Onus on new manager to enliven a ghost year for Ireland
How apt it was for the football fans to emulate their rugby brethren by singing Zombie this far week in Faro, for it’ll characterise what the next year entails.
Ireland’s Euro 2024 qualifying campaign has been in terminal decline since the June defeat in Greece.
Three subsequent reverses against France, Netherlands and the Greeks again rendered the two victories over Gibraltar irrelevant.
There’s little to accrue from the final assignments of 2023, the concluding qualifier in Netherlands on November 18 and friendly against New Zealand three days later, but the relevance of next year boils down to Ireland’s performance in the Nations League.
That campaign, a fourth for Ireland since inception in 2018, doesn’t kick off until September, the six games running until November.
Friendlies in March and June will fill the international windows for the first half of the year. The swifter the FAI appoint a successor after Stephen Kenny is dismissed next month, the more scope he'll have to prepare for a new era.
Don’t be surprised if reigning European champions Italy make their first visit to Dublin for 15 years. They were lined up for a friendly last March only for an unanticipated World Cup playoff to intervene, one they were stunned by North Macedonia in.
Maintaining record season levels of 23,000 tickets will be a difficult sell in a ghost year for qualifiers, necessitating an established force visiting.
The midtable League B opposition Ireland could be grouped with in the April Nations League draw won’t compensate for the absence of this year’s star attractions Kylian Mbappé and Virgil Van Dijk. Why the FAI hiked package price for family ticket renewals is mystifying.
Memories of past Nations League campaigns are
Read on irishexaminer.com
