Soccer

Carla Ward: New Ireland women’s head coach may be perfect fit for bruised soccer team

FAI deserves praise for impressive appointments of former Aston Villa manager and Dubliner Alan Mahon as her assistant

Carla Ward, former Aston Villa manager, has been appointed head coach of the Ireland women's team. Photograph: Marc Atkins/Getty Images
Carla Ward, former Aston Villa manager, has been appointed head coach of the Ireland women's team. Photograph: Marc Atkins/Getty Images
Mary Hannigan's picture
Mary Hannigan
Thu Jan 16 2025 - 10:25

Something weird happened on Wednesday. The Football Association of Ireland was in receipt of praise. No, really. They’d have been pinching themselves over at Abbotstown, possibly calling a crisis meeting to discuss how to handle this phenomenon.

The reason for this lesser-spotted acclaim? The appointment of Carla Ward as head coach of the Republic of Ireland’s women’s team. And the inclusion of Alan Mahon, as her assistant, on the ticket.

Now, come the end of the qualifying campaign for the 2027 World Cup it could be that we’ll all be deleting our ovations if everything goes belly-up, and replacing them with anguished queries about how the FAI got it so wrong with these appointments.

But for now ... (whisper it) ... they are seriously impressive.

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Even if you only dip into English women’s football once in a very blue moon, you might just know how highly regarded Ward is, an ambitious and thoughtful coach never afraid to take on seemingly hopeless causes and, then, turn them around.

Keeping a Birmingham City side in the WSL, when the women’s side of the club was an absolute shambles, was up there with her finest achievements, earning her a nomination for the manager of the year award.

She has international experience too, her good friend Emma Hayes bringing her into the United States set-up for last summer’s Olympics, where they won gold, as a performance analyst and opposition scout. And Hayes doesn’t introduce any old mug into her staff.

And Dubliner Mahon, a former Republic of Ireland international, worked for 10 years with Manchester City’s women’s team, acting as their interim head coach for a spell in 2020. There’s not much he doesn’t know about the women’s game.

Both of them were ready for new challenges – Ward stepping down as Aston Villa manager in May of last year, Mahon leaving City a month later. And now they’re teaming up to see where they can take this Irish team, one that is need of a pick-me-up after that calamitous Euro 2025 play-off defeat to Wales.

And that failure could have given the FAI an out. They could have gone small, not least because of how cash-strapped they are, when it came to appointing a successor to Eileen Gleeson. Why would you go big when you can’t beat Wales in a play-off (no offence, Cymru)? Or when the highest-ranked team in your upcoming Nations League campaign is below Vietnam in the list?

Carla Ward has been appointed head coach of the Republic of Ireland’s women’s team. Photograph: Nigel French/PA Wire
Carla Ward has been appointed head coach of the Republic of Ireland’s women’s team. Photograph: Nigel French/PA Wire

But they have gone big. Not that we know how big financially yet, but they’ve shown ambition for this team, and that’s no small thing.

And it’s a pivotal time for this squad. Some of the elders, like Niamh Fahey and Diane Caldwell, have taken their leave; more may follow. But the new broom is struggling to make its mark at club level. Abbie Larkin has to settle for hopping off the Crystal Palace bench most weeks, Izzy Atkinson rarely gets off it. Ellen Dolan has had to return home from the English Championship for personal reasons, while Tara O’Hanlon is still awaiting her Manchester City debut after a long battle with injury. A future that looked bright is stuttering.

That’s now for Ward to sort out. And her tenure will be a fascinating watch. “I’m refreshed, I’m recharged. It’s been the mental-wellness break that I needed,” she told the Guardian in November after she took a timeout from the game, the demands of management, which resulted in her having to spend a heap of time away from her young daughter, taking their toll.

She’s been through the ringer on a personal level – that Aston Villa period just one episode. Back when she was playing for Sheffield United, her brother died in a car crash. “He was my biggest backer, he bought all my boots,” she told the Sheffield Star.

United had a big game the next day, against Liverpool. She played. “He would have been furious if I hadn’t.” She scored twice in the first half, but having not slept the night before, and having drunk enough to numb the pain, she crashed at half-time and was spared a second-half outing.

Those experiences, she says, have taught her how to be “a people person”. Football is close to everything; she craves little more than success as a coach, but she knows there’s more to life.

Yes, yes, saying this feels severely weird: but honest, the FAI does indeed deserve praise.

Carla Ward might just be the perfect fit for this bruised Irish squad.