"Last Thursday, Irish football was in a bleak place. They had two games remaining in World Cup qualifying and apparently no hope of making it to North America next summer. Another campaign had collapsed in predictable ways: they couldn't score, they made bafflingly simple errors, too few of their players play for elite sides and those that do seemed unable to reproduce club form for their country."
"Their one possible star, Evan Ferguson, had not been energised by a move to Roma quite the reverse and although there was vague talk of a new contract for their manager, the amiable Icelandic dentist Heimir Hallgrimsson, everybody thought he would be off after the game in Hungary and was vaguely dreading another Football Association of Ireland recruitment saga, which would inevitably take months, throw up a series of implausible names and result in the job being given to Hallgrimsson's assistant, John O'Shea."
Irish football entered a bleak period with two World Cup qualifying games remaining and little hope of qualification. The campaign collapsed through a failure to score, bafflingly simple errors and too few players at elite clubs, while those who do struggle to reproduce club form. Evan Ferguson was not energised by a move to Roma and then suffered an ankle injury. There was expectation that manager Heimir Hallgrimsson would depart amid a protracted recruitment saga. There were glimmers: a comeback draw with Hungary and holding Portugal in Lisbon until injury time. Troy Parrott, who struggled at Tottenham before moving to the Netherlands, has blossomed at AZ and scored freely this season. He had shown only flickers at international level but scored twice in the first half in a subsequent game.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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