'Worst day of my career' — Vera Pauw on shattering World Cup dreams

A long, storied coaching career for Vera Pauw reached its lowest point on Tuesday when she had to shatter World Cup dreams for players

Wed, 28 Jun, 2023 - 21:54

John Fallon

A long, storied coaching career for Vera Pauw reached its lowest point on Tuesday when she had to shatter World Cup dreams for players.

Guiding Ireland to a first major tournament brought with it the responsibility of whittling down her selection to three goalkeepers and 20 outfield players.

They fly to Brisbane on Friday week, the day after the farewell friendly against France at Tallaght Stadium, but a clutch of contenders will be left behind.

As first reported in the Irish Examiner on Tuesday night, defenders Aoife Mannion and Megan Campbell miss out due to injury. Manchester United defender Mannion had a brace removed from her knee on Monday having tweaked ligaments during club training last month.

Campbell's long throw was an important weapon in the qualifying campaign but she has failed to recover from injury in time.

Campbell withdrew from Ireland's double-header against the USA in April and failed to feature in any of Liverpool's final six games.

Jamie Finn and Leanne Kiernan are the other high profile exclusions.

“It’s the worst day in my career,“ stressed the former Netherlands, Scotland and South Africa coach. “Not the best. Yesterday was the worst and hopefully from today it will become better.

“I’ve never experienced this before. It’s the bond that I have with these players, it’s the hard work. Also how they stood behind me in difficult times and how the FAI stood behind me. How Ireland has embraced me. Everything together.

“Telling players that really stood up for you that they are not going to the World Cup and breaking their dreams.

“They will make Ireland proud and you see the training sessions. But I spoke to Louise Quinn and she said she got hit by the pain of players missing out more than the celebration of making it.

“That shows how strong we have built together and how close we are. I had the hard task to be responsible for the final decision.”

Pauw finalised her squad after Tuesday’s training session at UCD.

She explained: “We went through all the players, all the games, every moment of every player in the last few weeks. We gave some players extra chances and some got chances until the last second.

“We finished at Monday night at 1am and we were getting tired so we started again at 8am after a few hours sleep.

“After the training, we watched the video again to give the hardest decisions another chance and we are convinced we made the right decisions.

“The final decision was made after the session and watching the video.

“We had to make it then. That is elite sport but I have broken dreams. It is so hard for them because that World Cup will never come back.

“For them it is the hardest. We had to go through this. It was difficult, very difficult.

“We haven’t been able to sit down one on one with the players who did make the squad, only those who did not make the squad.”