It was back in March that Swiss goalkeeper Gaëlle Thalmann offered an apology to Ireland after she pulled their ball from the bowl during the draw for the Euro 2025 qualifiers and placed it in one containing England, France and Sweden. Her remorse should be deeper still at the halfway point in the qualifying campaign, Eileen Gleeson and her players discovering that the gap between the first and second tiers of European football is even wider than they might have suspected.
Swedish coach Peter Gerhardsson tried to be kind after his side’s 3-0 victory at the Aviva Stadium on Friday night. “It wasn’t comfortable at all,” he said, “it was a physical, tough game. The first goal was very important, then the second, then the third . . .” His voice trailed off, like he didn’t want to rub it in.
There was no little frustration for Gleeson in seeing her team concede three goals for the first time in her 11-match tenure, their greater adventure this time around punished by the Swedes picking them off with clinical ease on the counter.
But it was those missed chances in the first half, Lily Agg and Amber Barrett the culprits, that left the manager the most exasperated. “We’re not going to get many chances in these games, we need to be more clinical,” as she put it.
That’s just over five hours now since her side have scored, and in the three matches in this campaign so far they’ve managed just three shots on target.
Katie McCabe and Kyra Carusa had a field day on the goals front in the Nations League campaign, scoring five apiece and chipping in with another eight assists between them, but this group is a whole new ball game. And inevitably the harder Ireland push to break that duck, the more vulnerable they are to conceding.
“You try to open up a little bit more and you get caught, that’s the conundrum,” said the manager. “These are top teams we’re playing against, you take a risk if you venture up the field, but that’s what we want to do, we want to be higher up, we want to be aggressive. But that’s the trade-off, that’s the risk and the reward. We have to get better at that, and then managing that openness.”
She has to address that conundrum again when she decides on what approach to take in Tuesday evening’s game at the Friends Arena in Stockholm which will be a rare enough appearance in the capital for the home side, Gothenburg the Swedish women’s more usual base.
There’s no little incentive either for them to put on a show against Ireland, England’s defeat by France in Newcastle on Friday boosting their hopes of a top two finish in the group and automatic qualification for Euro 2025. It’s nine points out of nine for the French so far, the Swedes now level on four with England who take on France again in Saint-Étienne on Tuesday. Goal difference could yet be a factor in the group, so it’s unlikely Gerhardsson’s side will take it easy.
But Ireland have to be mindful too of avoiding heavy defeats in their final three games. While they are assured of a spot in the play-offs for Euro 2025, which will take place between October and December of this year, their results in this group campaign will determine their seeding and, therefore, the quality of opposition they face. As Gleeson said last week, “we understand the importance of points, of every single goal conceded, every single goal scored in terms of being seeded for the play-offs – we have to factor that in to our approach to the games, it’s all intertwined”.
She will, though, have to make do again without Denise O’Sullivan whose knee injury has forced her in to an early return to North Carolina. Worryingly, the midfielder said “long journey ahead” in her message wishing the team well, although she added that she’s “heading home to get fit and ready for July” when Ireland complete their group campaign with the return games against England and France.
Gleeson downplayed any concerns about McCabe’s fitness after the captain appeared to be feeling her hamstring during Friday’s game, that return trip to Australia with Arsenal hardly helping her condition, while it remains to be seen if Ruesha Littlejohn will be available after she was ruled out on Friday with an ankle problem.
More conundrums, then, for Gleeson, when it comes to choosing how to take on the World Cup semi-finalists on their home patch. Adventure or caution? The latter is the more likely choice.
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