Ireland’s big moment is what World Cup qualifying is all about
CATCH ME IF YOU CAN: Jayson Molumby runs to celebrate with Troy Parrott after the striker's third goal of the game delivered a precious win for Ireland. Photo: ©INPHO/Ryan Byrne
Last Thursday, Irish football was in a bleak place.
They had two games remaining in World Cup qualifying and apparently no hope of making it to North America next summer. Another campaign had collapsed in predictable ways: they couldn’t score, they made bafflingly simple errors, too few of their players play for elite sides and those that do seemed unable to reproduce club form for their country.
Their one possible star, Evan Ferguson, had not been energised by a move to Roma – quite the reverse – and although there was vague talk of a new contract for their manager, the amiable Icelandic dentist Heimir Hallgrímsson, everybody thought he would be off after the game in Hungary and was vaguely dreading another Football Association of Ireland recruitment saga, which would inevitably take months, throw up a series of implausible names and result in the job being given to Hallgrímsson’s assistant, John O’Shea.
What made it all the more frustrating was that, if you could somehow leave aside the abject defeat in Armenia and the two daft goals conceded early against Hungary in Dublin, there had actually been, if you looked really closely, glimmers of positivity – albeit those are much clearer in hindsight.
They had played pretty well to come back to draw that game against Hungary. They had held Portugal in Lisbon until injury-time, despite an extremely soft penalty being awarded against them. But when Ferguson, who had scored the only goal in an uninspiring home win over Armenia last month, succumbed to an ankle injury, all seemed lost.
Enter Troy Parrott. The 23-year-old used to be the great hope of Irish football. It never quite worked for him at Tottenham, though, and he ended up moving to the Netherlands. He’s started to blossom at AZ, scoring 14 league goals last season and six in seven games this season.
But there had only ever really been flickers at international level. He had fallen behind Ferguson in the pecking order. But he scored twice in the first half against Portugal on Thursday. Then Cristiano Ronaldo was sent off for an elbow, which added, for the Irish, an element of delicious comedy. A lad who performed the crybaby gesture at the superstar as he left the pitch became a brief celebrity.
And beyond it all, conveniently disguised between headlines about Ronaldo’s first international red card, was the realisation that they could take second in the group and a playoff spot.
This is what these final weeks of World Cup qualifying can do. Unexpected possibilities suddenly emerge. That’s why these games can be some of the greatest in football; opportunity can suddenly knock for teams who are unused to it. There is a great democracy to it: whether you’re Erling Haaland or Ireland’s Finn Azaz, Kylian Mbappé or Meschak Elia of DR Congo, the prize is the same.
All Ireland had to do was win in Hungary against a team who, for all their superior players, had looked vulnerable in Dublin. The event itself almost felt like a different sport than the one played in the Premier League: tension and occasional flurries of action, football in its rawest form.
Ireland went behind after three minutes. Parrott levelled with a penalty. They went behind again before half-time, but that almost made it easier: they had to score twice in the second half. On the hour, Festy Ebosele and debutant Johnny Kenny came on for Seamus Coleman and Jayson Molumby, a final attacking gamble. Parrott levelled on 80 minutes, a finish of real deftness.
The clock hit 90. Still 2-2. Five minutes added. The game moved into a sixth additional minute. Caoimhin Kelleher launched a long ball from halfway. Liam Scales flicked it on. There was a momentum, an inevitability, everything converging all at once on the Hungarian goal.
The keeper Dénes Dibusz hesitated. Parrott got ahead of his man, got a toe to the ball and, with apparent icy clarity of vision, had the awareness to nudge the ball down. Up or horizontal and Dibusz might have got a hand to it; down he had no chance. Parrott had become the first Ireland player to score an international hat-trick outside Dublin.
The celebrations were wild, and that was just to get into a playoff, which will take place at the end of March next year. For four months there will be hope and anticipation, just as there will be for DR Congo, who on Sunday beat a disappointing Nigeria on penalties in a playoff for Africa’s place in the intercontinental qualifying playoffs (which do not involve Europe).
The quality had been limited in Rabat for that one as well, but who cares? That’s not what the international game is about. It’s about desire and effort and will. It’s about drama and narrative – the stories that countries will tell for eternity.
The best football is almost never about the football, and that’s why the World Cup remains the purest form of the game.
17 November 1993 might be the greatest night of World Cup qualifying in history. Amid a highly charged atmosphere in Belfast, Ireland drew 1-1 with Northern Ireland to secure their place at USA 94, aided by Spain beating Denmark 1-0 despite having their goalkeeper Andoni Zubizarreta sent off after 10 minutes, his young replacement Santiago Cañizares producing the performance of a lifetime.
Paul Bodin hit the bar with a penalty as Wales missed out by drawing with Romania. England provided comic relief by going behind against San Marino after eight seconds.
But the greatest drama happened in Paris. France would already have qualified but for a shock defeat to Israel, but everybody expected them to get the draw they needed at home to Bulgaria. With 15 seconds remaining they had an attacking free-kick on the right.
David Ginola could have taken the ball into the corner but inexplicably crossed into a box almost empty of France players – a “crime”, as his manager, Gérard Houllier, described it. Bulgaria broke at speed, culminating in Emil Kostadinov lashing in a stunning finish that eliminated France. Kostadinov shouldn’t even have been in the country, having failed to secure a visa, but had been smuggled in at a remote border post near Mulhouse.
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