Denise O’Sullivan’s late winner in Albania has secured promotion to the top tier of European football. Between April and July next year, the Republic of Ireland will compete in the Nations League proper, with World Cup winners Spain and European champions England two potential visitors to the Aviva Stadium.
“A chaotic night,” said Eileen Gleeson, the interim Ireland coach, who knows only victory and success since agreeing to fill the gap until the FAI director of football Marc Canham can unearth her replacement.
Next year, if Ireland finish in the top two of a four-team group they qualify directly for the 2025 European Championships in Switzerland. To finish third or fourth puts them into a play-off tournament, where they will face countries ranked below them.
That’s for 2024. Following a three-hour game of football at the Loro Boriçi stadium pitch in Shkodër, stalled by 75 minutes at half-time due to a thunder storm, Ireland found a way to win. Again.
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Katie McCabe was not the hero for a change. This time O’Sullivan’s ball control and goal-hanging guaranteed a return to the sort of occasions that saw them compete with Australia, Canada and Nigeria at last summer’s World Cup.
“In between the weather and the pitch and the delay,” Gleeson continued, “it is a credit to the girls to still come away with three points.”
The coach was asked what promotion, with two matches to spare against Hungary and Northern Ireland in December, means for women’s football in Ireland.
“I think it’s huge,” she replied. “The narrative around this group has been how weak the opposition are, but you still have to come out and do your job. As we seen tonight anything can happen.”
“Football is wild. You can be the top favourite playing a lower-ranked team and still lose. There was high risk in this game with the conditions and our performance wasn’t what we wanted it to be, but the girls showed real grit. I am super proud of them.”
O’Sullivan concurred: “It is absolutely massive, it gives us a lot of confidence, it is a real big boost for us.”
The wonder is what Ireland can achieve among the giants of the European game. “The team has really developed over the last two years,” said Gleeson. “We have become difficult to beat. Now we are adding different facets to our game and they are doing that. They have shown they are capable. We need to be tested against different opposition but I think there is real potential here to continue on the journey the team has been on.”
Izzy Atkinson and Heather Payne made significant impacts off the bench last night, with Gleeson opting to start Abbie Larkin and Erin McLaughlin ahead of them. At 23, Payne is the oldest of this quartet.
“We got some good players coming through and we have players out injured, so there is starting to be real competitiveness in the team, with players with different attributes to allow us to have flexibility in how we play.”
