SO, IS THIS how it will be now?
A glimpse of Ireland’s future. The shadow of Evan Ferguson has been cast and, one way or another, it will dominate.
It is, and has, been the same for countries with far greater resources as well as those in a kind of underclass similar to Ireland.
Argentina – Lionel Messi.
Brazil – Neymar Jnr.
France – Kylian Mbappe.
Portugal – Cristiano Ronaldo.
Wales – Gareth Bale.
Sweden – Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
Norway – Erling Haaland.
Ireland’s standing is such that an 18-year-old who has 10 goals in 12 Premier League starts but has not yet completed a full season in England’s top flight now carries a similar kind of burden and expectation as some of the game’s greats.
Ferguson’s rise with Brighton in the Premier League is still in its infancy but the breadth of his development and calibre of his performance has allowed everyone to disengage from the usual sensibilities that greet any emerging star.
This teenager from Meath has infused the senior team with a feeling of positivity and hope.
And then he gets injured. The walls close in again and the sky falls. A darkness descends.
When the FAI confirmed that a knee injury suffered on club duty with Brighton on Saturday ruled him out of Thursday’s clash with France and Sunday’s visit of the Netherlands, the reaction was a kind of mournful relish.
A complete contrast to an almost fervoured loss of reason when, in the same game that he picked up the issue, he became the first 18-year-old since Michael Owen in 1998 to score a Premier League hat-trick.
In the 25 years since Ireland have still been to just one men’s World Cup and two European Championships.
Part of the mechanics of the news cycle that Ferguson creates is like a pendulum that swings wildly between joy and despair, and follows a very predictable pattern.
Take his first goal of the season for Brighton off the bench on the opening day of the season.
Gary Lineker tweets about how he should replace Harry Kane at Spurs following his move to Bayern Munich. The conversation continues on Match of the Day.
Online and print media follows the line.
A back-page star with prime Search Engine Optimisation potential is born.
The clips continue to go viral. Of the goals, the skill, and his interviews talking about how his father, a former professional footballer and qualified coach, watched his childhood games with a hood up and refused to say a word on the touchline.
More articles, more comment, more opinion (just like this).
The rhetoric is not just about how good a player he is, but his value as an asset.
Sky Sports reported earlier this season that Brighton already believe they possess the next transfer record in English football. So, great if he can help them achieve success on the pitch but even better if he can become the poster boy of a sound business plan.
This is elite football in 2023, where some clubs balance a tightrope of Financial Fair Play and others make a noose out of it to lasso talent.
This modern age also allows for the TikTok video produced by the teenager’s driving instructor to reach a mainstream audience.
Right now in Ferguson’s career, everything feels so fresh and exciting and almost worryingly too good to be true.
This can’t be happening for us, can it? A prodigy like this, with the appeal and reach that a Premier League wunderkind brings, is usually the reserve of anyone else but us.
On Monday, four of his teammates were on media duty.
First up was Nathan Collins, and after a couple of softballs about the small matter of France on Thursday, Ferguson’s hat-trick was brought up.
“I know how good he is and we all know how good he is, so it’s no surprise. It’s lovely to see.”
Eight questions later, the conversation veered back to the striker with a couple of more thrown Collins’ way.
Chiedozie Ogbene didn’t have to wait as long as Collins, the first two questions in his section of the press conference centred around Ferguson.
“It’s obviously good for the country with Evan coming in with such confidence and he will hopefully play a big part in the performances. You know as a striker, they all play off confidence and it will give himself and the players around him, give us all confidence and hopefully he can match that at international level.
“Funny enough, he’s a quiet guy. I watch him and he just gets about his day. I told you the first time I met Evan he was 17 at that time and he was playing as if he was a senior pro, very professional, very quiet to himself and just gets on with things.
“He has a really cool head on him and I don’t think he’s fazed by the attention on him from the media, which is very important for us and him in his career.”
So how long before all of this focus, expectation and, in the case of this week following the injury, sense of gloom all starts to feel very normal?
Fears of defecting to England (where his mother is from) can at least be allayed given FIFA’s rules stipulate a player must be “fielded in no more than three matches at ‘A’ international level in any kind of football for their current association, whether in an official competition or non-official competition” in order to do so, and Ferguson has six Ireland caps.
So that eligibility wound won’t be re-opened. For now, this injury simply delay the next stage of Ferguson mania.
Until, of course, he sends out an update about his fitness on social media.
Then the mechanics of the news cycle kick in again.
