The Boys in Green - From Kenny to Heimer
Jack Whelan - 5th January 2025
Credit - BBC
The Irish national team has always been a staple for Irish households. The Irish people love seeing other Irish people flourishing on a national stage. This was seen with the national pride when Cork-native Cillian Murphy, won the Best Actor Academy Award last year, or when the O’Donovan brothers win a medal in the Olympics. For football, mentions of the famous Euro 92’ campaign or when Robbie Brady scored against Italy to send Ireland through to the knockout rounds in Euro 2016 bring back glee and fantastical memories, or when Henry’s infamous handball brings back sorrow.
Irish football fans have had little, to nothing to cheer for in the last four years. Years of financial mismanagement from the FAI have led to a crisis for grassroot football leading to a “lost generation of Irish footballers” the FAI can’t seem to be trusted with any form of money, and overall seem incompetent, and unfit for purpose.
When Martin O’Neill stepped down from the head coaching role for Ireland, Stephen Kenny would be the prodigal son who would take over after two years of Mick McCarthy. A reminiscent name from some of our glory years, although the infamous Saipan campaign perhaps, did not allow McCarthy to fulfil his potential in the early 2000’s. McCarthy would still lead us to some success in his second stint and even led us to a playoff against Slovakia for qualification.
Five Long Years of Poor Form
Originally meant to take place after a play-off to decide if we make it to Euro 2020, the pandemic would soon take precedent worldwide, the match was postponed and Kenny would take charge of the MNT after two years of experience in the U-21’s. In a good position to qualify, with one match to play, on the surface we were in a good position, however, we now had to go from a pragmatic coach, to a progressive one. This transition is not always easy as it sees some teething issues at first. The two managers previous, had utilised low blocks, with long balls towards Shane Long, a striker who possessed the quickness and guile to allow this to work.
Now Kenny desired Irish players to be attractive to teams on the continent and with the crucial lack of funding towards grassroots, this would become evidently challenging, a challenge which has led to a general apathy from casual fans of the NT. He favoured as mentioned before a more progressive style, a 5-3-2 or 5-2-3 in defence but a 3-5-2 or -3-4-3 in attack was favoured throughout the majority of his tenure. We had some better possession statistics with the likes of 66% in our win against Armenia in 22/23. However, Ireland would consistently and frustratingly play to the level of our opponents, a good performance against France would follow with a toothless performance against Greece. These consistent underperformances would begin to show.
June 2020, the Irish team is ranked 34th, as of writing we are at our lowest ranking since 2014, at 60th .The Kenny administration would have lowlights such as losing to Luxembourg at home and not getting an away win against a team who wasn’t a micro-nation such as Gibraltar since 2021, which was the reverse clash with Luxembourg. An Achilles heel in the National Team is the glaring lack of top division quality at the time. Taken from a match in 2022, where we lost 2-1 to Scotland away. We possessed only two starting premier league players in an out-of-form Doherty for Tottenham, and Nathan Collins, who is one of our more promising players, who at the time was playing for Wolves.
Kenny was a manager who, the vast majority, of Irish football fans wanted to succeed, a homegrown manager who attempted a new style of football. Unfortunately, as he began to lose more games, he regressed to the old guard’s long ball style with less possession and fewer ideas as his reign went on, with that not much was left in the fans’ and FAI’s mind when it came to Kenny. His contract was not renewed, and he left the post in November 2023 as a result of a lack of qualification success during his tenure.
Embarrassment
Irish footballing legend John O’Shea would hold the interim management position in February, the original plan was for the new permanent manager to be announced in April. With the vacancy, there comes the speculation, the bookies favourites, and endless media coverage. Ireland had a plan…or so we were told. Names such as Roy Keane and Lee Carsley were discussed ad nauseam, and, as days became weeks, soon became months and eventually Ireland became the laughingstock of the football world.
In July, the successor was finally named, in former Iceland and Jamaica coach Heimir Hallgrimsson, as the announcement came, so did the mockery from Irish football fans towards his credentials. The immediate memes and jokes that came with the discovery of Heimer being a dentist, littered the internet and workplaces alike.
The ridicule is not something that should be at the feet of the manager in my opinion, the hiring process of the manager is. The comparison to “teeth-pulling” was immediately made and met with laughter too. Once upon a time, Ireland had names such as Liam Brady, Terry Venables and Kenny Dalglish all in the same management race when Trapattoni won the vacancy in 2008. Richie Sadler called for the head of the whoever was over recruitment
“When the appointment is made, whose resignation is going to come with it”.
The Reality & The Hope
As embarrassing as the job search became, how has Heimir faired so far? Upon seeing his credentials, you may become sceptical. However, there are aspects to see potential in. Firstly, his attitude has been exemplary in how coaches should treat the position. Heimer has talked about his pursuit of “Granny rule” player in his time with Jamaica and wanted to use It to the same effect with Irish diaspora. He has actively been practising Amhran Na bhFhiann, and has shown an optimism unseen in Irish football for many years.
Although a shaky start with two consecutive losses in his first international window. We would have our first piece of joy with our first away win in 3 years. The tie against Finland, had a lot of pressure on it, our supposed “easiest” opponent in our nations league group. We had a poor start with the Irish team going 1-0 down, however with the introduction of Wexford’s Festy Ebosele. The game was flipped on its head, and we won 2-1. As the matches went along, we progressively look more competent too, even our last match an embarrassing 5-0 loss to England, we looked much improved before the red card. Sturdy at the back and dangerous on the counter with the dangerous pace we now possess.
Other issues during the Kenny administration continue to disappear too, with the reluctance to play a lot of promising prospects being a particular grievance I had with Kenny. Ebosele, Szmodics and Kelleher have especially benefitted from the managerial swap, with each looking better as every game goes on.
Besides coaching there is a plethora of different things that lead to my optimism towards the Irish MNT, is the current prospective first team players that we possess. Not only granny rule players such as Dennis Cirkin or Louie Barry, but our own homegrown Irish players who are starting to appear more frequently across the continent. The likes of Jake O’Brien, whose move to Everton has flopped, but regardless had a huge reputation in France after his breakthrough season with Lyon, Kelleher has been one of the most in form keeper in the league this year, in the face of the injury to Alisson, finally on a lull in his career but one of the most exciting Irish prospects in my lifetime Evan Ferguson.
On the continent there has been huge progress too with Troy Parrott instilling a lot more confidence in himself with AZ Alkmaar in the Netherlands, a lesser known prospect but an exciting one for me is Anselmo Garcia McNulty, a tall, physical LB who plays for PEC Zwolle, the young John Joe Patrick has burst on to the scene in Spain as he continues to garner more and more first team minutes this season and finally, close to home Mason Melia the young hotshot 17 year old, striker prospect for St. Pats Athletics has had interest from Bologna and Tottenham. These players should some technical prowess, one that our national team greatly lacks especially when you look at our midfield which is very poor without the likes of Szmodics in it.
All things considered with the rise of the league of Ireland, the disastrous hiring process for Heimir and the brewing, dare I say “Golden Generation” for Irish football. I think I could be naive, but I think we are on the brink of getting something right, we have been steadily improving even in the face of gross mistreatment and incompetence from the FAI. l we can hope is…hopefully at some stage we reach back to 6th in the world like the old Jack Charlton days.