Ninety-nine caps, 18 goals and one unforgettable assist, all inside 12 years.
Denise O’Sullivan has gone from baby-faced teenager, netting twice on her debut against Wales, to delivering the ball that sent Amber Barrett clear at Hampden Park on October 11th, 2022.
What’s gone is historic. What follows is a seminal year for a Cork woman who glides between North Carolina and Tallaght, rarely dipping below her own ridiculously high standards.
“I had my eye on her since the under-17s World Cup in Trinidad when she was just exceptional,” remembers Sue Ronan, the former Republic of Ireland manager.
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“I took over in early 2011 and we had to rebuild the team as a lot of players were coming to retirement age and a lot were US-based. We didn’t even have the budget to bring them over as the country was starting to go through a recession.
“Two home-based young players were ready to come up straight away, Megan Campbell and Denise.”
O’Sullivan is the rarest of Irish footballer; technically flawless yet blessed with flair, she never shirks the primary responsibility of a central midfielder.
“Remember the Slovakia game [in 2018] when Amber Barrett scored a late winner and took her top off?” asked Karen Duggan. “I was playing left back and I’m right-footed but every time I lifted my head Denise was available.
“The fact she makes her team-mates’ life so easy by a constant willingness to get on the ball is the difference between a really world class player and someone else. She innately knows how to find space. She is relentless.”
Week in, week out for North Carolina Courage, where O’Sullivan was named captain this season, there are multiple examples of her inability to waste possession.
“It was never about her size, it was always about her brain,” said Curt Johnson, NC Courage General Manager. “[In 2016] we needed a defensive midfielder, a gritty performer who got the ball to our attacking players.
“She became a leader. She became the first name inked into the game day roster. She will do whatever it takes to get the job done – be it winning headers, an incredible assist rate, or any type of goal.”
O’Sullivan, at 5ft 4in, has scored four headers in a green shirt.
“I think her Courage performances fuelled her play with Ireland,” Johnson added, “but the really positive evolution of the Irish team fuelled her performances for us.”
In 2022 the Republic of Ireland carved a way through Sweden, Finland and Scotland to qualify for the World Cup in Australia this summer with O’Sullivan’s diminutive, chiselled frame having as much to do with the historic breakthrough as Katie McCabe’s left peg.
Her 99 caps since 2011 tell their own story about Irish football. Take cap 50, coming at age 22; the crushing 4-1 defeat in Finland happened 10 months before the Liberty Hall press conference when strike action was threatened following decades of neglect by the FAI.
“I remember looking for [a] budget for one extra camp and couldn’t get it,” said Ronan. “Then two years later you hear where the money was going. God almighty, it was a shambles.”
The FAI’s reputation is stained by the standoff with their female players, and how they dragged them into protracted negotiations for seeking the bare minimum.
“We are fighting for the future of women’s football,” said Emma Byrne.
A future that has allowed everyone witness O’Sullivan’s next 50 caps. RTÉ began showing matches live in 2018. Cap 100 arrives tonight in Austin, Texas against the world champions as for once the American resident need not enter the labyrinth of connecting flights to travel from the deep south to Dublin.
Finally, the mountain comes to Denise.
“From the very beginning you could see how special she was – she ate, drank and slept football,” said Ronan. “I had no problem throwing her in straight away with older girls.”
Cap one: Wales 0-2 Ireland, Newport, 17/9/11, Euros qualifier
No footage exists of the 17-year-old’s brace. Still at Wilton United in Cork, the youngest of 10 children “showed great anticipation and patience in the Welsh box” for the first, according to the FAI report, with the second a 25-yard effort after “she lifted the ball over the defence and the goalkeeper”.
“I played her in an advanced position in those days, as a 10. She is seen as a six in America – because she never gives the ball away – but for me she was always an eight or a 10.”
She was dropped five days later, coming off the bench in the 3-1 loss to France at Turner’s Cross.
“I was a young kid,” said O’Sullivan this week. “I know I scored two goals but Sue said to me ‘They are the best team in the world and we don’t want you in that high-intensity game yet’. She told me I would be brought on, so I wasn’t disappointed with the news.”
Cap 26: Ireland 2-3 Germany, Tallaght, 5/4/2014, WC qualifier
Ronan: “Germany were top of the world then. They had won six successive Euros. I could tell you about every second of that game, except injury time when we conceded the third goal. I’ve never looked back, I was so distraught.
“We were compact, in what everyone now calls a low block. Both of their goals were contentious. Stephanie Roche made it 2-2 and for the last 30 minutes they could not break us down.
“We were going to be the first team in 10 years to take a point off them. Back then there was no stand at the mountain-end and it was a windy Tallaght day. From a cross a gust caught the ball and it sailed over Emma Byrne’s head. Oh, I’ll never forget that game.”
Cap 28: Ireland 1-0 Croatia, Tallaght, 14/6/2014, WC qualifier
O’Sullivan goals tend to be important. Of the 18 netted across 15 internationals, Ireland have 14 wins and a single loss to Scotland in 2013.
“Last minute, up pops Denise. She has a habit of scoring when Ireland have needed her. That’s not a coincidence.”
Her competitive nature was honed among the boys in the Knocknaheeny housing estate.
“Denise’s used to come home from school and play on the street with her five older brothers,” Ronan explained. “She has that rare ability to find a yard of space. She was always looking over her shoulder, you didn’t have to teach it to her. It came naturally.
“She reminded me of Olivia O’Toole. Without moving she would drop the shoulder, sending the opponent one way as the pitch opened up for her.”
Cap 40: Ireland 0-2 Finland, Tallaght, 21/9/2015, Euros qualifier
“Another nightmare game,” sighed Ronan. “At nil-all Denise had a chance, a one-on-one with the goalkeeper that I’d never seen her miss before and I’d bet she hasn’t missed since. You’d put your house on her to score. She tried to place it.”
After Ireland featured at the Cyprus Cup in March 2016, O’Sullivan was at the airport in London when the call came from her family. She returned to Cork and went straight to her father John O’Sullivan’s bedside. She slept in the hospital on Thursday night and again on Friday. They lost him overnight on the Saturday.
“My Dad passed away on Sunday, I signed for Houston Dash on Thursday and then went to the awards on Sunday and won International Player of the Year,” she told The Irish Times in 2016. “My emotions were all over the place. For it to all happen in that short a time, it was a weird week to be honest.”
Cap 50: Finland 4-1 Ireland, Valkeakoski, 3/6/17, Euros qualifier
“I swear to God, we could have been 3-0 up,” claimed Ronan, “but they broke and scored their first and, like a deck of cards, we fell apart. It was a ‘not again’ situation in the girls’ minds.”
Plenty of familiar names suffered in Finland: McCabe, O’Sullivan, Louise Quinn, Niamh Fahey, Diane Caldwell, Megan Connolly, Ruesha Littlejohn and Aine O’Gorman.
“It’s as if people think women’s football in this country only started three years ago, that does my nut in, but anyway.”
An evolution from shoestring budget to basic professionalism was badly needed.
“We never had a consistent staff. Even I was a part-time Ireland manager. I had a full-time developmental role within the FAI.
Cap 60: Netherlands 0-0 Ireland, Nijmegen, 28/11/17, WC qualifier
Progress. After Ireland took a point off the European champions with just 19 per cent possession, half the Dutch team crowded the referee to scream in her face, as McCabe stood there in mock surprise.
“They now had the strength and conditioning to maintain the low block for 95 minutes. We used to last 65, 70 minutes but lacked the concentration a professional player can maintain.”
Cap 79: Ukraine 1-0 Ireland, Kyiv, 23/10/2020, Euros qualifier
The lowest of the lows. With the Euros in England so close, Áine O’Gorman and Courtney Brosnan combined for a nightmarish own goal that allowed Ukraine bump Ireland from the play-offs.
“For weeks after that I didn’t sleep,” O’Sullivan admitted. “Honestly, it was absolutely devastating to be so close to a major tournament and then to not get there. Definitely the lowest moment in my career but that feeling brought me to the best moment of my career . . .”
Cap 86: Ireland 0-1 Sweden, Tallaght, 21/10/21, WC qualifier
O’Sullivan threatened the performance of a lifetime, soaring in a midfield clogged by Swedish giants.
Duggan: “That was a game where others showed nerves and she was like ‘this is what I need to do, there is a job at hand’ and she just did it.”
Cap 87: Finland 1-2 Ireland, Helsinki, 26/10/21, WC qualifier
The winner came from O’Sullivan nodding Heather Payne’s speculative cross beyond Tinja-Riikka Korpela.
Ronan: “She dragged Ireland to the win in Helsinki. I knew they would not lose to Finland. They were steeled by all the previous defeats.”
“What can I say about Denise?” shrugged McCabe afterwards. “She runs herself into the ground for her team-mates, for her country, for everyone.”
Cap 89: Ireland 11-0 Georgia, 30/11/21, WC qualifier
O’Sullivan, in the classic number 10 role, feasted on a hat-trick yet McCabe was named player of the match, prompting Littlejohn to ask, “Who is picking these, Katie’s mum?”
Cap 96: Slovakia 0-1 Ireland, 6/9/22, WC qualifier
In a filthy game, O’Sullivan’s sixth goal of the campaign, one behind McCabe, secured an all-or-nothing showdown in Glasgow.
Cap 97: Scotland 0-1 Ireland Hampden Park, 11/10/22
Amber Barrett: “There’s a couple of versions of the goal that went viral and one of them was a really, really slowed down version and if you look, as soon as Denise takes her first touch, the head is already looking where [the ball] is going. It is very difficult to teach players that, some just have that natural instinct to go forward.
“Playing with Denise O’Sullivan is definitely something I will tell the grandkids about because I think she is one of the best, if not the best Irish women’s footballer over the last 10 years.
“For a woman who is so well travelled I think her best accomplishment is she hasn’t lost that Cork accent. We hold onto that as well.”
