The late Christopher Murray writes about the idea of the ‘vigil’ story in Irish theatre; a play in which the audience watches a character in anticipation of some sort of death, be it literal or figurative. Murray gives the example of Gar in Brian Friel’s Philadelphia, Here I Come!, but you can find room in this tradition for the works of Marina Carr and Samuel Beckett. Watching the Irish team is somewhat of a vigil in footballing terms. Against Portugal and Armenia, I clearly saw the team step onto the pitch, clearly heard the referee blow his whistle, and yet spent the two 90 minutes waiting for the lads to start playing some football. There were moments of lucidity in the haze, moments when something resembling a sustained press or series of passes appeared, when Evan Ferguson rose to give us the lead against Armenia, but most of what remained on show during the recent qualifiers fit all the technical terms of shite.
The loss against Portugal was symptomatic of this perpetual inaction in the team. Portugal, a team who have fallen short in recent tournaments but have taken well to whipping vastly inferior teams in the qualifiers, were similarly untroubled against Ireland. While the 1-0 score may tell of a hard-fought game away from home only lost so bitterly in extra time, the reality is quite different. Portugal’s individual quality was apparent as they knocked the ball around the white shirts; they were unlucky not to score on various occasions, shots either meeting the post or the gloves of Kelleher. The likes of Nathan Collins and Jake O’Brien in defence were far more solid than the previous round of matches, but the disparity between the two squads was apparent across the game. Blushes can be saved for this reason; Hallgrimsson and the team were spared further scrutiny due to this gap in quality, because, in all honesty, no one’s expecting this team to go to Lisbon and get a result.
The game against Armenia was a different story. Back in the Aviva and in need of a win, the pre match chatter among the RTE panel was expectant of an emphatic performance, where winning was a guarantee to the point where Sadlier and co. were talking about how much we could boost our goal difference with this victory. What evidence had been given for any such display in previous matches was unclear, and such a torrid showing was once again there for all to see on Tuesday. Ireland were truly woeful against Armenia, offering little to nothing in terms of creativity bar Festy Obesele occasionally taking the notion to actually play wide as a winger and beat the opposition left-back. While a single goal may have rescued us from the ignominy of failing to beat a team roughly 40 places below us in international rankings, it was not sufficient compensation for braving the slog of what came before it. So unbearably boring was our performance, when Tigran Barseghyan was sent off for headbutting Finn Aziz, I was cheering for the Armenian for delivering suitable punishment for Aziz’s dire impersonation of a somewhat competent midfielder (Over the course of this campaign, I’ve become convinced that Aziz is some sort of sleeper agent planted by FIFA to test just how frustrated I can become with a single player).
What has also become apparent over these past few games is the importance of Kelleher and Ferguson to this side. Stopping and scoring goals respectively, they clearly stand head-and-shoulders above the rest of the squad in terms of quality. Kelleher’s save against Cristiano Ronaldo can sit comfortably next to his previous denial of Kylian Mbappe from 12 yards in his catalogue of great career moments, while Ferguson, rendered somewhat anonymous by the negativity of the team’s tactics, was once more the source of inspiration when a goal was needed. The rest of the team, scattered between the lesser sides of the Premier League and the ranks of the English Championship, doesn’t quite reach the same standards. Certainly, against Portugal, the mediocrity of the squad was placed in sharp focus, Portugal boasting three of the PSG team that are European Champions, two of the leading midfielders in the Premier League and the greatest goalscorer in the history of the game, among others. However, Hallgrimsson was not brought in to create football on the level of Portugal, France or Spain. Hallgrimsson was brought in to get us to a tournament, the way in which he did so with his native Iceland, the way in which we have failed to do so for nearly a decade (the same goes for beating England, I imagine).
Yet even that is failing. Unglamorous as the win against Armenia was, the Irish camp would have at least hoped that it would have set them up well for the remaining two fixtures. However, Hungary’s last-minute draw against Portugal has once more changed the picture of the group. Safe to say it’s not looking good. We will now have to win our next match against the Hungarians and hope they lose to Armenia, lest we need to actually pick up points against Portugal. With this in mind, the moment has come for some sort of direction from this team and from this manager. A place in the World Cup is there to be earned now that our fate is out of our hands, and it’s up to Hallgrimsson to dictate that. The makings of a working system of play are scattered among the pieces; good goalkeeper, solid centre-backs, quick lads out wide who cross well in Ogbene and Manning, and a striker with multiple finishes in his repertoire. If the classic keep-it-tight-at-the back-and-hit-it-up-to-the-big-lad approach is what gets us to the U.S next summer, there won’t be much in the way of complaining from the Irish fans, even self-righteous football ideologues like me.
A common pan of the game against Armenia, somewhat infantilizing yet Ritchie Sadlier is probably the only football pundit who writes secondary school SPHE books, so I guess that makes sense, was that the Irish players were overcome by nerves. Hallgrimsson is going to have to find some way of rallying the troops beyond such easy excuses; realistically lads, we should not be nervous about playing against Armenia, even if we run the risk of getting headbutted when we take the field. The art of just going out and having a go has served similarly limited Irish teams well in the past, and any sort of inspiration offered by this team will be greeted positively by the fans. Truthfully, the issue with trying to write an in-depth analysis of the performances in these games is that they give you so little to analyse. There’s not a lot to analyse in Will Smallbone misplacing a pass beyond the fact that Will Smallbone is not a top-class passer, especially when he is placed opposite Vitinha and Bernardo Silva. The next round of fixtures are the moment in which this group can stand up and be counted, or else watch yet another World Cup from the armchair at home. If the vigil story ends in death, it’s better to die on your feet. But if we narrowly escape this fate, then it’s Philadelphia, Here We Come! (If you want better puns, play better football lads).
