where it’s billed up to U14s all around the country as the be-all and end-all and the place where you could be spotted by a national team coach or a foreign club scout, leaving the aftermath inevitably an anti-climax?
Nor has there been a proper strategic response to Brexit. Instead of debating and exploring the opportunity it could be to keep more players at home until they’re 18 and develop a proper national league, the reflex was to seek a derogation from Fifa. Bring back our cheese!
The cheese has moved though, just like the Hungarians had to accept the wall had crumbled. Yearning for how it was yesterday won’t help make a better tomorrow.
When you’re small, you have to be smart, and it’s been a long time since Irish football was that. But now represents an opportunity. John Delaney is gone. While it’s debatable losing to Luxembourg 1-0 is as bad as losing to Cyprus 5-2 — five-two! — let it be our nadir so, our Euro 2000.
For too long Irish football hasn’t had the values or vision to unite the way a GAA routinely does, forming wide-ranging and evidence-based committees to look at their underage development squads or overall games development. There have been too many agendas, not enough of a common purpose.
But now surely there is one. It’s only the past five years that Hungary has awoken from its slumber. If we want our kids and grandkids to experience what it’s like having an Irish team playing in a major tournament, the planning and collaboration needs to start now, and go beyond who is the current senior manager.
