O, FOR A MUSE of fire…Stephen Kenny instead mused upon it ahead of a battle with the French at the Aviva rather than Agincourt.
Maybe the odds are equally in France’s favour tonight as they were back then.
“One of the best teams in the world coming at us: do we just suddenly change and not have to courage to do that? And just accept a slow death? Definitely not. I think we’ll show – we’ll need to show – fire and ice.”
For fire read tenacity and intensity; for its opposite look for a composure in possession.
Ireland will need both and the unsaid third element – luck – tonight, as they meet the greatest challenge that international football currently poses, at least in Europe. France arrive off the back of a 4-0 hammering of the Netherlands and in December came within a sliver of being crowned back-to-back world champions.
Their experimental Nations League means they are the group’s second seeds but their achievements either side of it make France the best international side to have played the game since the Spanish generation of 2008-12.
That France have reached the final of three of the last four major tournaments without a nucleus of players at the same club is a great compliment to their individual talent and the guiding practicality of their manager Didier Deschamps, who is turning international management into a much-misunderstood art.
Deschamps may be out-of-step with the cutting edge of the club game but he has survived at the sharp edge of the French job since 2012. His side don’t seek to dominate the ball like the great club sides do, and they averaged 51% of the ball across the World Cup, a smaller share than fully 12 other sides at the competition. Instead Deschamps pulls an astounding trick: he manages to have the most talented international side in world football play on the counter-attack.
And frankly, if you have Kylian Mbappe, why not? Kenny spoke yesterday of needing to “counter the counter-attack.”
To that end, Ireland might well have more of the ball tonight than you might expect. France’s 4-2-3-1 becomes a 4-4-2 out of possession, in which the right-winger drops back and the left-sided centre-midfielder (usually Adrien Rabiot) shuffles across to cover some of the space in which Mbappe is exquisitely disinterested. He focuses only on what is in front of him.
He is given this latitude as it’s a defensive set-up coiled for devastating attack. See the first French goal against the Dutch on Friday, as they allowed their opponents to pass the ball harmlessly about until it was popped into midfield. Griezmann flew into a challenge and moments later was in Mbappe’s arms, celebrating the first goal.
Ireland must avoid these midfield bear-traps tonight and for that, Josh Cullen will be crucial. Kevin Kilbane paid Cullen a big compliment in a recent Irish Times column, writing that “Josh demands the ball whenever his team is overwhelmed. Believe me, that is rare at all levels of the game.”
The Irish squad filled a recent evening with a table quiz, and during the picture round, Cullen told his team-mates that the first image on the sheet was Liam Payne, formerly of One Direction and now looking very different after cosmetic surgery. Nobody on his team believed him and Payne’s name wasn’t written down on the answer sheet. Cullen’s team lost by a point and the answer to the first question of the picture round was, of course, Liam Payne. The moral of this meandering story: trust Josh Cullen.
“It will be very important to stick to our principles tomorrow night”, says Cullen. “So nothing changes for us, we play the way we play, I will do my job or try and do my job as best I can for the team, as I do every game.”
That he will be meeting Griezmann in midfield is a testament to the French manager. Deschamps is no ideologue but instead a master improvisor. Faced with the vanishing of his entire World Cup-winning midfield in Qatar, he ingeniously solved the conundrum by reinventing Griezmann as a deeper-lying midfielder, as adept at winning the ball as he was at passing it. (In that he was helped by Griezmann’s paradoxical nature: he has the attitude of a diva off the field but of a domestique on it.)
Kenny has a far greater streak of idealism in him than Deschamps – it is the kernel of his reign – but some of it has been tempered during his tenure, seen most clearly in the switch to a back three.
He says Ireland won’t sit in and accept a “slow death”, and he is right to say it. Make it a game of set-pieces and France will win that too: they have height all across the pitch and Griezmann’s delivery is sensational. Instead Ireland must walk a daunting high-wire act and balance their attacking beliefs against France’s devastating counter-punch.
“We will show the courage that is needed tomorrow night but it would be naive not to have provisions”, said Kenny.
It wouldn’t be a major game under Stephen Kenny without some last-minute wrinkles and so Callum O’Dowda, a nailed-on starter at left wing-back, is a major doubt with a groin strain. Seamus Coleman is a doubt with a thigh strain too, and his participation depends on how he came through yesterday’s training session.
Kenny said last week he believes Coleman can still play at right wing-back, and if he is fit, Matt Doherty may switch to the left to replace O’Dowda. Otherwise, James McClean is next in line for that role.
Gavin Bazunu and John Egan will return, with Dara O’Shea and Nathan Collins set to remain in a now-cemented back three. The only formation choice is between a 3-5-2 and a 3-4-3: the French threat means Ireland might need a midfield three. Cullen and Jason Knight were rested in midweek with this game in mind, with Jayson Molumby likely to partner them despite Kenny’s admission that Will Smallbone has given him food for thought.
Evan Ferguson will start, and his hold-up play makes it easier for Ireland to get up the pitch and get pacy runners off him. As Chiedozie Ogbene said over the weekend, his job is to stretch the pitch” while Ferguson’s is to “manage it.” The only doubt is who will partner him. Michael Obafemi got the nod against Latvia, but Ogbene made an instant impact off the bench. Ireland need pace in their team, so the last spot on the teamsheet looks a duel between those two.
There is a wildcard option in Adam Idah, whose return to fitness is a surprise boost, and he has the pace to trouble France in behind while adding to Ireland’s physicality. Idah has looked best for Norwich in a front two, and France’s relative struggles against Wout Weghorst on Friday night might sway Kenny’s thinking. Mikey Johnston, meanwhile might already have trademarked the Impact Sub tag.
If you were clinging to the hope the French might not have done their homework…we have some bad news for you.
Uefa sent a transcript of their interview with Olivier Giroud to the FAI, in which he looked forward to the game by talking of how he likes playing against these “British-style teams.” It did not go unnoticed by a couple of ancillary team staff, but Giroud appears to be lonely in his misapprehension.
Kylian Mbappe: “They have a reputation for playing a physical style but they also play a lot of good football.”
Didier Deschamps: “It’s true that I think Ireland have this enthusiasm this determination which is part of their football DNA but that is not everything, they also have quality, the are capable of playing on the ground. You also have to mention the support they have that will push their team forward. I am expecting a high-level match. They play a different system [to Netherlands], this Ireland team, they like to play three at the back.”
There are a couple of tiny chinks in the French armour: there is some space to be exploited down their left side behind Mbappe, Johnston might do his best Angel di Maria impression and make out-of-position Jules Kounde struggle at right-back, while they have an occasional habit of allowing their passivity lapse into complacency. (See Aurelien Tchouameni inexplicably picking up the ball in open play against the Netherlands on Friday.)
But this is the greatest test there is in European football, and the harsh truth is Ireland can get everything right tonight and still lose.
Anything other than defeat would admit this team to Irish football history, and the game would join a great lineage of raucous, megawatt nights at Lansdowne Road.
Republic of Ireland (Possible XI): Gavin Bazunu; Nathan Collins, John Egan, Dara O’Shea; Seamus Coleman; Josh Cullen, Jason Knight, Jayson Molumby; Matt Doherty; Evan Ferguson, Michael Obafemi
France (Possible XI): Mike Maignan; Jules Kounde, Ibrahima Konate, Dayot Upamecano, Theo Hernandez; Aurelien Tchouameni, Adrien Rabiot; Moussa Diaby, Antoine Griezmann, Kylian Mbappe; Randal Kolo Muani
On TV: RTÉ Two; KO: 7.45pm
