Fighting Irish shoot for the stars

Euro 2016 Group D qualifier

TALKING football to the man on reception in our hotel in Essen — which is just down the road from Gelsenkirchen — we asked him to identify a local hero from these parts.

He didn’t hesitate, and he could hardly have come up with a more historic name — Helmut Rahn, the celebrated son of Essen who scored the winning goal for West Germany in the 1954 World Cup Final.

That game has gone down in football folklore as the ‘Miracle Of Bern’, when the then rank outsiders won 3-2 against a Hungarian team which had not been beaten in four years.

Sixty years on, of course, it’s the unified Germany who tend to carry the air of invincibility, even if Poland managed to smudge that aura in Warsaw at the weekend.

At Joachim Low’s press conference here yesterday, Saturday’s setback prompted inevitable questions about whether his team is suffering from a World Cup hangover. The manager didn’t deny that it was a factor but he insisted he and his staff know what they have to do to put it right. After all, he said matter of factly, historically German coaches have plenty of experience in that regard.

Low’s almost casual reference to the four stars on the German shirt is just another pithy reminder of the gulf which continues to yawn between the two teams.

With Germany clearly a bit shaken by retirements, injuries and now the unfamiliar feeling of losing a qualifying game, it might be stretching things a bit to suggest that Ireland require their own miracle in Gelsenkirchen if they’re to get anything at all out of tonight’s game. But even if the world champions might be, as Roy Keane put it, “wounded animals”, in spite of that — or even because of it — they can still only be regarded as hot favourites to take the three points in the Veltins Arena.

Poland’s win might have complicated things in terms of targets for their rivals in Group D, but it’s still very early days in qualifying and no-one is seriously arguing that Ireland are suddenly under added pressure to compensate by taking at least a point in Gelsenkirchen.

The situation, in reality, remains as it was when the draw for the group was first made: if Ireland can bring anything home with them from tonight’s game, it will be by way of an unexpected and hugely welcome bonus.

Or put it another way: if you had to make the choice, which game would you rather have Seamus Coleman and James McCarthy available for — Germany tonight or Scotland in Glasgow next month?

Which is not to say that Martin O’Neill and his players won’t be looking to make the most of Germany’s sudden show of vulnerability. But if the latter’s difficulty is to be Ireland’s opportunity, O’Neill’s team selection will go a long way in determining how, and to what extent, the visitors might capitalise.

As usual, the manager was giving nothing away at his pre-match press conference in Schalke’s home ground yesterday, even warning his listeners not to assume that the man sitting next to him at the top table — Robbie Keane — would start.

Nevertheless, for big game experience, current hot form and, most of all, because he remains Ireland’s most reliable goal-scorer, it would be a major surprise if Keane did not provide the spearhead of the attack tonight, even if there is always the risk that, against tough opposition away from home, he can be rendered so much more ineffective in a 4-5-1 formation.

With O’Neill all week stressing the need for “strength” against the Germans, the expectation is that Wes Hoolahan will miss out on the road again, even though this is one observer who would argue that the playmaker’s ability to retain possession is as important defensively when Ireland are under pressure, as his creativity is key when the team is given licence to attack, as they were against Gibraltar.

Jon Walters’ selection against Georgia might suggest he will get the nod again out wide but, given Germany’s new frailties at full-back, this might just be a night when the manager feels he can entrust James McClean with making the most of any counter-attacking opportunities which might arise.

One thing O’Neill did make clear, yesterday, is that he wants his team to show maximum spirit and no fear against a team which, for all its current wobbles, he was at pains to remind us “held the world championship trophy aloft just four months ago”.

And he didn’t take exception, he said, to Joachim Low highlighting that cliched “fighting spirit” as an Irish trump card.

“I understand that because he’s got a fair amount of fight in his own team,” said O’Neill. “I wouldn’t decry those attributes — in fact I’m quite pleased he mentioned them. We might be deficient in certain things but a bit of fighting spirit pervades the team. That might not help you win every single game you play but it’s a grand start.”

From his own management experience at club level, O’Neill said he was happy to accept a comparison between Ireland’s test tonight and those games in the Champions League when his Celtic teams were called upon to step up against top European opposition.

“But this is not Celtic now, this is us,” he was quick to add.

“Obviously, we are delighted to be here with six points already on the board but, more important than just being here, we genuinely want to perform.

“And to do that, we will have to be really focused and concentration will have to be at its height.”

Having trained in the morning in Malahide before flying out to Germany yesterday, the Irish team didn’t train in the Veltins Arena last night, the management and Robbie Keane confining their energies to a leisurely walk on the turf.

It will be very different in the same setting this evening when, for the visitors, it looks like a night of heavy industry beckons in the Ruhr valley.