Larry Ryan: Diane Caldwell shows United players how to live the dream

‘Everything I’ve done in my life was for this moment.’ Ireland international Diane Caldwell, pictured challenging Stina Blackstenius, made her debut for Manchester United against Arsenal this month.Picture: David Price/Arsenal FC via Getty Images

Ralf Rangnick has a fair bit on his plate, but he could probably do worse than box off an hour or two at some stage to introduce his Manchester United players to their clubmate, Diane Caldwell.

Despite minor respite for Ralf against Brighton midweek, it scarcely stemmed the leakage out of Old Trafford spilling the depth of his players’ unhappiness.

For a good while now, Ralf’s boys have been trudging around the pitch like ham actors in a Body Language for Beginners training course, plainly advertising their ennui.

There’s reportedly consternation they have to listen to an American coach they’ve dubbed Ted Lasso. And distress that too much time in training is being spent on needless fripperies such as ‘organisation’ and ‘shape’.

Their arduous plight is written all over the big sad face of Harry Maguire, forever apologising and lamenting after a fresh catastrophe. Or the permagrousing of Bruno Fernandes. Even the Rash, a man entitled to a slump of the shoulders since he has genuinely taken on the weight of the world’s problems, can’t seem to find some escape in the 90 minutes anymore.

As a squad, they look nearly as miserable as Tottenham hostage Antonio Conte.

And then there is Caldwell. She is hardly contributing much to the £2.8m value a 2021 study placed on the ‘supercars’ in the Carrington carpark. But the Ireland veteran has been constantly broadcasting her delight since she signed for the club last month. Indeed the Dubliner has breathed new life into the tired old business of the childhood dream coming true.

In an emotional interview with RTÉ, Caldwell revisited the afternoon of her first match as a fan at Old Trafford, drinking in the seconds, still lingering in the East Stand afterwards as the stewards locked up, dad coaxing her down the steps.

The girl who lived in a United kit, whose walls were plastered in posters of Keano and Becks and co, had been transported to the centre of her world.

“I remember vividly, turning back to take one last look and thinking to myself, as an 11-year-old, you’ll play there one day.”

An innocent aspiration that didn’t take into account Manchester United’s total disinterest in women’s football 22 years ago.

Instead Caldwell, one of the great adventurers of Irish football, left Raheny a few years later to take her first steps in the global game with sides ranking down a notch or two from United in the brand recognition stakes. In the States, there were Albany Alleycats and Hudson Valley Quickstrike Lady Blues.

After a stint in Iceland, she had the excitement of a millionaire-bankrolled ‘project’ with Avaldsnes, Norway’s first fully pro club, alongside Brazilian stars such as Rosana and Debinha.

As she told the book Emerald Exiles, she relished the pressure and ambition, but the constant churn in players and coaches took its toll on team morale.

At FC Köln, she encountered that feeling everyone in women’s football has experienced at some stage, that they were just “the women’s team”. “No one really cared. It didn’t mean anything to them.”

But she also found her stride in Germany at SC Sand, where she became a club captain and figurehead.

Her last posting before United was with US powerhouse North Carolina Courage. And in that way elite women’s football seems to coexist with regular life, she has picked up a degree and a master’s along the way.

Yet she couldn’t be clearer that wearing the United badge overflowed a bucket list: “Everything I’ve done in my life was for this moment.”

She should have another moment to cherish later this month when the United women get to play at Old Trafford for just the second time.

If Ralf doesn’t trade on her appreciation and gratitude that weekend, Mauricio Pochettino might, if he arrives next season.

In his book Brave New World, Poch constantly frets over footballers falling out of love with football. He challenged Spurs players to remember playing with their father, friends, to reunite with the kid who loved football and dreamed big.

“When that happens and they go back out to train, they’re enjoying themselves again, laughing, running around, and making a momentous effort. They’re more aware, receptive, and open to what they’re told. It’s remarkable. Our objective is to maintain that feeling and to keep it going for as long as possible.”

There is no guarantee, of course, that a touch of perspective, an appreciation of your surroundings, will improve performances. Otherwise, Juan Mata, even in his twilight years, might still be United’s main man.

The Spaniard was a central figure in an interesting Sky Sports interview this week with Jurgen Griesbeck, who set up the Common Goal movement with Mata in 2017. Members throughout football pledge at least 1% of their salary to good causes, though Griesbeck sounded a touch disillusioned with the project’s momentum, revealing they’ve had more luck with the women’s game.

“It is much quicker, easier, and more direct with female athletes,” said Griesbeck, suggesting men struggle to escape the protective bubble of their assorted handlers.

“Juan is a very inspiring guy because he does that. But he has to discipline himself. He has to make a real effort not to be absorbed by the bubble. It is hard to get a sense of what you could be doing from inside that bubble.”

Griesbeck recalled a meeting with two female internationals with six university degrees between them. “They were saying, ‘I am just playing football, I have so much time, what can I do?’ You will not hear that from the average male player.

“I do think the self-awareness of the female player is different. Women, in our experience, they just never disconnect. They do not have the privilege to disconnect.”

There can be no disconnection for the woman who has been keeping Caldwell out of an Ireland team that face Russia in La Manga this evening.

When she appeared on the Late Late Show before Christmas, Savannah McCarthy explained that she works full-time in a Listowel restaurant, drives to Galway for training three times a week, and trains with a boys team on her free nights.

Ryan Tubridy seemed to regard it as a lovely story. Wasn’t she great to be keeping so busy and so on, while trying to qualify Ireland for a first World Cup.

But McCarthy sounded more wistful this week, before she played in the win over Poland, wondering if we’ll ever see the day when an Irish woman could even be a semi-pro in her own country.