Ireland on the brink of history as World Cup opportunity knocks

In the script arc of this Ireland team, we’re at the bit towards the end of the second act where the drums rumble and music quickens and the central characters decide their fate. After Tuesday night, one of three things happens. They either go to their first World Cup or they go to a playoff tournament next spring or they scatter to the winds, destitute again. They either change the face of the sport here or everything stays as it is.

Of the three options, the best one is obvious. As it happens, the second best is actually pretty okay too. If Vera Pauw’s side win on Tuesday and either Switzerland or Iceland lose, they go straight to the World Cup. But if they both win, then Ireland head to the playoff tournament in New Zealand next February. It will be a bummer, yes. But it’s likely to be glory delayed rather than denied.

For one thing, Pauw’s team will be comfortably the highest-ranked of the 10 nations there and will be seeded through to one of three finals. For another, they will have a warm-up friendly against the hosts to ease them in — the whole thing is essentially a test event for New Zealand’s role in hosting the World Cup itself. It will come down to a straight knock-out match against one of the six unseeded countries.

As of now, Ireland are ranked 26th in the world. Their opponents in Hamilton on February 22nd will either be Papua New Guinea (ranked 49th) or one of Paraguay, Panama, Haiti, Senegal or Cameroon (all ranked outside the top 50). The scenic route, sure, but well within their compass.

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One way or the other, a victory on Tuesday night is a trampoline. Defeat is a faceplant into an empty pool. This World Cup looks increasingly like an inflection point in women’s football, as the powerhouse countries look to put oceans between themselves and the also-rans at exactly the time that money and interest is beginning to flow into the sport. For a small country with a semi-professional league and a tiny domestic following, making this World Cup is crucial to not being left behind.

All of which naturally brings its own pressure. Ireland have never played in a World Cup. Or in any major tournament, for that matter. Denise O’Sullivan will be 33 by the time the 2027 World Cup comes around. Katie McCabe will be a couple of months shy of 32. Louise Quinn, Niamh Fahey and Diane Caldwell are all that age and more already. This is the time to do it.

“We can’t shy away from the fact that it’s going to be the biggest game of all of our lives,” says Chloe Mustaki. “We dream of being in this position. This is exactly where we wanted to be when we started the campaign. We were so close with the Euros a couple of years ago.

“So much investment, time and effort has been put in that we’ll give it our best shot next Tuesday. I don’t think we feel too much pressure. We feel ready for it, we’re doing everything we can to prepare in advance of that. Look, it’s a game that we’ll cherish. Hopefully it will be a good result.”

This, they hope, is what everything has been leading to. If you sailed in from a distant shore knowing nothing and judged everything purely on the numbers, qualification is the obvious next step. Under Pauw, Ireland have improved in virtually all areas. The Dutch coach’s key achievement has been to mould a support staff of honest mid-range players around McCabe and O’Sullivan, two genuine star turns in the prime of their careers.

Being away from home and showing we could put in big performances against some top, top sides in Sweden and Finland, that was really key in getting us across the line and making us believe in what we could do

—  Courtney Brosnan

The last time Ireland tried to qualify for a World Cup, Colin Bell’s team scored just 10 goals, all of them against the group’s lower orders in Northern Ireland and Slovakia. This time around, they finished with 26 goals and in McCabe (seven) and O’Sullivan (six), they had to two leading scorers in Group A. Those numbers are certainly skewed by the fact that 20 of the 26 came in two turkey shoots against Georgia but everybody got their chance to fill their boots in those fixtures — Sweden beat them 15-0 in one of the games.

No, the platform for all the progress made by Pauw’s side is their borderline feral commitment to defending. They have conceded just four goals in the campaign. Of the teams who conceded fewer across the nine qualifying groups, Iceland are the only ones not yet sure of their spot. Pauw’s Ireland are a grind to play against — organised, resolute and frequently not exactly easy on the eye.

They are unashamedly risk-averse, particularly in the opening halves of games. They have been behind only twice in an eight-game campaign — and one of those was reeled in inside 18 minutes against Slovakia. For all the excitement the home games in Tallaght have generated, it’s their away form that has carried them to this point. Going unbeaten on the road in Helsinki and Gothenburg was worth more than the four points accrued. It confirmed for them who they thought they were.

[ Explainer: The Republic of Ireland’s World Cup qualifying route after Scotland’s win over Austria ]

“Those were big results for us,” says goalkeeper Courtney Brosnan. “Being away from home and showing we could put in big performances against some top, top sides in Sweden and Finland, that was really key in getting us across the line and making us believe in what we could do.

“I think we are talking about that self-belief and inner belief. We really have that belief in ourselves as a squad that we know what we are capable of. So I think for this campaign, it has been big to show that, not just that we believe it but show it in the results in the game. Maybe, it is a bit of maturity and more time together to gel together. I think we have matured as a squad and you can see the direction we are headed.”

None more mature than Brosnan herself, who has been a huge figure throughout qualifying. She came into the campaign under a cloud, nobody’s idea of a nailed-on first choice after some decidedly shaky displays in her Ireland career up to that point. But her saves against Sweden and Finland earned her side results that would have been frittered away in previous campaigns. She is emblematic of a more seasoned Ireland side, a canny collective who have become better at managing their limitations as time has gone on.

“It’s that knowledge of what the game calls for,” Brosnan says. “If the game is calling for things to slow down or speed up and get a goal. It’s just having that football IQ — players on the team who do have a great footballing brain and just that communication in getting that across. And maybe in the past, we would be a bit nervous and just clear balls but now we are confident and able to keep possession. Let’s keep the ball.

“With a goalkeeper, so much of it is physical but so much of it is mental. And the way you talk to yourself and self-talk, that has been really important for me. To have that inner belief and have that positive self-talk to get me in the best head space to perform and do my best for the team.

“I think that’s something that is important for me — to be the backbone for the girls in the back and exude that confidence. They know that I am there backing them up and vice versa. I think that’s important. I am a big communicator on the pitch, keeping that positive energy and keeping the back line and the team going. That has been important to me.”

Along the way, Brosnan has gone from being one of the major question marks surrounding the side to one of five ever-presents. She has played every minute along with O’Sullivan, McCabe, Louise Quinn and Megan Connolly. All in all, Pauw has used 28 players across the eight games, including 21 different starters. Injuries have forced a fair bit of chopping and changing and everyone has had to throw into the pot.

Mustaki has been one of those who has flitted in and out of the side, as much on the back of her own personal circumstances as anything. At the start of the campaign, she was coming off the back of an ACL injury and playing part-time with Shelbourne. She was 26 years old and working in recruitment.

Over the summer, she gave up her job and halved her salary to try to make a go of it as a full-time professional footballer. She signed with Bristol City and moved to England, partly to not die wondering, partly to make sure that if Ireland were going to the World Cup, she would be a part of it.

“I felt that it was necessary for me,” she says. “If I wanted to keep my place in the women’s squad, I needed to go full-time. I kind of felt that already when I was playing for Charlton but when I got called back in January there, the standard had skyrocketed. It’s kind of daunting when you’re playing here in Ireland and you’re having to come into camp — it’s a massive step up mentally and physically.

“And so in order to alleviate that stress and feel comfortable coming into camp, it’s very difficult if you’re not in a full-time set-up. I absolutely felt that if I didn’t go full-time, I wouldn’t be keeping my place in the squad for much longer. Things had gone up a notch even since before I tore my ACL. You could see the rise in standards every time you came in.”

So here they are. They win the games now that they drew in the past. They draw the ones they would have lost. Add the halfpence to the pence and it all washes out as a side who are ready to do better, to make it where no Irish team has made it before.

“For me,” Mustaki says, “looking around the squad, nearly everyone is playing in a full-time environment and when we were trying to qualify for the Euros and World Cups before there was probably less of us doing that. So that’s one factor definitely.

“Obviously Vera has been here for a few years now so we’re all used to the set-up when we come in and how things are done. And also resources — the FAI has, probably, pumped in a bit more so we’re treated really well when we come into camp and that goes a long way in terms of what we produce on the pitch as well.”

Everything is in place. They just need to go and do it now. It’s as gruesomely, brutally simple as that.

Scotland should provide stiff test

The weather was apocalyptic in Glasgow on Thursday night, making it all the more impressive that a record crowd of 10,182 turned up in Hampden Park to watch Scotland beat Austria. Whether they can draw a similar number on Tuesday with a Celtic Champions League match happening at the same time across town is another matter. Either way, it’s going to be a stiff assignment.

Scotland are probably slightly further along the road at this stage than Ireland. They’ve been to a Euros (2017) and a World Cup (2019) and though they didn’t make it out of the group on either occasion, they weren’t disgraced. In this campaign, they weren’t able to land any sort of blow on table-toppers Spain but dealt with Hungary, Ukraine and the Faroes pretty well and had second spot more or less sewn up with a game to go.

They tend to set up quite similar to Ireland, with plenty of players behind the ball and a lone striker in Martha Thomas. Caroline Weir and Erin Cuthbert are the main creative forces backing Thomas up — Weir moved from Man City to Real Madrid in the off-season and scored the goal that beat her old club in the Champions League in August. At the back, they have huge experience in the form of captain Rachel Corsie, who has 135 caps to her name. They’ve kept clean sheets in their last three games.

All in all, they’d have to be rated as slight favourites. But not by much.