Irish football in 2022: 11 things to be excited about in the coming year
UPBEAT: Plenty hinges on the Nations League for Republic of Ireland boss Stephen Kenny as results may seal a play-off for the Euro 2024 finals before the qualifiers kick off next year. Picture: Sam Barnes/Sportsfile
Two international tournaments, the women’s Euro finals and men’s World Cup, will be played out without Irish representation but there’s a myriad of activities to consume the footballing public in 2022.
Here, we pick out just 11 of the Irish football plotlines to watch out over the next 12 months.
The latest European competition hasn’t been kind to Ireland, with no wins from the first 10 games over two campaigns, but matches against Ukraine, Armenia, and Scotland in June and September are vital for Stephen Kenny.
While his new contract will be confirmed before the March friendlies, the maximum severance clause illustrates that the manager is still very much on trial after 20 matches at the helm. Onerous contract terms to Martin O’Neill, Roy Keane, Mick McCarthy, and Robbie Keane have taught the new board to tread carefully.
Results in the Nations League may seal a play-off for the Euro 2024 finals before the qualifiers kick off next year and, in the utopian scenario, lift Ireland to second seeds in the draw. Plenty hinges on a series that had previously been considered an experimental phase.
Few football figures carry the ability to captivate in the modern era of bland soundbites but Duff shares that status alongside the two Keanes. He currently has what those pair desire, a managerial post, and his first season as a standalone senior boss promises to be fascinating.
Shelbourne have backed their new boss with a competitive budget in their bid to avoid immediate relegation and the challenge is sure to test his personality, one not known for its patience. The post-match interviews of the two-time Premier League winner should be box-office.
At just 42, though he won’t admit it, this season will double up as an audition for more glamorous managerial stages than Tolka Park, where he won’t even have a parking spot, never mind the modern facilities he spoke of at his unveiling in November.
Far from being the graveyard of Irish football, the league’s second tier is shaping up to be the most exciting for years.
Waterford’s relegation deprives the Premier Division of a Munster club for the first time since 1923, with the nine-team second tier also featuring Cork City, Cobh Ramblers, and Treaty United from the province. Add in Galway United, Wexford, Athlone, relegated Longford Town, and Bray Wanderers and it’s befitting the new nickname of the Discover Ireland league.
That strange quirk aside, all teams are capable of mustering a promotion challenge, especially with the play-offs stretching down to fifth place. Cork’s shrew recruitment drive, the latest coming on Monday with a loan extension of Barry Coffey, should strengthen their claims.
Shamrock Rovers provided Byrne with the habitat to revive his career in 2019 and he’s shown a degree of loyalty by returning to Tallaght for their quest to clinch a third successive title. His decision attracted some accusations of lacking ambition but at 25, and following a spell in Cyprus that yielded just five appearances, a season on the domestic front could work out to be a masterstroke.
Still, for his ambitions with the Ireland team to be fully realised, his homecoming has to be a brief stopover for bigger stages. He can’t be relying on a European run to showcase his talents to a global audience.
2022 will go a long way to determining if this Ireland team can remove the nearly from their epitaph.
There’s been too many false dawns since Ireland last reached a play-off in 2008 to be presumptuous but Vera Pauw’s side’s feat of beating Finland in Helsinki represents a major start in the heavy lifting towards second place in their World Cup qualification group. Fixtures against powerhouses Sweden in March and minnows Georgia in June should go to form, leaving September’s concluding double-header at home to the Finnish — likely at Aviva Stadium — and away to Slovakia as decisive.
Captain Katie McCabe and Denise O’Sullivan are too gifted for showpieces to evade them and they’ll grimace at watching a Northern Ireland side at the summer Euros who achieved what they couldn’t by overcoming a mediocre Ukraine outfit.
Apart from the unusual blue jersey the men’s team wore against Qatar in October, there’s been scarce fanfare around the FAI marking their 100th year.
Further events such as recognition for 100 Grassroots Heroes, 100 International Heroes, and 100 League of Ireland and Women’s National League heroes are planned before June but the association is in a race to land a prestige opponent for a friendly at Aviva Stadium.
They’ve a lot on their plate, between governance reforms and debt management, but furnishing their strategic plan to the public eye in the first quarter of the year will be pivotal. Chief executive Jonathan Hill has already laid out a key target of qualification for every second major tournament but an equal spotlight will shine on him to land a main sponsor willing to fork out at least what Three paid during their decade-long partnership.
Last champions 25 years ago, the weight of expectation rests on Derry to challenge Shamrock Rovers.
That stems from a bolstered budget by benefactor Philip O’Doherty, the club chairman who last year became a billionaire from selling his engineering company. Manager Ruaidhrí Higgins has availed of that firepower by capturing Dundalk’s quartet Patrick McEleney, Michael Duffy, Will Patching, and Cameron Dummigan, augmented by rising pair Brandon Kavanagh and Brian Maher.
Although the lure of UK clubs proved too much for the league’s top scorer Georgie Kelly to be tempted into a homecoming, Derry possesses enough quality to mount a title bid.
O’Doherty is eager to concentrate on long-term self-sustainability, underlined by him identifying a new site for their academy, but consistency of results will enthuse a football-mad local fanbase already digging deep to fork out for season tickets and merchandise.
When Cork City manager John Caulfield predicted after the 2018 FAI Cup final that American investment would see their victors “monopolise” Irish football, he didn’t mean in the controversy stakes.
Granted, the league title was retained under Peak6’s reign in 2019 but undue interference on recruitment and selection came to a head the following year. Dundalk were just eight points adrift of leaders Shamrock Rovers in August 2020 but their Champions League exit prompted chairman Bill Hulsizer to fire Vinny Perth and replace him with rookie Italian Filippo Giovagnoli.
Further erratic transfer dealings dominated 2021, as did the bizarre decision to rehire Perth, yet once the crowd turned, Peak6 invoked their exit strategy.
Local businessman Andy Connolly, one of the co-owners who sold to the US hedge fund, is back at the helm alongside Newry-based Statsports. Last year’s disaster means no European football for the first time since 2014 but, having snared fans’ favourite Stephen O’Donnell from St Pat’s as manager, regaining their core values is the immediate priority in a longer-term plan to restore former glories.
Progression in Europe has been thin on the ground for the WNL champions since Peamount (2011) and Raheny (2015) reached the last-32 stage. A revamp, much to Vera Pauw’s annoyance, has made it even more difficult for smaller countries to make inroads and Peamount crashed out 5-2 to Serbian champions Spartak Subotica at the preliminary hurdle in August.
Shelbourne had been calling for extra places in the competition for Ireland but will be flying the flag solo this summer, having usurped Peamount on the final day.
It’s easy to forget but in the last “normal” year before the pandemic hit, 2019, Ireland’s U21s reached the Toulon tournament semi-final, the same stage the U19s got to at the European finals in Armenia.
Portugal ended that odyssey for Tom Mohan’s side and they must overcome them, as well as mini-group hosts England and Armenia in March, to savour another tournament. That the finals act as Europe’s qualifier for the 2023 Fifa U20 World Cup in Indonesia is another incentive.
Colin O’Brien’s U17s also have the Portuguese standing in their way in the elite phase, along with Finland and Israel.
Runners-up in seven of the eight groups will join the pool victors at the finals in Israel on May 16.
For Dave Connell’s U19 women, they have a round-robin group in April against France, Czech Republic, and Greece while the U17s navigate an identical format two weeks earlier with Slovakia, Finland, and Iceland.
Like it or loathe it, the most fractious episode in Irish sport will be replayed in all of its glory come late May. columnist Tommy Martin has already shipped criticism for daring to mention the looming landmark, yet don’t expect any let-up, especially in a year that another World Cup goes ahead without that green hue.
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