It’s a case of do but not die for McCarthy in Switzerland

It’s not ‘do or die’ for Ireland tomorrow tonight – more like a case of ‘do but not die’. The prize for claiming three points in Geneva, unlikely as the prospect of victory might currently seem to many, would be the whole Group D mission accomplished: a place secured in the Euro 2020 finals in Dublin.

But a defeat would not represent the death of the dream as, in the event of a draw, it would simply mean Ireland would have another opportunity to go for the one win they need — at home to Denmark next month. And were they to fall short in that one, a play-off next Spring surely beckons — although that’s not so much a safety net, more the definitive last chance saloon for Mick McCarthy’s second reign.

But we’re getting way ahead of ourselves here. And that’s certainly not something the locals are doing in Geneva where, on the back of Switzerland’s 1-0 loss to Denmark in Copenhagen, there is huge pressure on Vladimir Petkovic’s team to deliver victory tomorrow tonight, since defeat would effectively put them out of the running for qualification from the group, while a draw would see them still requiring favours to progress.

For the record, along with the Danes and the Georgians, the Swiss are already guaranteed a play-off place, but you can be sure there was no mention of that around the Stade de Geneve yesterday, where most of the pre-match questioning of head coach Petkovic, captain Granit Xhaka, and goalkeeper Yann Sommer concerned the unhappy Swiss habit of conceding late goals, and how they might set about bouncing back from the disappointment of Saturday night in Copenhagen.

That and, of course, the overriding high-stakes feeling, as succinctly articulated by Petkovic, that this is “a cup final” for the Swiss. From an Irish perspective, Mick McCarthy could afford to beg to differ.

“Everybody wants to make it a cup final, a ‘do or die’, and I don’t think it is,” he said. “I think it is for them. I wish I’d come into his press conference actually and listened to the questions he was answering. I think, yeah, they do have to beat us.

That’s not the case with us, is it? We get a draw and we’ve still got Denmark to play. And I have to say, when I look back at the game against Switzerland, I can’t think for one minute how anyone could imagine that we’re going to come here and go all-guns-blazing. Because they are a very good side. They just dominated Denmark, all over them, they were.

“But will the fact that we have another game to qualify help us relax? No, not at all, because we’d like to do it here, we’ve never done it with a game in hand. And it’s still a big game for us, we want to play well in it and get something from it. It’s far from a free shot. We’ll approach it as we would have approached it before and try to win the game.”

In a combative mood, shot through with humour, McCarthy just about resisted the temptation to rise to the bait of Peter Schmeichel’s reported comments to the effect that Ireland are a bad team about whom the Swiss should not be worried.

“That’s very kind of him,” McCarthy responded. “There are so many people who have opinions of me, my team, my players. I’m not bothered. And I certainly don’t respond to them.”

He also claimed that he only learned second-hand of the negative reaction at home to the stalemate in Tbilisi.

“I genuinely don’t read it,” he said. “I just keep getting messages from people saying ‘F the begrudgers’ and I keep thinking ‘What’s going on?’. And seriously, what’s going on? And I didn’t want to text them back and ask what’s going on.”

In any event, it’s not the negativity but what he perceives as an absence of positivity which baffles him as Ireland prepare for 90 minutes which could end with them in the Euro finals.

“I just don’t get a feeling of the fact that we are within a win of qualifying,” he remarked. “I just don’t get the sense there is some sense of anticipation or excitement. And there should be. I’ve been asked if it is a cup final? No, but I’m excited about it. I’m excited about the prospect of winning.

I don’t get the sense in here from you guys (the media) that we might win at all, that you might be celebrating the fact that you might have the Euros to be writing about. I’m not getting that feeling. It’s not a negative vibe I’m getting, it’s just not one of positivity that we can do it, which is a different feeling.

One source of optimism, even if it hinges on asking an awful lot of a 19-year-old who would be making his first start as a senior international, is that McCarthy said nothing yesterday to suggest he won’t put Aaron Connolly in at the deep end in Geneva tomorrow tonight.

“Well, that’s the question, isn’t it?” he mused. “In asking me would I risk him, there’s some suggestion that there is. I don’t think there is. He’s now made his debut. He had a cameo and did well in it and I think he will be feeling comfortable about himself so, no, I don’t think it would be a risk at all to start him.”

Indeed, the more tantalising question probably concerns who might be tasked with supporting Connolly in the forward role, either up alongside him or playing in behind. If the latter, Alan Judge has already been mentioned as a candidate by McCarthy, but the fact that that the manager turned first to Alan Browne in Tbilisi might also prove instructive.

“I wouldn’t want him to be isolated up there, that’s for sure,” said McCarthy of the Brighton striker. “They play three at the back and I think putting Aaron into that, if I decided to do it, putting him up on his own, would be a big ask, I think, on his first full start.”

As of yesterday evening, 24,400 tickets — of which at least 3,000 will be in Irish hands — had been sold for tomorrow tonight’s game in the compact 26,000-capacity Stade de Geneve. Of one thing of which we can be sure: with Ireland having everything to play for and Switzerland having everything to lose, it won’t be an occasion short of atmosphere.