McCarthy's stature grows as boys in green come of age

The bare stats are a little misleading. Four wins, four draws and two defeats. When you look back at Mick McCarthy's year like that the figures don't really add up to anything special. But forget the numbers and think instead of cities. Amsterdam and Lisbon. That's how the Ireland manager is likely to remember 2000. They are the places he finally started to justify to others the faith he maintained he had in himself.

Three months ago it seemed entirely plausible that McCarthy might be out of a job by Christmas. Defeats in Holland and Portugal could easily have demoralised his players ahead of the more straightforward visit of Estonia to Lansdowne Road. A slip-up in those circumstances and Ireland's chances of qualifying for the next World Cup, like the manager's international career, would probably have been irreparably damaged.

Instead, the Republic earned two points on the away trips - the nation's best results in major championship qualifying matches since the 0-0 draw in Seville eight years ago - while Estonia were more comfortably beaten than the 2-0 scoreline suggests. McCarthy was left in a stronger position than at any time since replacing Jack Charlton in early 1996.

It came as a surprise for there was little in the early part of the year to suggest that such a dramatic transformation in the team's fortunes was possible. When the

Czechs, Greeks and Scots came to Dublin for friendlies during the second half of last season, the Irish performed competently enough despite losing two of the three games. However, after blowing automatic qualification for the European Championships in Skopje and then failing to beat a mediocre Turkish side in the playoffs, everybody knew that a dramatic improvement was going to be needed if the World Cup campaign was going to start well. None of the three friendly games produced meaningful signs of that.

On the face of it, the trip to America with a depleted squad during the close season involved more of the same, but Niall Quinn believes that it was in Chicago, Boston and New Jersey that the Irish team's fortunes began to turn around. Although several of the players who would later play crucial roles in the Dutch and Portuguese games were not present, the Dubliner maintains that it was in the US that the Irish team really started to believe in itself again.

"But for a bizarre decision by a linesman we could have won the tournament," recalls the Sunderland striker, "but that's not the important thing. What was great about America was the fact that we saw fellas that had only come into the squad themselves a couple of years ago suddenly start to help the young lads.

"You got the feeling that they had really matured into being senior international players, that they felt it themselves, and I think we saw the benefit of it when those players were involved in the competitive games in the autumn."

Quinn also sees Richard Dunne's performances in the US as having been crucial. It was there that the young defender convinced Mick McCarthy that he was worth gambling on if there was a problem with one of his first-choice centre halves.

Sure enough, Kenny Cunningham missed all three of the World Cup qualifiers and Dunne, still some way off having proven himself as a consistent performer at the top level, played out of his skin in the two away games. "Dunny did brilliantly," says Quinn of the 21-year-old. "You just have to look at the names he kept quiet in those games and it's easy to see why Mick thinks the world of him at this stage."

The two draws were very different. Ireland led the Dutch by two goals (Robbie Keane and Jason McAteer) and passed up the chance to put the game beyond them. In Lisbon, Portugal dominated the bulk of the 90 minutes and when they took the lead, it was almost impossible to see McCarthy's side fighting their way back before Matt Holland's wonderful 25-yard effort.

"I think what we saw in both games was the way that the team has become stronger as a unit because of how much the individuals have progressed over the past couple of years," argues Quinn. "I mean if you look then at the Estonia game, it took us 25 minutes to get the first goal. Three years ago situations like that became very tricky for us against Iceland and Lithuania, but that night, because players like Robbie Keane, Steve Carr and Mark Kinsella have come along so much, you knew after 10 minutes that there was only one way the game was going to finish up.

"That's been the difference with us this year. We've matured as a team, and on an individual level we have really top players coming in to play for us where a couple of seasons back they were struggling to nail down regular places in the club teams or, in a couple of cases, playing in the lower divisions."

New arrivals like Dunne and Holland, meanwhile, made crucial contributions in the competitive games, as well as strengthening McCarthy's hand generally in key areas of the field. A serious alternative up front to the injury-prone Quinn would have rounded off the year nicely for the Ireland manager. That, however, remains something to look out for in 2001.