SHAMROCK SHAMBLES?
If it wasn’t for bad luck, you suspect Stephen Kenny wouldn’t have any luck at all. Installed as Mick McCarthy’s successor in April 2020, the Republic of Ireland manager seems to have spent much of the intervening three years walking under ladders and across the path of black cats, spotting lone magpies, spilling salt, smashing mirrors and opening umbrellas indoors.
Appointed a couple of months after the pandemic started taking its toll in Ireland, Kenny’s efforts to get to know his squad and impart his methods were hamstrung at every turn. So much so that after a year on the job he’d had only 36 full days with his players, overseeing 11 games in eight different cities with a group routinely decimated by the virus. One of the earlier matches was a Euro 2020 play-off semi-final against Slovakia, which Ireland lost on penalties, ensuring his reign started badly before going quickly downhill and over a cliff Wile E Coyote style. A 1-0 home defeat to Luxembourg put paid to any chance they had of qualifying for the last World Cup.
With the pandemic over, results gradually improving and an impoverished Football Association of Ireland unable to afford a more expensive option, Kenny signed a contract extension that is due to take him through to Euro 2024. He could have been forgiven for hoping for a kind draw in the qualifiers for that particular competition but the fabled luck of the Irish once again deserted him as his team were slung into a group of death with France, the Netherlands and Greece. Already on the back foot with just three points from their opening three games, Ireland face back-to-back games with France in Paris and the Netherlands at home; tough assignments at the best of times but bordering on the kind of impossible missions even Ethan Hunt would choose not to accept, given the number of players – and particularly strikers – the Dubliner is missing through knack.
Foremost among them is the teenage Brighton striker Evan Ferguson, who ought to have been going into this international break full of confidence after his first Premier League hat-trick, but has been forced out with a dodgy knee. He is one of seven Irish players sidelined, while the Sheffield United defender John Egan will be asked to repel the combined forces of Kylian Mbappé, Antoine Griezmann and Olivier Giroud despite playing on one leg.
Banished to the Parc des Princes for tonight’s game because their usual home is being gussied up for tomorrow night’s Rugby World Cup opener, it seems France have little to fear except the kind of complacency that may have led their manager, Didier Deschamps, to mistake Ferguson for a Crystal Palace player in his pre-match press conference. If France play badly and the Irish wingers Ryan Manning and Festy Ebosele can channel their inner Michael Olise and Eberechi Eze, Ireland could be in with a fighting chance.
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QUOTE OF THE DAY
“It’s wild. I tell people I am a full-time worker and a part-time footballer. A lot of us have to take unpaid leave to play matches. But come game day you would never say we are not full-time players” – Kaylin Swart, who made 14 saves at the World Cup, talks to Firdose Moonda about balancing playing for South Africa and her other job as a sports coach and administration assistant at a school.
FOOTBALL DAILY LETTERS
“Jon Pidgeon writes about goal line technology [Wednesday’s FD]. I refer to Aston Villa v Sheffield United, 17th June 2020. The final score was 0-0 but United scored just before half time. Norwood’s free kick went over the line courtesy of their goalie. No goal given. Had that goal stood and been the final score, all other things being equal then Villa would have been relegated” – Peter Caldwell.
“As someone who has carried his fair share of binders in my life as a corporate drone, I was interested in the power dynamics of [Wednesday’s] Memory Lane picture. Des Lynam has taken three as is his prerogative as a senior member of the group who still wants to show he’s pulling his weight. Norman Cook has four, reflective, perhaps, of his younger age. Tim Carder has the satisfied look of someone who got in early and helped himself to the smallest acceptable pile of three. Lord Bassam apparently walked past the stack, deciding that carrying binders was for other people; leaving poor Paul Samrah clearly struggling with a frankly unfair five files. Have I spent far too long looking at, and writing about, this picture? Yes. Has Paul Samrah forgotten about this injustice? I’m guessing not” – Ben Mimmack.
“Re the ongoing criticism of footballers (Jordan Henderson among others) going to Saudi to ply their trade. Every single day, corporations in the West do business dealings with counterparts in Qatar, Saudi and other countries. On that topic you hear nothing, or very little. Surely it’s as morally corrupt selling cars, tech, fashion et al to these countries, as it is for someone in sports to pick up a paycheck from the same region? By all means, go after Henderson and others, which is not more than right. But it would be refreshing if the bigger picture was highlighted more often, the finger-pointing at individuals is becoming tedious. The journalism is a bit lazy, to say the least” – Magnus Nell.
“Allow me to be one of the 1,057 to point out that as a native New Yorker, Groucho Marx never used the word ‘quid’ in his life, except perhaps as part of ‘quid pro quo’. And the actual quote in question is ‘These are my principles, and if you don’t like them... well, I have others’’” – Joe Pearson.
Send your letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s winner of our prizeless letter o’ the day is … Ben Mimmack.
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