Gavin Cooney reports from Vazgen Sargsyan Republican Stadium, Yerevan

Armenia 2

Republic of Ireland 1

THRE IS NO end to Irish football’s public mortification. 

This was the debacle to end them all, as Ireland fell to a hideous 2-1 defeat in Yerevan to extinguish any hopes of contending even for a World Cup play-off. We say hopes: these were always delusions. 

Ireland trailed 1-0 at half-time to Eduard Spertsyan’s penalty and found themselves 2-0 down right after half time. Evan Ferguson’s goal was an aberration. Armenia dominated the second half. This was 2-1 going on 5-1.  Caoimhín Kelleher prevented the scoreline earning an embarrassment commensurate with the Irish performance. 

For this was a shambles of historic proportions, a result to rank among the most garish in our history; a counterpart for Liechtenstein, Macedonia, and Luxembourg. Armenia are 105th in the world had not won any of their five games in 2025 to date, conceding 21 goals. Portugal put five past them last Saturday; Georgia stuck nine on them over two legs. They conceded five to Kosovo. Prior to tonight, their last win was against Latvia. 

Ireland showed their usual mental brittleness at the first sign of trouble in the first half and then simply did not turn up for the second half. Worse was their manager’s intervention to fix things: his tinkering with his side was redolent of Father Ted tapping out a car’s dent with a hammer. The result was a hideous write-off. 

There’s no coming back in this campaign for Ireland and there’s no coming back for Heimir Hallgrimsson either. He spent a year plotting precisely for this game, but it has been a wasted year. Ireland have gone backwards. 

But hey, at least they didn’t start slowly. 

With their manager’s beseechings still ringing in their ears, they went out and Finn Azaz had a shot within 24 seconds, forcing Armenia’s replacement ‘keeper, Ognjen Chancharevich, into a save low to his right. 

Minutes later Chancharevich lumbered out to gather a ball at Evan Ferguson’s feel but spilled possession, allowing Ferguson to gather, swivel and dink a shot that was sailing into the net but for the stunning recovery of defender Erik Piloyan. 

This was a zippy Irish start but it was a false herald. Struggling afoot a wretched pitch, Ireland’s passing and build-up play became painfully laborious. Ryan Manning was returned to left-back which made him more peripheral to Ireland’s attack, while Finn Azaz flittered about the game’s edges, his involvement nothing more than an allegation. Hallgrimsson picked a bizarrely conservative team, plumping for midfielder Jack Taylor to support Ferguson in attack rather than Mikey Johnston. Taylor did force a save from the Armenian ‘keeper when he followed up on some fine Evan Ferguson hold-up play, but his toil was not matched with the craft to create anything substantial. 

Ireland’s best means of progressing the ball was therefore a series of lumpen balls forward and into the channels on which Chiedozie Ogbene struggled to thrive, clanking with post-injury rust. Going direct is supposedly the risk-free option but Armenia exposed its folly in the first-half, as it was when Ireland played fast and loose with possession they had their most dangerous moments. Ten minutes before half-time, Josh Cullen, bleached of any alternate options, knocked a long ball into the right channel, which Armenia won. Cullen then jumped to press and chase after his own long ball, which gave Armenia the space to counter. Tigran Barseghyan galloped clear into space, with Dara O’Shea doing well to force him wide and to the end-line, only to slip at the crucial moment.  Barseghyan squared the ball for Lucas Zelarayan, whose shot was blocked by Collins. His follow-up effort then bounced off the bar. 

Some teams might take this as a warning sign, but such are Ireland’s many battle scars, they took this as another malign augur that the fates were once again conspiring against them. Thus it was written. Five minutes later, Collins was pinged in the box for a soft foul on Zelaryan, and the VAR offered no reprieve. Eduard Spertsyan – who scored the winning goal the last time Ireland were here in 2022 – staggered over the penalty but put it beyond the reach of Kelleher. Thus a beaten-down Armenian football public were sparked once again into rapture. This team’s powers of rehabilitation on the downtrodden football nations of Europe is unparalleled. 

Hallgrimsson gambled at the break, removing Ogbene and Taylor for Adam Idah and Kasey McAteer. Taylor, like Matt Doherty on Saturday, was another scapegoat for a bizarre positional selection by the manager. 

But there was no rally. Instead Ireland were cut to ribbons by the best piece of football in the game; their midfield and Nathan Collins going AWOL to allow a wide fairway of grass to skid through a pass for Armenian left wing-back Nair Tikinizyan, who was loitering outside Jake O’Brien. O’Brien didn’t see him as he didn’t once look over his shoulder. 

Tikinizyan squared the ball for Grant-Leon Ranos who bundled the ball into the net. Ireland’s structure promptly collapsed, and suddenly Armenia were cantering through the middle of the pitch with an embarrassing ease. Ireland’s midfield of Cullen and Knight were hopelessly overwhelmed, like men standing in front of a tsunami with an umbrella each. 

We thought this team’s pitiful recent record had desensitised us all to debacles but, no, there is always further to fall.

But where there is Evan Ferguson, there remains some semblance of hope, and amid the chaos he coolly whipped the ball inside the far post after a neat pass by Adam Idah. But, wretchedly, Ireland couldn’t use the goal to alter the momentum of the game, and Armenia continued to swarm forward. 

Ireland were a rabble, with Armenia continuing to sycthe through an Irish defence determined not to learn a single thing: again they were cut open by a pass to Tiknizyan, who this time forced a terrific one-on-one save from Kelleher. Moments later, Tiknizyan had a shot that deflected narrowly over the Irish crossbar. 

Killian Phillips and Mikey Johnston were next to be thrown on. Hallgrimsson stuck rigidly by his formation, however, with Johnston spending longer deep in his own midfield and Phillips continually popping up on the wing, wildly jumping into challenges he couldn’t win. 

Ireland chased this game with the novel No Midfield approach. There’s just a huge square of grass where other teams usually keep these things called ‘midfields’. 

The sheer depth of Ireland’s ineptitude was genuinely shocking. At one point Dara O’Shea rolled a pass directly out of his own defence to Artur Serobyan, who strode forward and was fouled by Knight. The resulting free-kick was saved by Kelleher, who moments later endured his own baffling brain freeze, dropping the ball and then handling it outside his own box, mercifully unseen by the officials.

The third Armenian goal looked to have arrived two minutes from the end. With the Irish defence overrun by the total absence of players in front of them, Collins lost a couple of duels in the box and calmly rolled the ball to Serobyan, who had all the time in the world to curl the ball into the far corner. But after a long, long VAR check, the goal was chalked off for offside. It was a reprieve that Ireland did not deserve.

And of course they did not take it, Ireland’s deadening lack of creativity summed up by the fact they wasted 40 seconds of the six additional minutes slowly taking another utterly ineffective long throw.

Ireland offered nothing more, and truly wanted to be put out of their misery. 

Roll on Euro 2028. 

Armenia: Ognjen Chancharevich; Kamo Hovhannisyan; Georgii Arutiunian, Sergei Muradian, Erik Piloyan; Nayair Tiknizyan; Ugochukwu Iwu, Eduard Spertsyan, Grant-Leon Ranos; Tigran Barseghyan, Lucas Zelarayan 

Republic of Ireland: Caoimhín Kelleher; Jake O’Brien, Nathan Collins (captain), Dara O’Shea, Ryan Manning (Liam Scales, 81′); Chiedozie Ogbene (Kasey McAteer, HT), Josh Cullen (Killian Phillips, 69′), Jason Knight, Finn Azaz (Mikey Johnston, 69′); Jack Taylor (Adam Idah, HT), Evan Ferguson