Gavin Cooney
A RECURRING SCENE from Ireland’s Nations League campaign last year: Evan Ferguson, phlegmatic and calm, gazing at the referee having just been fouled in the opposition penalty area.
Ferguson was obviously fouled in the penalty area in Ireland’s away games to Greece and England, but on both occasions, the referee was unmoved and the VAR did not intervene to send him to the monitor.
Ferguson’s stoic and professional reaction flies in the face of the new creed among professional footballers, where they feel if they appeal with enough force and commitment for a decision in their favour, the VAR will give them a fair hearing.
Think Harry Kane lying on the ground to draw attention to a soft challenge in the box in the Euro 2024 semi-final win over Netherlands or, most recently, the instant appeals of the Real Madrid players over Julian Alvarez’ double-touched penalty in the Champions League. Alvarez’ extra touch was perceptible only on slow-mo high-definition, but the Real Madrid players complained for long enough to ensure the spot kick would be viewed on those screens.
Having been denied those penalties last year, one of Heimir Hallgrimssion’s new year’s resolutions is to make sure his players don’t flippantly swallow whatever injustice is handed their way. And as Harry Kane proved last year, a refusal to take things lying down means, er, lying down.
“We have talked about that,” said Hallgrimsson in conversation with journalists this week.
“In that competition, I think we should have two or three calls for penalty, but it seems like we don’t react in the same way as all the others, so we need to learn how to win these decisions to our benefit. Sometimes, we just look at the referee and he’s not doing anything and on we go. So, I think we can be a little bit more aggressive when things like this happen to get what we deserve.”
While some teams have a poor record on penalties, Ireland have a terrible record at winning them in the first place. Since Robbie Brady scored from the spot against France at Euro 2016,
Ireland have been awarded the sum total of five penalties in 85 games. That’s one penalty every 17 games, or roughly one every two years. And this run has come during the VAR era, which has increased the frequency of penalties.
Had the foul against Ferguson been awarded at Wembley in November, Ireland would have had the opportunity to go 1-0 in front. So maybe it would have completely altered the flow of the game…or maybe we’d have simply lost 5-1 instead.
Hallgrimsson regularly fretted about his squad’s confidence levels last year, and he again said this week that the five-goal collapse after Liam Scales’ red card against England was primarily a psychological issue.
As a result, he is hoping to draft in a sports psychologist to work with his players, noting the men’s team haven’t had one in recent years whereas the senior women’s team have.
“It might even happen now but we are discussing these things. I think it is good because it is a young squad and it surprised me in the last camp that players didn’t have access to one at their clubs, or didn’t use it probably,” said Hallgrimsson.
But there will otherwise be a bit of repression going on when the Irish squad assemble at Castleknock later today for next week’s relegation play-off against Bulgaria.
“No, I don’t think so,” said the manager when asked if he will discuss the England game with his players this week.
“We spoke about it and we should take some points both from what we did well and what we did bad. There were two games in that camp, a win against Finland and a loss against England, so we will just continue to work on the principles, show them clips on what we did good and what we need to improve etc. I don’t think we need to talk psychologically about that game.
“You remember the last game you play in your Ireland shirt. I hope it is a good thing that it is far away now in the memory and especially the Championship players would have played two games a week now for three months. So that game is way, way back and the manner in which we lost.
“We did well up to half-time and then one thing led to another and it was kind of slap, slap, slap in the face. It was mixed emotions but a bad loss and I think and hope that the players will have recovered from that.”