Larry Ryan: For once Stephen Kenny’s Jug is half full

Fri, 03 Sep, 2021 - 16:30

Stephen Kenny was long overdue a bit of luck. And finally it came.

Not before, of course, two more dollops of misfortune in the shape of giant Ronaldo leaps.

For all he has done in his career, for all the records broken and awards won, you sometimes feel the best of it might still be in front of Ronaldo. That we have seen nothing yet.

That he was being held back by traditional norms of football such as running around.

We may only now be properly entering his disrupter years.

When Ronaldo completely redraws the game, dismantles and rebuilds it in his own image, which he seems quite fond of. Could he be set to expose much of what the coaching industry has spent decades documenting and certifying as a shocking waste of energy?

Ronaldo knows well now he was being badly misled by lesser men with licences and cones. That he was once demeaned with petty ideas about running the channels and pressing from the front.

He will take walking football mainstream. He’ll be knocking in 40 goals a season without breaking into a trot. And by the time he’s finished, if he ever finishes, he might well have turned football into either an individual sport or a version of netball — a finisher loitering in the circle with a bunch of domestiques to organise getting them the ball.

But we digress. While the locals had their own hero of Faro, our man had yet to supply his coup de grace.

Enter, or re-enter, Mr Matej Jug.

As Ronaldo flexed through his Mr Universe routine in celebration of the winner, Mr Jug approached tentatively for his moment in shot, his supporting role in history. Clutching his yellow card as though hoping it might be signed there and then. That little bit of overtime he clocked in certainly worth it now.

And with that charming shrug and shy smile that could launch a thousand ships — or at least secure a new contract for a struggling gaffer — he apologised for detaining his lordship. And if it wasn’t for the local delirium we’d surely have heard: “I know you hear this from, like everyone, but I’m your number one fan.”

Of course it wasn’t Mr Jug’s most egregious act of the night. Judging by the near-constant stream of outrage on Twitter during the match, this cannot have been the only house in the land where Eddie Moroney’s greatest hits might as well have been playing on a loop. ‘Bollocks of a ref!’

There were probably cloistered convents, muted for decades under vows of silence, erupting in choruses of ‘who’s the bastard in the luminous yellow?’.

Detailing all the perceived wrongs would fill a supplement. But the worst was certainly the barge into Aaron Connolly’s back in the box. The moment VAR didn’t want to see. Even if, given the run of marksmanship poor old Aaron is on, one suspects it only prevented him volleying over rather than wide.

But to cap it all off, Jug’s smile at the end was a crucial reference point. A moment Kenny needed. It triggered us, gave righteousness to our rage. The two heroes of the hour laughing at us. Paddy cast as stooge in front of the world. Collateral damage. Our best efforts tragicomic. Is this amusing to you, Mr Jug?

For one night at least, it brought us together in our rage and we had a sort of peace in the time of Stephen Kenny. Finally a ceasefire in the war for the soul of Irish football.

We were a people reunited, back in a time before World Cups and notions. A happier time when all we had was
misery.

When there was no time to query the style of play with enough on our plate in the many and varied injustices done to us on foreign shores.

And didn’t it feel good, amid the pain, to be all unquestionably in Ireland’s corner, without having to debate whether it is time to make a serious push for Big Sam?

Hopefully, it’s Kenny’s sliding doors moment. On another night, we might have won and he’d always have the Algarve. But on another night, the penalty goes in and the dam bursts early.

On another night, we’d be up in arms at the theatrics of Ronaldo if he’d reacted like Dara O’Shea to a swat on the shoulder. On another night, Bernardo Silva or Diogo Jota slotted their sitters, Ronaldo sulked listlessly to the end, and it was just another 1–1 in a tired litany.

But the cruelty of this one melted a lot of apathy into anger.

In reality, were we that hard done by? Jug was entitled to add on those 20 seconds for yet another VAR check in injury-time.

Reality is 33% possession. Eight attempts versus 29. But as everyone knows by now reality doesn’t matter all that much anymore.

As Eoin Kelleher pointed out this week on Twitter, there are ‘influencer kits’ on sale in Lidl in Cashel for €24.99. Narratives are shaped by smiling to camera.

Hopefully, Mr Jug soon posts a signed yellow card on Instagram.

It had been a unifying week anyway in Irish football. Katie McCabe and Seamus Coleman announced an equal pay agreement for men and women that suggests, on one front at least, we might finally all be in this together.

And then came the shock of George Hamilton’s absence in Faro. A reminder we must be forever vigilant about what they try to take from us. That there is always danger here. It surely heightened awareness of the need to cherish what we have.

So maybe we were in the humour anyway to admire the blossoming of Adam Idah, to applaud the composure of Andrew Omobamidele, to cheer the gallant rehabilitation of Shane Duffy, to take pride in the rise of Jamie McGrath.

And to appreciate the enterprise of that first half and the trust these players seemed to have in their gaffer’s methods.

For the first time in a while, it felt like Stephen Kenny’s Jug was half full.