Gavin Cooney

BULGARIAN FOOTBALL HAS contorted itself in chaos and rage in the run up to next week’s Nations League relegation play-off against Ireland, all because their biggest clubs feel their league isn’t sufficiently disconnected from the senior international team.

National team manager Ilian Iliev is double-jobbing, sharing his international duties with top-flight club Cherno More, creating a perceived conflict of interest that has so enraged rival clubs that Iliev has tendered his resignation. The Bulgarian FA have yet to actually accept his offer, and so Iliev has announced the squad for the Irish games and is set to take charge of the games as it stands. 

Back in Ireland, meanwhile, everyone is angry because of a perceived disconnect between national league and national team. Stephen Bradley rounded on Heimir Hallgrimsson last month, claiming the Irish manager’s comments in regard to Rovers’ European run were “ridiculous” and “out of touch with what we need.” 

“Hopefully they will get career change from this success,” said Hallgrimsson of the Conference League group phase-conquering Rovers players. Bradley interpreted this as Hallgrimsson telling his Rovers players that they’d only make the Ireland squad if they hopped on a boat to England. 

“We need a real buy in and them comments show a complete disconnect between the national team and our domestic league,” continued Bradley. “No matter what they say, it shows a complete disconnect.” 

Disconnect is the word du jour in Irish football.

We’ve had many a winter of discontent, so welcome to the spring of disconnect. 

Bradley and Damien Duff have made plain their disconnect with the senior international team; Ian Harte clumsily stumbled into the obvious disconnect between the present-day League of Ireland and past-day Irish internationals; various grassroots bodies are screaming disconnect from the FAI over the calendar football vote; and the League of Ireland clubs are screaming the same over the funding of academies.

The Association may or may not be considering renaming their master app FAI Disconnect. 

But at a fraught hour with many of the old enmities seemingly in revival, in stepped Hallgrimsson to play peacemaker. 

At his squad unveiling press conference, Hallgrimsson sought to defuse tensions with Bradley, saying his comments had been misinterpreted but apologised nonetheless. 

“It was not meant in any way as disrespect to the League of Ireland,” he said, “if it came across that way I am man enough to say I apologise for that.

“What I was saying was complementing what was probably going to happen, that there will be attention on the players, big attention on the coach and for the League of Ireland, it’s a positive spiral. Other clubs will be looking at what the club and coach are doing and ‘I want to do the same’. I think it’s only going to grow the League of Ireland.” 

He later said he would seek to meet Bradley, Duff and any other LOI manager open to sitting down for a coffee or a pint.

“We are all trying to do the same thing,” soothed Hallgrimsson, “improve football in Ireland.” 

Perhaps it was during his spell working in Qatar where Hallgrimsson struck all this oil needed to pour on troubled waters.

Hallgrimsson will ultimately be judged by Ireland’s competitiveness in World Cup qualifying later this year, but he has communications skills that are rare at the FAI: he manages to act both aloof and unifying at the same time. Hallgrimsson was later asked about the optics of appearing on the Late Late Show during a round of League of Ireland fixtures, which he met by acknowledging the quasi-political nature of his role. 

“That’s the life of a national team coach,” he replied with a barely-perceptible sigh. “When I am here, why am I not in England watching players in England? When I am in England, why am I not in the office? When I’m doing some PR or something, I think it’s for us all, for national team coaches to do interviews to [talk to] the people and I think that’s also positive. In my job you can’t win them all.” 

He later gave the impression he enjoyed the Late Late appearance as the rest of us might enjoy an, er, trip to the dentist. 

Ultimately Josh Honohan and Johnny Kenny didn’t make the cut for the final squad against Bulgaria. They are on standby for the games and are clearly within his thoughts, albeit Honohan is the only current LOI player truly in the mix for a call-up. Hallgrimsson took the press through a few slides on his laptop, where he has built a database of the players he sees as contending for his squads. Honohan was the only active LOI player on the list.  

He used the comparatively quieter months of January and February to dig deeper into what he terms “the second layer” of players that might be available to him, and so added to the database is a list of other players – many of them still at academy level – who may be available to him in future.

There’s also a list of potential declarees, and another of players to whom the FAI have reached out and discovered they are not eligible to switch to Ireland. Hallgrimsson also has a collection of his “principles of play”, which he shows to his players, showing how they will act in and out of possession depending on the game state and the level of opponent. He says he plans to leave all of this information for his successor, as his version of “leaving the shirt in a better place.” 

While no active LOI player made the squad for next week’s play-off, he has plans to “think outside the box” and wants to bring in a winter training camp, to which he would invite League of Ireland players along with high-potential academy players and any first-teamers struggling for minutes. He introduced these camps at Iceland and Jamaica and found a couple of first-team players each time, but he couldn’t convince the FAI to hold one of these camps over the winter. He hasn’t given up hope of winning the argument for next year. 

“Everything costs money and we need to be careful here about that,” said Hallgrimsson, then ratcheting up the diplomacy. 

“This is one thing that needs time to sink in for those who take decisions. Maybe it came in too fast, but I am hoping it will be more positive for next January.” 

If that becomes a political battle between Hallgrimsson and the FAI board – expect his diplomatic talents to stand to him.