FOR ENDA STEVENS, the euphoria of the dramatic finale was tempered somewhat by the realisation that he won’t be involved in the next game of the Euro 2020 qualifying campaign.
The42 had the dubious honour of delivering the bad news.
“Is that me suspended?” asked the Sheffield United defender after the 1-1 draw with Switzerland at the Aviva Stadium, when quizzed about his ineligibility for next month’s game away to Georgia. “I didn’t even know that. I’ll be disappointed then, yeah.”
The bookings received by Stevens in each of the games against Gibraltar earlier this year left him in a precarious position going into last night’s meeting with the Swiss.
With the threat of suspension hanging over his head, there were only 15 minutes on the clock when Carlos del Cerro Grande produced the yellow card that now rules the Dubliner out of the trip to Tbilisi.
Stevens initially protested his innocence after raising his leg to head-height to win the ball ahead of Kevin Mbabu. Replays suggested he may even have been fortunate that the Spanish referee didn’t produce a card of a different colour.
“I had eyes on the ball, I didn’t see him,” he explained. “He’s put his head in there, it’s a high foot. I didn’t know what the referee was thinking at the time but I have to take it and move on.”
The absence of Stevens in Georgia will force Mick McCarthy to amend his defence for the first time in a competitive game since he returned for a second spell as Republic of Ireland manager.
Now a Premier League left-back, Stevens’ progress with his club has been mirrored at international level. Having been a been a few weeks shy of his 28th birthday when he made his senior debut for Ireland last year, he now has 11 caps to his name.
By his own admission, he took a while to settle into last night’s game against a Switzerland side who felt they should have been more than one goal in front by the time David McGoldrick’s header beat Yann Sommer in the 85th minute.
“It was a tough game for us,” Stevens admitted. “The first half was especially tough. But we dug deep after going a goal behind and we came alive. I think we deserved to get back into the game.”
Fabian Schar broke the deadlock for the visitors on 74 minutes, only for McGoldrick to snatch a point that keeps Ireland undefeated at the summit of Group D.
The Swiss and Denmark might be looking up the table at the Boys in Green as things stand, but their respective games in hand will afford them the opportunity to draw level with Mick McCarthy’s side on 11 points.
“They’ve got a way of playing and it’s kind of difficult to grasp,” Stevens said of the Swiss, who set up as a 3-5-2 in Dublin. “We struggled to get to grips with it and their formation in the first half.
“I thought we started the second half well but they kind of got a hold on the game. They probably deservedly went 1-0 up. We needed to react and we did. We pushed them back and got the goal.”
It was one of Stevens’ club colleagues who proved to be the goalscoring hero for Ireland. After his strike against Gibraltar in June was deemed an own goal, McGoldrick finally opened his international account last night.
“I was buzzing for him,” Stevens said. “Obviously he had the shot against Gibraltar that deflected in and he got a bit of stick for that. But I’m buzzing for him. It was a great goal and you could see by his celebration and his reaction what it meant for him.”
Stevens also reserved praise for the Irish fans in the 44,111 attendance: “Unbelievable. That’s what you need. When we scored, there’s goosebumps on the back of your neck. You don’t feel anything like it. It’s some atmosphere when it gets going. We just need them to stick by us to get us over the line.”
Ireland now face a defining four-day period next month in their bid to qualify for next year’s European Championship. Following the game against Georgia on 12 October, they’ll fly to Geneva for the return game against Switzerland. The Group D qualifying campaign concludes at home to Denmark on 18 November.
“We’ll always feel confident. We go until the end,” said Stevens, who added: “A point on the board is a point closer to where we want to be and we’ll move on now to the next game.”
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