It is carnival time here in Nice where Martin O’Neill and Roy Keane will tomorrow find out the scale of the challenge over the coming 20 months if their time in charge of Ireland is to be remembered as a cause for celebration.
O’Neill has already reduced the matter rather starkly to those terms, telling journalists late last year that: “If I don’t make it, I don’t deserve to go on. That is the point – this is my job and this is what I want to do. I said the same to Roy that if I messed up he goes with me; there is no staying on.”
It will be the sort of make or break mission statement that might just start to look rash if a tough draw tomorrow is followed by a slow start in September. It can be argued that, on paper, Ireland should qualify but it does rather depend which piece of paper you’re looking at. True, the team is ranked 19th of 53 European nations according to Uefa which is, just about, good enough for a second seeding tomorrow which in turn, if it’s lived up to, would translate into automatic qualification. But those rankings are based on performances in the 2010 World Cup, Euro 2012 and the more recent qualifiers for Brazil and Ireland’s seeding is primarily rooted in the former two with the team’s showing in the latter, a fourth place finish behind Germany, Sweden and Austria, giving real cause for concern.
The Fifa rankings, though scarcely a perfect indicator of a side’s real-time standing either, are probably more up to date and in those, Ireland is ranked 34th in Europe: the equivalent of a fourth place finish and, one presumes, the proverbial taxi for the current management team if O’Neill, Trap-like, doesn’t start to see a little more merit in his wider contribution.
Ireland, though, have achieved a top two finish in just one of their last three Euro qualification campaigns and in two of their last four World Cup outings the team has indeed finished fourth so the concern is a real one.
Softer touches
While many Irish fans will have their hunches on who might be the softer touches in pots one, three and four they can rest assured that many of their opposite numbers, when weighing up Pot Two, would rather fancy getting us. Much, of course, will depend on who Ireland does get. The obvious temptation is simply to hope for the lower ranked teams in each group of seeds but, again because of the way the rankings have been compiled, it is a little more complicated than that with Romania or Austria, quite possibly, having the potential to be tougher opponents than, say, Norway, despite being several places lower than them in terms of Uefa co-efficient.
In truth, there does not seem to be an awful lot between quite a range of the middle ranking teams and a weaker top seed is only really desirable for O’Neill if he thinks he can inspire Ireland to better results against them than, for instance, a Serbia or a Turkey might.
Otherwise, it might as well be a Germany running away with the group again and the team he has inherited going head to head with their real rivals for second and maybe third spot.
Whatever comes
The 61-year-old has declined to reveal much either way, insisting he will take whatever comes tomorrow even if he does admit to wanting to avoid the French who will be slipped into the five team group in lieu of a sixth seed and so provide a programme of presumably tougher friendly games.
“If we are in that group I would probably consider that to be unlucky,” he says. “I would prefer if we were not. You have a competitive mindset and the last thing you want to do is to have the qualifiers interspersed with some sort of friendly game thrown in that is of no great consequence.”
O’Neill more or less laughed at the notion of Aiden McGeady saying he would like to get England although he seems incapable of speaking about the former Celtic winger at all without cracking a succession of gags. He then dodged a question about getting Northern Ireland who beat Russia a few months back and drew in Portugal but, just as memorably, then conceded a late equaliser against Luxembourg in Belfast.
The only guaranteed connection to his old team at tomorrow’s draw will be Pat Jennings who is one of the former players being drafted in to conduct it. “If he draws Northern Ireland,” says O’Neill, with a shake of the head, “I will tell you what . . .”
Whoever Ireland are drawn against, the manager suggests, some of the magic will be sucked out of the occasion by the fact that it will be Uefa’s TV people and the broadcasters who then work out the fixtures rather than the team officials themselves.
“I think there is a little bit lost (because of that),” he says. “I would have liked to have been in a little room with some other country arguing the toss. It would have been nice to have organised it although the chances are that with my sort of negotiating skills we would end up playing something like seven consecutive away games.”
