Russia

Keep the green flag flying – 50 years on from defeating the Soviet Union

Posted on by gerrytastic

John Giles was enthusiastic that the aligning of Ireland’s European Championship qualifying fixtures with that of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland would have a beneficial effect on securing the release of players from their clubs for the upcoming match against Turkey. He made this point just after his Ireland side, playing in their first competitive game under his management had shocked European football by defeating the Soviet Union 3-0 on October 30th 1974.

Giles waxed lyrical about wanting the opportunity to work with the international team players on a weekly, even daily basis and hoped to have extra days for another opportunity for additional training ahead of the game against Turkey. Even things like the release of players and a day or two to work through set pieces wasn’t guaranteed in 1974.

The hero in that game, Don Givens, who celebrated his 25th cap with a hat-trick recalled being unable to get back to the team bus such were the crowds and didn’t know how to get to the team hotel in Booterstown so he hailed down a car in his muddy kit with a match ball under his arm. He was greeted with the inquiry as to whether he’d been “at the match?” by the driver.

Liam Brady, then an 18-year-old debutant remembered the flaking panelling in the Dalymount dressing room and the smell of liniment mixed with a waft of beer from the nearby club bar. The anxiety, and perhaps the odour meant that he recalled getting sick in the dressing room toilet prior to kick-off.

All of this perhaps sounds a far cry from modern international football but it was something of a dawning of a new era for Ireland. Giles had taken charge mere months earlier, had impressed in a series of friendlies, and was now player-manager leading the bid for Euro 76 qualification in a group featuring the Soviet Union, Switzerland and Turkey. Almost exactly 15 years earlier a teenaged Giles had scored on his debut in a victory over Sweden, now he was in charge on and off the pitch as Ireland took on the world’s largest nation featuring such stars as Oleg Blokhin who would win the Ballon D’Or just months later.

One of the Irish centre-backs that day, Terry Mancini, had praised Giles for his training techniques and the “tremendously professional atmosphere and attitude – as good as any team in the world”. As chance would have it, the Arsenal defender wouldn’t get to experience much more of the Ireland dressing room, a sending off for retaliating against Soviet defender Volodymyr Kaplychnyi saw his international career ended by a four-match ban.

During the game itself the 35,000 spectators were treated to scintillating, confident football by the Irish, with one commentator describing the interplay between Giles and Brady, master and student, as almost arrogant! It was claimed in reports that this was the game that brought Irish football in from the cold and gave Dalymount back its roar.

The crowd had just 23 minutes to wait for the first goal, a delightful ball in from Joe Kinnear, who excelled in marshalling Blokhin as well as joining the attack, which found the head of Givens who powered it home. Five quick passes cutting open the Soviets to give Ireland the lead. The second arrived on the half hour courtesy of the indefatigable Ray Treacy, who’s cross was flicked on by Steve Heighway to present Givens with a simple finish.

However, there was some concern two minutes later when Mancini and Kaplychnyi were sent off. Could Ireland’s 4-3-3 formation adapt to being down a centre half? Mick Martin, filled in ably, switching from midfield to defence, and Ireland managed to weather a Soviet storm in the first period of the second-half and any fears of a comeback were allayed on 70 minutes as Giles’s precise and quickly taken free found the Soviet defence asleep and Don Givens secured his hat-trick.

Through the late 60s and early 70s Irish fans had little reason to be cheerful, 50 years ago a new manager, and a shock result helped the Green army to find their voice and hope again.

This article originally appeared in the Ireland v Finland match programme in November 2024

It’s called the World Cup for a reason

Posted on by gerrytastic

The World Cup is only in its second day but already there has been plenty of comment from people identifying as journalists about the teams that aren’t even there. This is mainly because a tidy, if ineffectual Saudi Arabian team were well beaten by Russia which prompted several of the blue-ticked Twitterati to exclaim how unfair and unjust it was that the USA, the Netherlands, Italy or Chile were not at the World Cup but that Saudi Arabia were.

This was then broadened out by other users of the social media platform to mention teams like Morocco or Iran or Tunisia. Do you see a trend here?

First of all lets point out that this is in fact a WORLD CUP, not a Europe and South American cup with a couple of others we deem worthy thrown in Cup. The first World Cup in 1930 was an open invitation competition, most European nations didn’t even bother turning up. The English national team didn’t bother entering the tournament until 1950, when they qualified they were beaten by Spain and also 1-0 by the United States thanks to a goal scored by a Haitian student in a team captained by a Scottish journeyman. But then that’s the joy of the World Cup, the underdog beating the heavily-favoured, football aristocrat.

Egypt played in the 1934 World Cup, while the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) played in 1938 but representatives from Africa and Asia were rare. In 1966 every team in the African confederation boycotted qualifying for the World Cup because they were offered only half a place at the World Cup. Effectively one African side would have to play-off against the winners of the Asia/Oceania group for a place in England. This boycott meant that North Korea qualified and went on to famously beat Italy 1-0 and drew with Chile which saw them through to the Quarter-finals.

In that quarter final the North Koreans took a surprise 3-0 lead before being eventually overhauled by the personal brilliance of Eusébio who scored four of the Portugal’s five goals in a memorable comeback. Eusébio was of course born in Mozambique, (still a Portuguese colony in 1966), as were team captain Mário Coluna and central defender Vincente.

Things did gradually begin to change however, the FIFA President Stanley Rous ran for re-election in 1974 but was roundly defeated by João Havelange, mainly because Havelange has actively canvassed the support of the AFC and CAF with the promises of greater access to the World Cup tournament.

Whatever one says about Havelange and his debatable legacy, he did follow through on his promise and expanded the World Cup to 24 teams in 1982. With each nation having an equal vote Rous’s reluctance to campaign, coupled with his support for keeping apartheid South Africa as a member of FIFA (he famously said if “South Africa applies segregation in soccer, that is its own concern”) meant that his Eurocentric viewpoint was never going to see him elected to another term and practically guaranteed Havelange victory. Havelange was of course later succeeded by his protege Sepp Blatter, perhaps if Stanley Rous had taken the African and Asian confederations more seriously then FIFA wouldn’t have been defined by the hyper-commercial forces that Havelange and Blatter unleashed? It’s just a thought.

’82 saw steady progress for African sides, Cameroon were unlucky to be eliminated having not lost a game, while Algeria, despite impressive performances were also knocked out after the Disgrace of Gijón when Austria and West Germany conspired to play out a mutually beneficial 1-0 win for the Germans which saw both sides progress.

Subsequent tournaments saw further progress and African and Asian sides created several stand-out performances, in my own lifetime I can think of Cameroon in 1990, Nigeria in 1994, South Korea in 2002, Ghana in 2010 as campaigns from African and Asian sides with a special resonance. South Korea got as far as the semi-finals in 2002, which helps show that a regular high standard of competition can indeed help develop football performance of a nation and indeed a Continent.

Due to a number of factors, historic, colonial and industrial among them, European nations developed a football culture, and crucially professionalised and formalised the sport early, this gave them a certain advantage that subsequent generations of men like Rous fought to preserve.

If a World Cup is to be worthy of it’s name it should of course be about crowning the greatest national side on the planet but it should also be a way to celebrate and grow the game globally. That means competitive football for teams from all corners of the world. Representation is important, younger generations seeing their nation compete, even if and when they lose have something to aspire to. Ireland enjoyed a participation boom in football after Euro 88 and Italia 90 which helped embed the sport in areas which previously might have been a cold house for the Association game. It’s also worth noting that Ireland were dismissed and even derided as England’s “B” team by sections of the football media at both tournaments. No doubt if Twitter had existed users would have bemoaned our qualification for a World Cup ahead of the likes of France or Portugal?

And finally the true mark of a great team, one who deserves to lift the World Cup is that they win games, African and Asian teams who participate this year won their qualification matches, often going through arduous groups and play-offs to get to the World Cup. Saudi Arabia finished higher than Australia, who beat Honduras in a play-off to qualify. Honduras in turn finished higher than the USA in qualifying, though you won’t hear many US pundits mention that.

If people want to see Italy or the Netherlands at the World Cup that’s understandable, but those teams also need to, you know, win matches to get there.