The way Steve Guppy tells it, the players he goes to watch on behalf of Ireland become more than just a brief. When they start doing well, they can become his players. Guppy joined up with the Ireland management team in the summer of 2014 and has spent a lot of time watching Bournemouth this season, specifically Harry Arter and Eunan O’Kane.
“If I thought that they were really doing well then I’d mention it to the manager…then I’d travel down with him and it was funny, it was almost like my player and you’re a little bit nervous, hoping that he’ll play well.”
He’s joking, but it illustrates the manner in which Guppy goes about his role as a trusted adviser to Martin O’Neill.
One of his other duties is watching the DVDs of Ireland’s opponents in the European Championships which he has described as “frightening”, but that is normal he says.
Guppy was speaking at Show Racism the Red Card’s annual Creative Competition prize giving in Dublin on Wednesday.
As a former Leicester player, he was asked about his old club and, naturally, if there were any lessons Ireland could take from their success.
“I went to watch quite a few of the games and there was just an incredible atmosphere, even back then but it just grew, and grew and grew. I think one of the most incredible things is that nothing seemed to faze them, even when the pressure was supposed to be mounting, it never showed, Their consistency was incredible, hopefully it will be an inspiration to us all.”
If there are similarities with Ireland, Guppy sees them in the way Martin O’Neill’s side handled the daunting games in qualification, especially the match against Germany and the play-off in Bosnia.
Guppy knows about unlikely stories. He was capped once by England, but how he got there was what mattered to him, not that he never got capped again.
“I think I have my own chapter in a book of one-cap wonders, but 10 years earlier I was playing non-league football, I was playing park football so to manage to work my way through the leagues and to end it with a cap was some journey for me personally and for my dad, Keith, because we did it together really, and it’s one that I cherish.”
He has worked with O’Neill before but at international level it’s different. He sees it as more of a project that goes on during the season when he can monitor the players, but the time when the squad gathers has a different feel.
“It becomes very intense because you’re only with the players for a short period and if the result is good then it’s amazing, but if it isn’t then you have a long time to wait for the next game to put it right.”
It’s important to make those moments count. “Certainly it’s different to my time working in America or with Sunderland. What you’re having to do is play a percentages game. You’re not trying to make players into world-class stars, that’s the stuff that starts a lot younger, but what you’re hoping for is that with enough repetition, enough practice, you might get in that extra cross, that extra shot that maybe you wouldn’t have if you had not put in, the players hadn’t put in all of the hard work. So that’s what you’re looking for, small percentages here and there.”
'Frightened to death' https://t.co/PVRXkL1qQS
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) May 11, 2016
It is a different challenge to club football, but there is a different feel as well.
“That’s been quite different, but so is the actual intensity involved in representing country and everything that’s involved in that. It’s been an incredible roller coaster ride, lots of ups and downs, but the up that we experienced at the end made it all worthwhile.”
Guppy spent the first year with the Ireland squad flying back and forth from Atlanta, Georgia where he had moved with his family. He is living in England since November, but after a long career in football, he is now excited by the prospect of a major tournament.
“I came up through non-league football. I didn’t turn professional until I was 23 so I’ve certainly been around the houses. This was certainly the carrot at the start of the campaign and to get there makes all those journey from Atlanta, flying back and being away from the family, it makes it completely worthwhile.”
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