In passing last week Vera Pauw said that she was dreading the day when the World Cup squad must be named, and players will be cut. Tough selection calls are part of the job, and a whole range of emotions must be excluded from the process; bad news, though, never has a soft landing.
By introducing three new, paper-ready, players at the training camp in Spain last week, and with the expectation of a fourth arriving soon, Pauw is adding depth to a shallow squad, and all the while building the prospect of broken hearts.
It is amazing how much can change in the lead-up to big tournaments. The qualification process typically concludes in the previous calendar year, which leaves nine or 10 months for players to lose form or fitness or favour. When the men’s squad reached two World Cups under Jack Charlton the build-up to both tournaments was characterised by churn in the squad, and blunt changes in the manager’s mind, none of which was smooth.
Remember Gary Waddock? For a few days in May 1990 his story added another layer of romance to Ireland’s World Cup odyssey. He had been a regular in Ireland squads in the early to mid-1980s, but he ruptured his medial ligament in 1987 and the medical advice was that his career was over. Waddock refused to accept it. Released by QPR, he embarked on a long and tortuous rehab before eventually rebooting his career with Charleroi, in Belgium.
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Charlton said that dropping Waddock was “the biggest f**king mistake I ever made
Millwall brought him back to the UK in 1989, where he caught Charlton’s eye. He was picked to play against the Soviet Union in one of Ireland’s warm-up games, and on May 17th Charlton named a squad of 22 players that, barring accidents, was anointed as his travelling party for the World Cup. Waddock was included.
“This is one of the happiest days I’ve known in football,” Waddock told reporters. “These last four years have been difficult, but, thankfully, it has now all come right and I’ve got the prize I always coveted.”
Before a final training camp in Malta, Ireland played Turkey in Izmir. Waddock started, but was replaced early in the second half. He thought no more about it, until the squad landed in Valletta and Charlton pulled him aside at the luggage carousel in the airport. There had been a late change of plan: Waddock was no longer in the squad; Alan McLoughlin had been called up in his place.
McLoughlin’s only cap for Ireland had been in a B international, but he had been a key player in Swindon’s promotion to the First Division that season, and, belatedly, Charlton had taken a shine to him. Charlton told Waddock that he was welcome to stay with the squad and travel with them to Italy. Waddock gave Charlton the only answer you would expect, studs up.
Waddock was forced to wait 24 hours for a flight back to the UK. The taxi that brought McLoughlin to the team hotel, dropped Waddock to the airport: one in, one out. Years later, in Paul Rowan’s seminal book The Team that Jack Built, Charlton said that dropping Waddock was “the biggest f**king mistake I ever made.”
Four years later, there was a much different dynamic at play. Gary Kelly, Jason McAteer and Phil Babb all made their international debuts in a friendly against Russia at the end of March 1994, and without having played a minute in the qualifying campaign, all of them forced their way into the starting XI at the World Cup. Babb started every game; Gary Kelly started two of the four games; McAteer started once, but came on in the other three.
On the poisonous night in Windsor Park the previous November, when a draw against Northern Ireland secured qualification, Ireland had used 13 players – three of whom didn’t play a minute at the World Cup the following summer. McLoughlin scored the late equaliser that night, only to be one of the unused squad members in America.
Alan Kernaghan was another who was marooned on the margins of that tournament. He had been a regular in the team during the qualifying campaign, and having played schoolboy football for Northern Ireland, he endured vile abuse from the Windsor Park terraces on the night of the crucial last game. Leaving Belfast that evening he must have felt that he had earned his spurs. In professional sport, for how long is that feeling valid? Hours or minutes?
Mick McCarthy took a different view before the 2002 World Cup. In his selection, there were no late bolters. He would have boarded the plane harbouring the innocent view that his squad was stable. “I’ve said all along that the players who walked off the pitch in Tehran six months ago [after the second leg of the qualification playoff] haven’t suddenly become not good enough to travel,” he said at the squad announcement.
When the dust settles on Pauw’s squad in the coming months, it will be interesting to see how many of the beaming faces from Glasgow last October will be missing
“I asked myself if by leaving out someone who has been great for me all along, would I improve our chances of making progress in the World Cup and I decided that it wouldn’t. I wasn’t going to make changes just for the sake of seeing a fresh face.”
McCarthy was true to his word: of the 13 players that played a part against Iran in the second leg of the playoff, 11 of them also appeared against Cameroon in the opening World Cup match. Nine players started both games. Roy Keane didn’t play in either game, for different reasons.
When the dust settles on Pauw’s squad in the coming months, it will be interesting to see how many of the beaming faces from Glasgow last October will be missing. Pauw is under no illusions about the limitations of the current squad: that will frame her thinking, and muzzle her emotions.
Years after the 1990 World Cup, Charlton elaborated on his decision to leave out Waddock. Frank Stapleton was on the last lap of a long and decorated career, and Charlton wanted him to experience the World Cup, as a parting gift. But he also made it clear to Stapleton that he wasn’t part of his plans. How did that make Stapleton feel? Like a tourist. In the numbers game, Charlton carried one less midfielder in the squad.
He had allowed a trace of sentimentality to invade his decision-making. You couldn’t imagine Pauw making such a mistake.
