Just before Heimir Hallgrímsson took his second Republic of Ireland training session of the week, at the Olympic Stadium in Helsinki, the Icelander addressed the “downward spiral” of results he has inherited from predecessors John O’Shea and Stephen Kenny.
Ireland have only beaten Gibraltar while losing 9 of their last 13 competitive outings. In 2023, they lost six of their eight Euro 2024 qualifiers.
Last month, in the initial Nations League B fixtures under Hallgrímsson, they came up short again, losing 2-0 to both England and Greece in Dublin.
“If you are on a downward spiral it’s good to do something different in a different country, a different environment, shake things up,” said Hallgrímsson. “The players are staying together much more and are closer, that’s a good team-building thing, to travel and stay somewhere else.”
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The situation can unravel further if Finland prevail in a meeting of countries ranked 64th and 62nd by Fifa, with icy conditions expected for the late Thursday kick-off, local time 9.45pm (7.45pm Irish).
“I have said so many times, it’s so different to be a national team coach,” said Hallgrímsson, who formerly managed Iceland and Jamaica. “If you just take this camp and it will be the same next camp, players play on Sunday, they come and cannot train on the Monday, so yesterday was probably the only real training session we can have, so that’s the only time we have all the players when they are physically ready to do a training session.
“It’s tough to be a coach and only have one training session, we need to have everything ready on what we did last time and try to build on that as the players will go to their clubs and do something totally different for a month, and then next time they come will have one training session so we need to be clear and ready with what we want, don’t overload the players with information, keep on building and slowly, camp by camp, improve on what we are doing.”
Nathan Collins will lead Ireland, having replaced the injured Séamus Coleman as captain for last month’s defeat to Greece. “Obviously, it’s a huge moment for me and my family,” said Collins. “I probably didn’t take in the moment as much as I should have, but that’s just the way I am.
“My family did, I think they were crying in the stand, honestly, it means a lot to me and my family. I think in this camp, it’s nearly easy being a captain of this team as there are so many leaders.
“I could go through this team and you could name six or seven boys who would help me out, chip in, talk, motivate, and it makes my job easier. And we’re missing a few of the older boys, past leaders, and it is time for boys to step up and time for us to start showing our leadership.”
Finland manager Markku Kanerva must plan without the injured Sparta Prague midfielder Kaan Kairinen.
IRELAND (possible): Kelleher (Liverpool); Omobamidele (Nottingham Forest), Collins (Brentford), O’Shea (Ipswich Town), Brady (Preston North End); Molumby (West Bromwich Albion), Cullen (Burnley), Knight (Bristol City); Szmodics (Ipswich Town), Ogbene (Ipswich Town); Ferguson (Brighton and Hove Albion).
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