FAI director of football, Marc Canham, has begun to map out the “player pathways” and football pyramid he intends to cement in the Irish game.
Speaking at the announcement on Tuesday morning of Eileen Gleeson as Republic of Ireland head coach, Canham provided a glimpse into how the women’s game will be aligned from under-15s to the senior squad.
It starts with an “Irish identity” or “style” that could become as distinct as the Spanish “tiki-taka” or German “gegenpressing”. That’s the plan anyway.
Canham will publish a paper in January that further explains the process needed to bring Ireland on par with middle-tier European football nations. How such an enormous undertaking is financed over 10 years remains to be seen.
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What can be guaranteed is a combination of corporate-speak and common sense from the 41-year-old former Premier League director of coaching.
“Ultimately Eileen was successful in the process because she has a vision that aligns with ours as an association,” he said.
“She also has a vision that’s aligned with our pathway and everything we want to achieve over the next few years around football pathways and player pathways, and most importantly having a goal, there’s a ‘green line’ which we’re going to call it, through our under-15s all the way to our senior team.”
Canham has lived a footballer’s life, playing for Colchester United and heading up the Bristol City academy before nine years with the Premier League where he implemented a system that increased the number of British players at top English clubs.
The challenge in Ireland is to introduce similar structures without comparable funding. An FAI route for 14-year-old girls into the professional ranks is encouraging, but it is interesting how Canham sells the “green line” as a sustainable career to parents when the best league in the world, the English Super League, is paying average salaries of £47,000 (€55,000), with some earning as little as £20,000.
“There’s a few things to that,” Canham responded. “We want to develop something with our teams called the Irish identity or the Irish ID.
“There are three key things in it; the green line which is basically the consistency through the pathway; the way we play and the way we coach.
“The third strand in that we’ll call ‘always green’. So, basically, any player that comes into our care or into our programme we will try to support while they are playing but also beyond playing, we’ll make sure there are pathways.
“I think there is a bigger picture to just what we’re doing with our teams,” he continued. “Everything we’re going to launch with our football pathways plan is about trying to create a structure and pathway for everyone to achieve their full potential.
“As it stands today, there is clearly room for improvement in that, but also huge potential in terms of what that looks like. And then the international element of that is a really big and important part of that, but not the only part.
“There will be a big focus, particularly in the next three to four years on player pathways. It’s really important that the pathways plan is about everyone, it’s about coaches, match officials, volunteers and administrators.
“Whilst we cannot guarantee if you come into our international programme you will get a job at the end of it, we are going to very consciously and very deliberately over the next three to five years look at our structures and programmes to make sure we give people the best opportunities to have pathways into playing, out of playing, into coaching, into officiating and try to develop that ecosystem where everyone has an opportunity to participate in football for their whole life.
“It’s not like if you fall out of playing then you are out of the game. With our international focus we want to make sure we take care of the players who give so much for Irish football and support them moving forward.”
Judging from the early months of the Gleeson era, the style of play is leaning closer to gegenpressing than tiki-taka.
“We don’t want it to be robotic and formulaic . . . If you watch a 15s, 17s or senior team, there are some familiar patterns in terms of how they are playing, what we do when trying to win the ball back, what we do when playing from the keeper, when we play in midfield, so there is a familiarisation and framework.”
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