Gavin Cooney

IT’S A CURIOSITY of fate that has led to the situation whereby Ireland managers past and present routinely pass one another in the Abbotstown car park. 

But this is the reality, given Stephen Kenny and his St Patrick’s Athletic squad have lately been using the pitches and press conference room at the FAI’s headquarters at Abbotstown as their training base.

Kenny has generously invited Heimir Hallgrimsson to pick his brains, and the pair sat down at the start of this week, with Hallgrimsson interested to glean any nuggets of Kenny’s experience from the Euro 2020 play-off semi-final loss to Slovakia, particularly around its penalty shootout. 

(Given Adam Idah and Aaron Connolly missed that game because they sat 10 and 30 centimetres too close to an FAI staff member who returned a false positive Covid test on the flight to the game, happily not all of Kenny’s experience will be relevant in Prague next week.) 

For his part, Hallgrimsson has repeatedly thanked Kenny for his work in public, saying he is reaping the benefit from his players’ experience because his predecessor capped them as callow talents.

Kenny’s regeneration work began after that playoff loss, and only three players involved on that night in Bratislava were named in Hallgrimsson’s 25-man squad for the play-off against Czechia: Robbie Brady, John Egan, and Alan Browne. 

The Prague clash may well end in a shootout, given there must be a winner on the night to determine who will host either Denmark or North Macedonia in the play-off final the following Tuesday. Hallgrimsson has a list of penalty takers in mind, but will ask everyone tomorrow as to whether they want to take one in the event of a shootout. 

“There is no shame in that, if you don’t like to take a penalty”, he says. “I don’t like to know that when it happens. We will always have a list beforehand and then in game think okay, ‘Maybe this one should be higher or lower.’ But it is always good to be prepared ’til the death.” 

Hallgrimsson has very limited preparation time. Ireland will train together in Dublin on Monday and Tuesday before travelling to Prague, and will train at the stadium on Wednesday morning, ahead of Thursday’s game. With time squeezed, he admits his squad may not practise penalties. 

“I am not so sure that training penalties would be such an asset, especially when you look at the time we have”, says Hallgrimsson. “Other things are more important.

“I might have this back in my face if we end up taking penalties, but I am not sure if we are going to do it. We are at least going to talk about it and see how the players feel about taking one.” 

Also part of Hallgrimsson’s preparation plan is some visualisation, albeit it will not be led by a long-sought sports psychologist, given they have yet to hire one. 

“We do the best we can in that area. It’s about showing how the atmosphere is there, it’s about showing how it was and [what] we overcame in Hungary”, says Hallgrimsson. “It’s those things. [We will be] showing them battles, winning duels, and visualising winning.” 

The visualisation will provide a reminder to the players of what they have achieved, but Hallgrimsson also alights on the moment the players realised what they could achieve. 

“The turning point was Portugal away”, he says, a late, late 1-0 defeat in October, back when the November window remained an impossible dream. 

Ruben Neves scores a late winner for Portugal against Ireland in October. Ryan Byrne / INPHO Ryan Byrne / INPHO / INPHO

“I think that was the turning point in a sense that we played against one of the best attacking teams in the world. We kind of neutralised them. Yeah, they had chances, but after the game, I saw the players look at each other and kind of say ‘Fuck we can do this, if we can do this here against them, we can win [against] every team in the world’.

“We have tried to build on what we did there. At home, we added the attacking bits that we needed, we didn’t have [them] in Portugal. I think that was a turning point in a sense. The players believed in what we were doing. And not only that, they believed in each other. So when those two things go hand in hand, that’s where the magic can happen. You believe not only in what you’re doing, but you believe in the players that are doing it with you. And I felt that happen in Portugal away. “ 

Preparations must obviously deal with the threats posed by the Czechs, and Hallgrimsson had to stop himself from delving into too much tactical detail during his briefing with journalists, though did point to the late runs into the penalty area of West Ham’s Thomas Soucek as demanding attention.

He is clearly worried about the Czechs physicality, hence some of his squad selections: the uncapped Bosun Lawal, for instance, has been preferred in midfield to Conor Coventry, who made his debut off the bench against Portugal in November.

The one thing Hallgrimsson says he is not preparing for is defeat. 

“I haven’t prepared for anything else but [qualification]. So, no, it is going to be huge, not just for this team, but for the FAI, for Irish football, for everyone if we qualify. For so many reasons.

“It is such an opportunity for us to change how football is seen in this country if we qualify. Financially, for the Association, it will change a lot. For enthusiasm, for kids playing the game, it’s going to change a lot.

“For us as a team, if we qualify for the World Cup, we will stay together all of May, all of June and hopefully half of July, that’s two and half months together and that is the equivalent of two years of Fifa windows in one block.

“And just imagine what we can do in two years of Fifa windows with the team: develop connections between players, knowing characters, doing things tactically. It is always easier to qualify next because you have such a long period working with the players.

“It just gives us as a team, so much chance to grow if we qualify.”