Rep. Of Ireland… 2
Belgium… 2
It’s probably a fairly safe wager that when Jack Charlton was appointed manager of the Irish soccer team, his was a selection very much from the left of field. Firstly because the big Geordie hadn’t much of a managerial profile at the time. Moreover, the Irish job wasn’t exactly a Box Office attraction at the time.
Jack may have spent his playing career in the shadow of his brilliant brother Bobby, but as the Ireland manager he towered in his own right. He knew what cloth he had to work with and shaped his template accordingly.
Initially and in fact throughout his tenure, those who would consider themselves purists of the game scoffed at and poured scorn on his tactics. Though it was hardly coincidental that it was in Jack’s time Ireland had their greatest years.
His methodology was simple, not the prettiest but by God was it effective. In hindsight, it was akin to what enveloped Gaelic football decades later. Back then he simply wanted the lads to “Put ’em under pressure”. In other other words, attack them in a way they won’t know how to defend, and close them down quicker than Boris Johnson does sensible advice!
Jurgen Klopp has taken the concept to the Nth degree, in GAA, it was termed the blanket defence, and rugby has its ‘Rush’. All of them effective in their own ways, but Jack’s greenprint transformed a nation in more ways than sporting.
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At present, Stephen Kenny is putting his own stamp on where the Irish team currently resides in the grand scheme of things. Difference being that, with the greatest of respect, the former Dundalk boss has nowhere near the calibre of player at his disposal as had the former Magpies manager. Yet, slowly but surely, Kenny’s Ireland are growing on me.
Shortly after he was appointed, a well travelled and shrewd student of the game said to me ‘The first thing he (Kenny) will have to do is deconstruct 20 years of “Garyowen” soccer”. Put another way, playing football a la Charlton or, to a lesser extent, the way Trapattoni had them set up.
Now, no matter what the purists might like to believe, we are not about to mimic the tiki-taka of Pep’s Barcelona, but, as the insufferable Ronnie Whelan might put it, we are definitely starting to ‘Get it down and play’ more. Route one has been closed. The scenic avenue is being explored.
And you know what? Ireland well able uo find their way around it. There are good footballers on this team. Playing with fluidity, freedom and confidence. Nobody has more of that at present than Chieoze Ogbene.
The Nigerian-born player latched onto a game of ping-pong in the Belgian box and essayed a brilliant bicycle-kick equaliser to a comparably brilliant strike by Chelsea reject Mishi Batshuayi.
When the world’s top ranked team took the lead again a quarter hour into the second half, even the most optimistic devotee of the boys in green must have feared Caoimhinn Kelleher was to get a whole lot busier.
Kenny’s crew are different though. Instead it was they who got an infusion of self belief which was rewarded when Alan Browne bagged a second equaliser with four minutes to go.
Don’t let anyone tell you it was only a Belgian “Second string”, there were enough well known names on their sheet to give any team plenty to think about. Drawing with them absolutely represents a step forward.
Perhaps however, best to leave the last word to man of the moment Ogbene “They’re the top team in the world and we held them”. Progress indeed.