“Glad you asked lots about the playoffs,” Eileen Gleeson grumbled as she left her press conference at FAI HQ on Thursday morning. The Republic of Ireland manager was clearly irritated by the number of questions about recent critical comments by Athlone Town manager Ciarán Kilduff, as well as the continuing absence of a long-promised under-23 team, rather than the focus being on the upcoming Euro 2025 qualifying games against Georgia.
“I’m done talking about Ciarán Kilduff, I’m done – done,” she had said midway through the conference.
Gleeson announced a squad of 26 for the double-header against Georgia, the first game in Tbilisi on Friday week, before the return leg in Tallaght the following Tuesday. Having beaten the same opposition 11-0 and 9-0 in their 2023 World Cup qualifying group, Ireland will expect to ease their way, without breaking sweat, in to a second-round playoff against Slovakia or Wales, the winners of which will qualify for Euro 2025 in Switzerland next summer.
The headline inclusions were those of Athlone goalkeeper Katie Keane and Sheffield United midfielder Ellen Molloy. Keane was first called up to the senior squad by Vera Pauw two years ago when she was just 16, but after an impressive season with the Premier Division winners she has been brought in by Gleeson for the first time.
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Keane is one of three home-based players in the squad, the others the returning Eva Mangan of Cork City and Galway United’s Julie-Ann Russell who marked her international comeback, after a four-year-gap, with goals against England and France in July. And Molloy, who left Wexford Youths for Championship side Sheffield United last month, is back two years since her last Irish cap.
In light of their form this season, the surprise omissions are Birmingham City’s Lucy Quinn, voted Championship player of the month for September, and Scotland-based Saoirse Noonan and Emily Whelan.
Noonan has scored 12 goals in as many appearances for Celtic since she joined the club from Durham during the summer, including a hat-trick in their successful Champions League qualifying campaign, while Glasgow City’s Emily Whelan has been in fine form too, scoring five in her last four games. All three players are on the stand-by list, along with Portsmouth’s Erin McLaughlin. Despite playing just 83 minutes for Portland Thorns in their 24 league games so far this season, not starting any of them, Marissa Sheva is included.
Injuries have ruled out Ruesha Littlejohn (Achilles), Megan Campbell (ankle), Jess Ziu (knee) and Jamie Finn (knee), while Emily Murphy is unavailable due to her college, Wake Forest University in North Carolina, refusing to release her for the games.
That was the squad news, then, but inevitably Gleeson was asked to respond to Kilduff’s claim that there was a ‘disconnect’ between the league in Ireland and the national team, and that neither she nor Hannah Dingley, the FAI’s Head of Women and Girls’ Football, had acknowledged his players’ achievement in winning the club’s first ever league title. And on Sunday they will attempt to make it a double when they meet Shelbourne for the third year running in the FAI Cup final.
“Could you not have called him?” Gleeson was asked. “For what,” she replied. “When managers win the league in the UK and America, I’m not ringing them.”
When pressed on why, as Republic of Ireland manager, she wouldn’t phone him to congratulate his players on becoming Irish champions, she said: “What would I be calling him about? I’m not selecting his players.”
Not the most convincing of answers, when even a brief “well done” message shouldn’t have been a strain, but Gleeson was clearly aggrieved by what she saw as a suggestion that she pays no attention to the league at home.
“I’ve committed my whole career to the League of Ireland. For over 30 years I have been the biggest advocate of promoting its players and having them integrated into international pathways. So statements that say I don’t advocate for them are completely misrepresentative.
“We watch players every single week in the League of Ireland. I’m attending games and the technical staff are attending games. We’re watching games online. If managers want to promote a player the same way professional managers do, the line is open. If Ciarán wants to ring me, there’s nothing stopping him. If he wants dialogue, then pick up the phone and call me.
“But the fact is that League of Ireland players are in direct competition with players who are in professional and full-time environments. The game has moved on here over the years, but it’s still essentially an amateur league. And there is a difference between an amateur level player and a pro level player – we have to pick 23 players, it’s survival of the fittest. So you can be an excellent League of Ireland player, but not a senior international player.”
It was back in the summer that Gleeson confirmed that home-based sessions for national league players, which had been introduced by Colin Bell and continued by his successor Pauw, had been ditched. The plan was to replace them with an under-23 team, which Gleeson believes would be a more effective “pathway” to the national team, but thus far, there is no sign of it happening.
“There is a full pathway being developed for identifying talent. At the moment it’s all been developed, so I don’t have any specifics to give you. There is a plan, I just can’t give you any details or finite timelines. You can ask me in 20 different ways, but I can’t give you any different answers.”
Because there’s no budget?
“That’s as much as I can say on it.”
“I hear the home-based sessions being a bit exalted now by the same people who were annihilating them,” she added.
And there we were thinking that these press conferences might be dull once Vera Pauw set sail.
Republic of Ireland squad
Goalkeepers: Courtney Brosnan (Everton), Grace Moloney (London City Lionesses), Sophie Whitehouse (Charlton Athletic), Katie Keane (Athlone Town).
Defenders: Jessie Stapleton (Sunderland, on loan from West Ham United), Diane Caldwell (FC Zurich), Louise Quinn (Birmingham City), Niamh Fahey (Liverpool), Aoife Mannion (Manchester United), Caitlin Hayes (Celtic), Anna Patten (Aston Villa).
Midfielders: Katie McCabe (Arsenal), Denise O’Sullivan (North Carolina Courage), Megan Connolly (Lazio), Tyler Toland (Blackburn Rovers), Lily Agg (Birmingham City), Ellen Molloy (Sheffield United), Heather Payne (Everton), Izzy Atkinson (Crystal Palace), Eva Mangan (Cork City).
Forwards: Kyra Carusa (San Diego Wave), Amber Barrett (Standard Liege), Leanne Kiernan (Liverpool), Abbie Larkin (Crystal Palace), Julie-Ann Russell (Galway United), Marissa Sheva (Portland Thorns).
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