WORLD CUP SOCCER: THERE WAS A DREAM
When the Spanish referee, Augusto Lama-Castillo, disallowed Ireland's equalizer in Paris, not only may he have been guilty of a questionable bias in his refereeing, but he may also have burst the bubble of a now recurrent Irish dream, writes Paddy Agnew.
A 2-1 win over Holland in September had been enough to refloat the nation's World Cup dreams. In truth Irish supporters have had few similar results with which to feed their imaginations. All seemed possible; that is until Senor Lama-Castillo's curious decision deprived Ireland of an important away point. Ireland are not out of the World Cup yet, and there is still a winter's dreaming left in the competition. But has there ever been any realism in the hopes and aspirations which see Ireland in the Finals?
With seventeen minutes to go in the game against Holland, Ireland were a goal down and a win highly unlikely. Even a draw looked far from guaranteed. The Irish had had the majority of the possession and done more attacking, yet of themselves those facts provide no inalienable right to win a soccer match. The Dutch may have been overrun for much of this game, but on the occasions when they did attack they looked ominously sharper than Ireland. How many of the Irish attacks were as clinical and precise as the Jan Peters free kick which Frans Thissen knocked on to the bar? In the end, the constant pressurizing of the Irish, allied to Dutch goalkeeper, Hiele's, difficulties with his kick outs into the high wind, swung the game in Ireland's favour. One suspected that there was something freakish about winning an international with two goals in the last fifteen minutes.
Almost as important as the win itself, was the manner in which it was achieved. Throughout the management days of John Giles there had been a constant clamour for the Irish team to reject the careful, slow build-up style favoured by him in favour of a more unbridled attack. The clam our became so strong and betrayed so little understanding of what Giles was about that finally Giles gave up, in disgust and exasperation.
The win against Holland seemed to prove that a more typically British attacking game was the correct option. But was it? The excitement of the win was understandable, but even at the time one could wonder just how good was this particular Dutch side. In terms of both personnel, and perhaps more important, of tactics, this team was a long way removed from the teams which had reached the last two World Cup Finals.
The strength of the Dutch teams of the seventies was their so called "total football". This meant in effect that when Holland had the ball, positions became flexible, everyone could be an attacker. The initiation of attacks from the back and a general freedom for the back men to come forward, which was based on the defensive strength of the midfield of Jansen, Van Hanagen and Neeskens, were the basis of strategy. The intelligence and brilliance of Johan Cruyff obviously provided the inspiration.
Above all the traditional strength of total football and of Dutch soccer was attack. When Holland came to Dublin in September, the usual Dutch arrogance, necessary if a team is to have confidence in its attacking abilities, was missing. An unsuccessful European Nations Championship in Italy in June, plus the injury or unavailability of key players like Rud Krol, La Ling, -Rene Van Der Kerkhof, Aarie Haan, Johnny Rep meant that an almost brand new team turned out in Dublin.
Obliged by circumstance to experiment, Dutch manager, Jan Zwartkruis, erred gravely when he failed to select the one experienced player who was available - Wily Van Der Kerkhof. Basing his strategy on the negative concept of containing the Irish aerial attack of Frank Stapleton and Don Givens, Zwartkruis played two big men, Ron Spelbos
and Ernie Brandts, as his central defenders. Thus Van Der Korput was played as sweeper and there was no place for Wily Van Der Kerkhof.
Zwartkruis's tactics worked in as much as the Irish attack through the air yielded only one significant chance in the whole game - when Mark Lawrenson blasted wide a Frank Stapleton knock down of a Liam Brady cross toward the end of the first half. However Zwartkruis had incapacitated his side's ability to initiate an attack from the hack. Neither Brandts nor Spelbos is the sort of player who can take it on himself to move forward out of his own penalty area. The man who could do this, Michel Van Der Korput, was too preoccupied with watching for the Irish attack to dare go forward. The playing of Wily Van Der Kerkhof as sweeper, thus allowing Van Der Korput to play as a central defender, as he had d one in Italy, would have given Holland a definite attacking option.
In the only game that Holland have played since the Irish match, a 1-1 draw with West Germany, Wily Van Der Kerkhof played as sweeper .and his aggressive attitude was an important part of a good Dutch performance. Fortunately for Ireland, Holland's attitude at Lansdowne Road was untypically negative. Little wonder then that Cruyff, no less, expressed the view after the Dublin game that there was nothing wrong with the available talent in Holland. Better organization and management could have achieved a result in Dublin, he concluded.
It must also be conceded however that the present style of the Irish team makes the playing of the ball out of defence a hazardous operation for the opposition. The aggressive, first division style hounding and pressurizing of this Irish team makes it difficult for the back men to play their way upfield. The continental sides are used to a situation in which the opposition, as soon as it has lost the ball in attack, drops back to its own half way line. They are distinctly ruffled by the presence of an oath-swearing Don Givens on the edge of their penalty area. The hassling or spoiling value of pressure soccer is not to be underrated. It turned what threatened to be a totally dominant Belgium side into a side which was glad to win a point off Ireland by the end. Likewise a French side who started in Paris as if they were going to score half a dozen goals were by the end of the first half unable to work the ball out of their own half for an embarrassing five minutes.
It would be nice at this point to record that Eoin Hand had conceived this plan all along on the basis of an intimate knowledge of the playing of the Dutch, French and Belgians. It is more likely that Hand has been trusting his
instinct for doing the simple thing, without any complications. Hand feels that a lot of nonsense is talked about soccer. If he is asked at a press conference as to who will have a licence to go forward and who will defend, he will reply:
"I would like to think that when we have the ball, all ten outfield players will attack and when they have the ball, all ten players will defend."
Given the fact that nearly all the Irish squad play their soccer in Britain and are thus accustomed to the tactically
naive breakneck endeavour of the English League, there is a definite consistency in asking them to play that same style for Ireland. Certainly in the past, one of the problems encountered by John Giles was the disparity between his rational, thinking style and the game to which the players were accustomed every week of their working lives.
However the British style, as the consistent failure of the British national squads in European and World Cup in the seventies would confirm, is a dangerous option. Much of the Irish team's play against Holland and Belgium betrayed a wildness, an inaccuracy and an indiscipline upon which the French were to capitalize so spectacularly. Against Holland the midfield had been so disorganized that Lawrenson, Grealish, Daly and Brady got in each other's way on occasion. To play Mark Lawrenson in midfield had been a gamble worth taking, in the absence of any obvious choice of a front three. The idea was to put Lawrenson in midfield and thus allow both Brady and Daly more possibility of moving forward. However the idea did not really come off for with no wide-running front man the Irish attack tended to get congested in going down the middle of the pitch. In the traffic jam, Lawrenson was shut out and really did not have (on his own admission) a good game.
The fact that the same Lawrenson scored the winning goal does not alter that view. That goal owed much both to the precision of the Brady free-kick and to the absence from the Dutch defence of Rud Krol, who would never have allowed two Irishmen to go unmarked in the penalty area.
A more than interested observer of this game had been Guy Thys, the Belgian national manager. He had been more impressed by the Irish crowd's passionate support than by the standard of the Irish team's play. He had seen nothing in the Irish attack to worry him and was quietly hoping that the Irish would, against Belgium, use a lot of high balls which his big back men, Millecamps, Meeuws and Renquin could counter, oh so easily. Significantly the one Irish player to impress him was Tony Grealish. Thys admired Grealish's ability to both be back in defence when needed and to be a prime initiator of attacks.
Thy's Belgian side came to Dublin in a very different mood than the Dutch. Their summer's experience in Italy had been a huge success and they came with almost the same side which had contested the European Final. The new boys, Coeck and Cluytens, had both been capped before and were both superb players.
The system which the Belgians had used so successfully over the last twelve months, had relied on a solid back four playing behind a competitive midfield in which Van Moer chased and scurried after everything like a demented Jack Russell terrier. The solid defence could frustrate the opposition to the point where so many men would be committed to attack that if Van Moer won and quickly released the ball to his fast front men, Cuelmans, Van Del Bergh and Van Del Elst a goal could easily be taken on the counter. Last December at Hampden Park, Belgium scored three times in thirty minutes in just such a manner.
Eoin Hand accordingly expected the Belgians to be cautious and thus prepared for a match in which, as against
Holland, Ireland would be doing most of the attacking. For these purposes he preferred to play Kevin Moran, instead of Pierce O'Leary, alongside Mark Lawrenson in the centre of defence. Playing beside his brother David, Pierce O'Leary had had an excellent game against the Dutch, but Moran's first division experience and his physical strength were preferred.
Hand's expectations were immediately exploded when in the opening seconds of the game, Cuelmans went past Langan and the alarm sounded in the Irish defence. The extent to which the Belgians self-esteem has been bolstered by their Italian summer was soon obvious as they consistently showed throughout the first half that they were not at all afraid to attack. The picking of Moran also looked less than inspired when a poor headed clearance from him was headed back by Van Der Bergh into the path of Cluytens who accelerated past both Hughton and Lawrenson to score one of the sharpest goals ever seen at Lansdowne Road.
That Belgium did not score again, at least once, in the twenty minutes following Cluytens goal was probably the biggest good luck story in sport since Foinavon won the 1967. "pile-up" Grand National. The lack of organization in the Irish defence was there to be punished. David O'Leary was sorely missed. The selection of Moran continued to look ill-advised.
However such is the sense of purpose of this Irish side that they fought their way back aggressively into the game until the moment where Tony Grealish read the offside trap perfectly and hit Ireland's equalizer just before half-time. From then on, as Guy Thys admits, Belgium were quite happy to settle for the draw. In the second half it was once again obvious how the committed running and contesting of every ball by the Irish can upset a continental side. Again the Belgians could not walk the ball out of defence and were more and more forced into a containing role. The Irish fight back was such that the Belgians began to lose composure as well as rhythm.
Although on the basis of the results, things were looking good for Ireland by the time of the French match in Paris, the truth was that there had been plenty of problems in both the Dutch and Belgian games. The defence could never expect to survive in any away match if it continued to be prey to the fast man on the break (Van Mierlo for Holland and Cluytens for Belgium). The attack continued to look blunt, with the scores coming from the midfield men. And if Daly and Grealish had never played better for Ireland, then the same could not be said of Liarn Brady. The enign1atic best known Irishman in Italy had looked out of sorts and less than happy with the disorganization around him.
The French manager, Michel Hildago, had been in Dublin for the Belgian game and had been more impressed by Belgium than Ireland. He felt that the Belgians had done well to take a point from Ireland and he was far from certain that France could do the same in Dublin. Yet for the game in Paris he was undoubtedly very confident. He felt that without the fanatical crowd support, Ireland would be a great deal less attack minded and that the attacking contribution of the two full backs, Langan and Hughton, would be minimal, since they would be preoccupied with defending.
In the embarrassing opening twenty minutes of the Paris game, Hildago's confidence looked well founded. A static Irish defence seemed bewildered by the pace of the French front three, Six, Lacombe and Rocheteau. In midfield neither Brady nor Martin was able to close down on his man tightly enough which meant that Larios, Platini and above all Tigana had time in which to direct the show. It was no fluke that the deserved French goal came from a superb cross from the black midfielder, Tigana, who had again been allowed too much time.
However, after a few more shaky moments the Irish got back into the game. Brady atoned for his inability or unwillingness to close down on Tigana by going on an inspired slalom run through French defenders in the box before sending over a chip which both Robinson and Stapleton were unlucky not to put in the net. By the beginning of the second half the Irish were in control of the proceedings. French insecurity and self-doubt were nowhere more obvious than in the performance of captain, Michel Platini, who at one moment even rooted the ball into the grandstand in total panic.
Chances came to Hughton, Grealish and Robinson who all forced fine saves from Dropsy. When the equalizer came it had been merited on the run of play. That Ireland lost their composure after the disallowed goal and left themselves very open at the back, is understandable, if unforgivable at this level of soccer.
An obviously relieved Michel Hildago underlined how flattered France were by the final score line, "Vous m'avez fait peur . . . For a time I thought that Ireland would get a draw. I am glad to have won since it is never easy to beat Ireland."
Guy Thys for one had not been impressed by France. He felt that their inability to capitalize on such a good start betrayed problems. He was not impressed by the French attack, and felt that his side would never allow the French to run the midfield and was optimistic that Cluytens, Van Del Bergh, Cuelemans e t al would run past the hesitant French defence. He thought that France had little hope of taking points off Ireland in Dublin and was happy with his own side's point won in Dublin.
"As the competition goes on, that point will be more and more important. However this is a good Irish side. . . but you badly missed Daly tonight. Brady is a fine player, but he could do so much better."
Here Thys touched on a problem area for Ireland, on the night. It seemed like the bad old days were back as one watched Mick Martin blundering his way through the first half, managing only one important pass, and giving the ball away on at least half a dozen occasions. Martin even managed, in a situation in which he was not rushed, to deliver an inch perfect pass to Michel Platini right on the edge of the Irish penalty area. To save this situation Liam Brady was forced to hack down Platini - as he picked himself up, the Irish captain's fury with Martin was plain to see.
Tiring visibly in the second half, Martin managed incred ibly to turn in an even worse performance, before thankfully, he was removed. But that was not before yet another poor pass from him had sent the French away for the conclusive second goal. This is. not to lampoon a player who was coming back to first class soccer after nearly a year's absence. Why was he played at all? Could Brady not have been moved into the centre of midfield and either Ashley Grimes or Jerry Murphy been brought in on the left? In a side which contained Brady, Grealish, Heighway, Lawrenson and Stapleton, there was no shortage of experience and no need to go rummaging in the land of forgotten works for an old head.
Hand felt Martin justified of his selection by the containing job which he performed. Well that view tells more about Hand's sense of humour than about Martin's performance. Martin had the situation "in control" about as firmly as Major Chichester Clarke had the North in control back in the late sixties.
For the future though, more worrying is the inconsistency of Ireland's most brilliant player - Liam Brady. Against France, he did many marvellous things, yet he conspicuously failed to close down on Jean Tigana. Perhaps in time, things will sort themselves out for Brady. The fact that his footballing future hung in the bank balance of one or two prestigious European clubs and that his new club Juventus are going through an "old age" crisis (several of the players are getting on) cannot help him. In the meantime the shifting of the responsibility of captaincy to Tony Grealish could help.
The final Irish World Cup game of 1980, against Cyprus, even though it produced a remarkable six goal win, was by no means all good news for Ireland. The Cypriots were so bad as to make any criticism of the Irish pointless - but after this performance, no one can seriously suggest that Cyprus will win any points in the group. In fact it looks as if Ireland's tally of 9 goals against them in two matches will probably be bettered by at least France, if not the other teams. This, in effect, means that Ireland have yet to win away points. The job ahead is clear - Ireland must beat France in Dublin and then hope for away points against either Holland or Belgium.
In the meantime, the Belgian win over an improved Holland (1-0) would seem to confirm them as the strongest, most organized team in the group. Belgium could do Ireland's cause a lot of good by qualifying with 12 or 13 points, thus taking points off France and Holland. Then, were France and Holland to share points between each other, Ireland could be there. But that is the rub, Ireland must watch and wait, that is unless they improve enormously on an abysmal away record. Belgium have not lost a competitive match at home for over five years and the Dutch team which Ireland will face in Amsterdam is likely to be a much better side than the one which came to Dublin.
However away records and pocket calculators are still there for the consulting and that is the Irish achievement. We could have done better, ideally, but in the past we have done so much worse. The squad has never been stronger and Ireland have even conjured out of the births register Stapleton's new striking partner, Mick Robinson. One good away performance and the road to Spain could rise with us yet - until then, dream on, dream on . . . . .