Ireland have had many unforgettable nights under Martin O’Neill and Ireland’s manager likes to make sure nobody forgets them.
On Tuesday night, he mentioned once again how Ireland had beaten Germany in 2015. There have been other great nights in Lille, Vienna and Cardiff which O’Neill can rightly hail as highpoints, not just of his time as Ireland manager, but of Ireland’s football history.
But this was a defeat people will find hard to forget as well. The loss to Denmark – and the manner of it – is a result which will linger. People will return to it when O’Neill stumbles in the future, as he did from March to September this year.
The defeat denied Ireland a place in the World Cup, but the manner of it raised other questions too.
The aura O’Neill has created around himself is based primarily on the alchemy he is believed to work in the dressing room, but at half-time here on Tuesday night, he lost his touch.
O’Neill made the calamitous decision to rework the Ireland team. We have grown used to the stories about players being told late on that they were playing and trying to figure out where, but as David Meyler and Harry Arter were removed, it was hard to understand the thinking.
Ireland needed two goals and they needed Wes Hoolahan, but they didn’t need Aiden McGeady and all that he would bring. It showed a strange and uncharacteristic misreading of his players to think that what they needed right now was a player who had won 92 caps while remaining a frustrating, peripheral figure. It showed a curious lack of faith in the players to decide at half time to send on someone who has been so rarely used in recent times.
Ireland needed to score twice to qualify but one Irish goal would have altered the mood.
O’Neill accepted later that the substitutions had left Ireland exposed in the midfield, but it was hard to understand how he couldn’t have seen it at the time, especially as he sacrificed a lot of what Ireland rely on.
The changes were made to bring some width and allow Ireland to keep the ball, but O’Neill conceded Ireland lost physical strength with the changes. “We needed to get some goals,” O’Neill said and it may be that the concept of some goals was so alien to this Irish team that the manager felt he had no option but to abandon so much of what his team had been based on.
There was an inevitability about all that happened in the second half. Ireland needed two goals, but one would have changed the mood in the stadium. Denmark had been rattled during the first 25 minutes and they could have been rattled again. Ireland may have had their foot on Denmark’s neck in Copenhagen, but in the second half here they decided to tickle them gently behind the ear.
And how Denmark enjoyed it. Eriksen had time to move and to think while Ireland could only charge around which only added to the anarchy.
“The two goals we conceded in the space of a couple of minutes knocked us for six,” O’Neill admitted later and it was hard not to think that the manager was affected in the dressing room too.
O’Neill has agreed to stay on as Ireland manager, but his contract hasn’t been signed yet, although that should be a formality. Ireland doesn’t need the pointless search for a new manager. There are no gurus out there. But it might be worth considering what we want from an international manager too. If Ireland is content to have a side that doesn’t so much play to its limits but limits how much it plays, then O’Neill is the man. If that is what Ireland wants, then they may as well stick with O’Neill.
But this was a damaging night for him. There was laughter in the press room as O’Neill’s interview with Tony O’Donoghue was played while journalists waited for his press conference. It was the laughter which suggested the manager had misjudged a room, that this was not the time for a hectoring, dismissive tone when he and his side had been humiliated.
If there was any doubt about the humiliation, it came when Age Hareide thanked Ireland for allowing Christian Eriksen to play.
If Ireland’s failure needed to be explained, it could be told like this. Ireland had gone into this game intent on suffocating the talented and untalented members of the Denmark team as they had in Copenhagen. They ended the night being thanked by Denmark’s coach for allowing his best player to express themselves. Ireland had made it ugly on Saturday but they couldn’t do it again. It was as if there was only so much unpopularity Ireland could take, and they wanted to be loved again. Eriksen will always think fondly of Dublin anyway. “Thank you very much for giving us space,” Hareide said.
He wasn’t the only one who will remember this game.
Ireland have had many unforgettable nights under Martin O’Neill. Unfortunately for the manager, this was one of them.
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