Tommy Martin: A game freighted with almost unbearable significance

HUGE OPPORTUNITY: Katie McCabe and manager Vera Pauw. ©INPHO/Ryan Byrne

As decisive games go, the Republic of Ireland’s 2023 Women’s World Cup qualifier against Finland isn’t particularly decisive at all.

Sure, victory would book Ireland’s place in the playoffs. But after that begins a laborious quest straight from the pages of Tolkien, complete with a possible trip to New Zealand. That is the fate in store for the lowest ranked of the three successful teams to come through the UEFA playoffs, in which case Ireland would end up in the Inter-Confederation playoffs, taking on, say, the likes of Papua New Guinea and Paraguay. Then they would have to climb a volcano and defeat an army of demonic beasts in hand-to-hand combat.

That last part is made up, but FIFA are always looking at new ways to reach younger demographics, so watch this space. Point being that beating Finland would be just another step on a long tightrope over a deep chasm where one slip leads to certain doom (memo to FIFA: Tightrope of Doom, possible new World Cup qualification phase? Saudis to host?).

And yet, tonight’s game in Tallaght is loaded with so much meaning and symbolism that it could be put on the Leaving Cert syllabus alongside King Lear and the poetry of W.B. Yeats.

In the background, there is manager Vera Pauw’s battle for justice after going public with allegations of rape and sexual assault during her time as a player and coach in the Netherlands. There can be no knowing how the emotional resonance of her story will impact the psychological energies within the squad, but nothing that happens on the field will match the power and poignancy of how Pauw spoke in a press conference this week about the way the process has changed her, freed her, given her a new sense of self.

In plain old football terms, reaching a World Cup playoff would see Ireland boldly go where they have never gone before, franking that underlying sense of new land being claimed by Pauw and her intrepid band of speculators.

It is also about the same stage that the wheels came off the wagon last time. If the maxim is that you have to lose one to win one, then Ireland still have the bruises from when they went splat on their faces against Ukraine in their penultimate qualifier for Euro 2022. To add insult to injury, Ukraine then went and bombed in the playoffs against – oh gods, why do you mock us so?! – bloody Northern Ireland.

So we had to spend the build-up to Euro 2022, right there on our doorsteps with all the attendant English media hullaballoo, pretending to be happy for our friends in the North, much like the way the losers in the Best Actress category at the Oscars have to adopt a rictus mask of delight to disguise their jealous rage.

The scarring of that bleak night in Kyiv has revealed itself this week in the quotes of those charged with burying its memory against Finland. But for most of those who will pack into Tallaght Stadium, it was the carnivalesque backdrop of the English summer that initially set the mood for this game. It was, after all, the morning after the home nation’s 4-0 Euro semi-final win over Sweden when tickets for Ireland’s game with Finland went on sale. The 8,000 or so seats were snapped up so fast that, were you to have logged on then, say, boiled the kettle and answered the door for an Amazon delivery, you might have found yourself disappointed upon your return.

The phenomenal uptake spoke to a swelling tide, the sense of a moment to be grasped. It was Lionesses this, Lionesses that – well, we have a team and they’re good and we want in on the action too.

It is impossible to separate the impact of England’s summer success from the sense of hope and expectation that surrounds this Irish team. The aftermath of their win – the celebrations in Trafalgar Square, the chat show appearances, the lucrative endorsements – was women’s football in England kicking free from the worthy debate and the existential discussion, soaring to a new, established place in the firmament. Older, retired England stars wept at the significance of it all, the thought of the distance travelled and battles fought. The Boys of ’66 succeeded by the Girls of ’22. Who’d have thought?

For the Republic of Ireland, in that context, at this moment in the development of women’s football, at this point in the team’s progress, tonight’s game is freighted with almost unbearable significance.

Everything seems pointed in the right way. But this is sport and there are no guarantees. Finland were at the Euros and Ireland weren’t. Granted, they were rubbish, but they sacked their manager and are probably still indignant that Ireland had the temerity to beat them in Helsinki last October. It is only five years since the Ireland team had to go on strike for their own tracksuits, among other basic dignities. The road is long, as the song goes.

If they were to slip on the tightrope now, would the fall be fatal? If women’s football is a train leaving right for someplace special, what if Ireland are left on the platform again? Will the fans slink away? Would the sponsors slip their wallets back into their pockets? Will the Gary Mackay moment ever come? Will Rayo ever put the ball in the English net?

Even if it goes pear-shaped in Tallaght, or somewhere along that tightrope of doom, you have to think this Ireland team will get there eventually. You only have to have seen that performance in Sweden, the poise and steel of it, or the majesty of Denise O’Sullivan in full flow, or the Irish names popping up in the Women’s Super League across the water, or the intelligence and maturity of team leaders like Katie McCabe and Louise Quinn, or the youthful promise of Leanne Kiernan and Jessica Ziu.

Every step is dangerous, but whatever you do, don’t look down.