Analysing Ireland: The perennial predicament with Wes Hoolahan

There’s a clip online from a 2004 Champions League qualifier between Shelbourne and Hadjuk Split which gives a hint where all this was going to lead.

As the ball drops outside the Croatian’s box, a Shelbourne player controls it, plants a defender on his backside with a dragback, takes three defenders out with a silky pirouette and pokes the ball forward where it works through to Glenn Fitzpatrick to score for the Irish side. The footage is grainy but something in the unmistakable balance and style of the motion shouts it can only be Wes Hoolahan.

Twelve years back he was already doing his thing, looking the most un-Irish of footballers with that movement between lines and creative use of space. Yet even then it wasn’t necessarily as straight-forward as you’d have expected.