It is perhaps an understatement to suggest the Republic of Ireland’s buildup to the potentially decisive Euro 2016 qualifier against Scotland in Dublin could have gone a little more smoothly. First the Football Association of Ireland was yanked, improbably, into the gibbering financial meltdown at Fifa. Then the team warmed up for the occasion with one of the more brain-manglingly tedious friendlies against an England team apparently under some form of chemical sedation.
And finally Roy Keane and Martin O’Neill offered a note of more everyday drama after suffering a car crash on the M50 outside Dublin, a bizarrely sitcom-ish moment that surely deserves to be immortalised onstage at some point in the form of an intense two-man drama, part Waiting for Godot, part Keane arguing the toss over stopping distances and insurance excess waivers.
As preparation periods for a vital international match go it would take a management guru of rare genius to paint this as a case of marginal gains, controlled momentum and all the rest of it. And yet there is still an agreeably streamlined air of now or never about Saturday’s game.
For O’Neill’s orderly, defensively sound Irish team the challenge is clear: Scotland’s 1-0 victory in Glasgow last November, courtesy of a rare moment of genuine attacking class from Shaun Maloney, leaves them needing a win to maintain any realistic hopes of mounting a challenge to Germany and Poland at the top of Group D. Any other result and Ireland could find their qualifying campaign all but derailed with four matches still to play.
Never mind the distractions, this is a brilliantly well-poised meeting of familial international middleweights. When Group D was divvied up there was a sense of both nations having drawn a short straw at a time of long straws elsewhere, with the campaign reduced in most people’s minds to a battle to finish second behind the world champions. The fact that Poland have made the early running since has further queered the pitch.
When Uefa increased the number of teams at Euro 2016 to 24 there was plenty of talk of a dilution of competition, of an overly liberal door policy. The fact is that on past form both Ireland and Scotland would qualify as one of the parvenues should they make it to France. Between them these two grand old footballing nations have appeared at only four of 14 European Championships staged since 1960.
The most obvious conclusion to be drawn from the stalemate with England at the Aviva Stadium is that for Ireland to improve on that record O’Neill’s team will need to provide an injection of genuine attacking incision.
Saturday’s qualifier is unlikely to be anything close to a goal-fest, with another 1-0 either way the most likely prognosis. But with Scotland keeping a clean sheet in four of their past seven matches this would be an ideal moment for Ireland to discover a little more attacking invention having scored twice in the same game only four times – against Oman, the US, Georgia and Gibraltar – since the start of 2014.
As ever much of the responsibility will fall on the well-weathered shoulders of Robbie Keane should he choose to play following the death of two of his cousins. Keane could start in Dublin having flown to Ireland on Monday after playing in Los Angeles Galaxy’s 1-0 defeat by the Vancouver Whitecaps last weekend. For all the energy of Jon Walters and the craft of Shane Long, at the age of 35 he remains Ireland’s chief cutting edge, not to mention – after the retirements of Miroslav Klose and Didier Drogba – the highest-scoring international player currently playing with 65 goals in 138 matches.
“Ireland don’t, as a rule, score many goals,” O’Neill noted after the 0-0 against England. “We haven’t for years and that’s why Robbie Keane has been so special for us. He’s scored important goals for Ireland and you look to him thinking that, particularly at home, he might be able to unlock defences.”
In this context there have been some calls for O’Neill to start with Wes Hoolahan behind Keane in attack. Hoolahan, now also in his mid-30s, has been in his own way a kind of Gaelic Matt Le Tissier, arguably Ireland’s most alluringly creative attacking midfielder but overlooked by successive managers and restricted to only 18 international caps. The Norwich man was an unused sub against England after a hard domestic season but started previously against Poland and Gibraltar, and looks to have a natural attacking understanding with Keane, not to mention an alternative angle of attack for a team that has often looked to score from crosses and set pieces.
Either way Ireland are likely to take a cautious approach to what is in effect a Celtic eliminator for a shot at second spot, and a match that also has an element of spice after comments by the head of the Scottish FA, Stewart Regan, this week. Regan condemned in unusually unguarded terms Ireland’s financial arrangement with Fifa after the 2009 defeat by France in World Cup qualifying.
“As far as we’re concerned we play matches the right way and qualify, hopefully, in the right way,” Regan noted, stoking up some of the ill feeling left by a minor row between the two football associations over restricted ticket allocations. Only 3,500 tickets have been made available to Scotland’s fans on Saturday although 10,000 are expected to make it inside the stadium one way or another.
One Ireland player who will not be seen is Bournemouth’s Harry Arter, who has been ruled out with a groin injury. Paul McShane is fit but unlikely to start. For Scotland Charlie Mulgrew came through 90 minutes against Qatar unscathed and Steven Fletcher is available after being rested last weekend.
