VERA PAUW HAS detailed last night’s abandoned World Cup warm-up game in Brisbane from an Irish point of view.
Ireland abandoned the behind-closed-doors clash against Colombia after 20 minutes as it became “overly physical” — six days out from their first-ever major tournament.
Denise O’Sullivan was hospitalised with a shin injury. An x-ray and CT Scan have shown no fracture with her World Cup hopes remaining alive. While Pauw was upbeat on the situation, she could offer little further update on “arguably the best midfielder in the world” until after the first 48 hours.
Ireland open their campaign against Australia on Thursday, with a few other players nursing “manageable” knocks in the build-up.
The manager outlined Friday’s events at Meakin Park in a sit-down interview with the Irish written media at the team’s Brisbane base, the Emporium Hotel.
“The fear in the players’ eyes made me convinced that we had to take action,” she said at one point. “I’m always standing for the safety and well-being of my players. Also at the cost to myself. I couldn’t oversee the consequences for myself, but I had to protect my players.
“We knew the impact of this collective decision: the board, the management, the staff, the players, we all felt that this was the only decision we could make.
“Forty-seven years [in football], I have not experienced anything like this before”
The Irish press were blocked from entering Meakin Park by the Colombian Football Federation. It’s understood there were some bad tackles before the challenge on O’Sullivan prompted the stoppage, while Colombia were shown two yellow cards.
The FAI confirmed the withdrawal in a statement shortly after the game, while the Colombian Football Federation said it “respects” Ireland’s decision. Footage emerged overnight of Colombia star Daniela Caracas calling Ireland “little girls” and declaring, “Let them eat shit”.
“I’m sorry? To be honest, I’m a bit shocked hearing this,” Pauw responded as she was informed of the latter comment, in particular.
“Well, let’s say that they maybe were emotional too.”
Ireland had analysed five — and seen seven — of Colombia’s recent games and had not witnessed any prior evidence of what unfolded. “Otherwise we wouldn’t have played them of course.”
“It was building up and there was no stopping it,” Pauw said, stressing it was all Colombian player-led. She doesn’t understand how the game turned nasty, and offered her own full account of proceedings:
“The game started very lively. We started really well, snappy, fast, we created a few opportunities, we had a free kick, a header from Louise [Quinn] just outside the post. They came into the game, they had a very good chance, with Courtney [Brosnan] in a one v one situation actually really, really well. In that sense the game was a really, really good, challenging game.
“But then after a few minutes, it just started up in a way that it had almost no turnaround. At first, there was a huge challenge on Ruesha [Littlejohn] with a lot of emotions around that of course. That was already a challenge out of a laws of the game.
“We don’t fear any physical contact, you know that. We ourselves, within the rules of the game, are a very tough playing team. And I want to highlight that we had the least fouls of our qualifying campaign. So we always challenge within the rules of the game. This was out of the rules of the game.
“It took minutes before the game started again, I was asking, ‘What’s happening, what is going on that on that pitch, why do we not play?’ Within two minutes, there was this challenge on Denise. So it was a build-up of, ‘This is not going right, this is going really wrong.’ That challenge, she was in awful pain, potentially a serious injury.
“I stayed calm. I went calmly to the bench of the opponent, it was just in front of them, and I asked the coach, ‘I need your help, we all want to go to the World Cup, how do we calm this down?’ And he only said, one sentence, something like, ‘It’s both sides’. But we did not make any fouls.
“But that was calm also, he went back and did not take responsibility. Then the team manager came, I said that we all want to go to the World Cup, ‘Can you help me calm things down?’ She said it’s not intentional but also sat down. So I got no help from them. The bench of Colombia was very calm, they did not instigate anything, I want to highlight that.”
She continued: “It was developing on the pitch, of course the players were upset. I decided for the first time in my life to go to the medical team and Denise and they confirmed it was potentially a very serious injury. And the players, for the first time since I’m coaching them, they feared for their bodies.
“I took them away, calmed everybody down, took them to the bench and said ‘You stay here, we deal with this. Of course I support you, but I’m going to discuss this with management’ because calling off a game, you don’t do that like that.
“Fortunately, Marc Canham had just arrived, the football director, we discussed it. He took charge of it, discussed it with the FAI, the CEO [Jonathan Hill] and his decision was in line with what I felt and what the players felt. There was contact also with Dublin before we went to the referees. Everything was calmer, there was no shouting.
“Then we went to the referees, we discussed the situation and the referees then decided to call off the game.”
Pauw doesn’t believe the behind-closed-doors element played a factor and said she was unaware of any verbal threats on the pitch.
Asked if she felt Australian referee Caitlin Williams was in control, she replied: “That’s difficult because when something like this happens who would be in control? The referee does not have any guilt.”
“The Colombian staff handled it really well,” she added. “They took their players off while we were discussing what we would do, and that was in the moment that we were in discussion with the referees.
“They calmly left the venue, went to the bus and left. The statement of the Colombian FA says a thousand words, I think, and the fact that their staff did not convince us to try to play on also says that everybody understood that this would not come right anymore.
Ireland instead played a “true game” afterwards, a full 11-v-11 of starters against intended substitutes (playing as Australia).
“We did this to get over that moment,” Pauw concluded before overseeing a pitch session with a reduced squad on Saturday’s recovery day.
“But especially to not disturb our preparation for Australia. We were professional. Everybody played the role of a huge international game. I must compliment everybody, hugely. In this group every challenge makes us stronger.
“The way we were on the pitch immediately after this happened, after such a disturbing moment for everybody, the way we handled it means that we will not feel any negative influence for the game against Australia. Other than we hope Denise will be ready. We thought that we had lost her.
“Pride is the key word at this moment for the whole situation, the way collectively we handled it.”