GIVEN IRELAND’S ABSENCE at another major tournament, it falls to Shayne Murphy to take the title as The Only Irishman Involved in Euro 2024.
Murphy is a sports scientist and performance coach, and is part of the Scotland staff at this year’s tournament having also been involved in their set-up at Euro 2020.
“Unfortunately”, is Murphy’s response to the dearth of Irish involvement at this summer’s jamboree.
Scotland kick off the tournament against Germany next Friday night, and then face Switzerland and Hungary in Group A, aiming to qualify for the knockout rounds of a major tournament for the very first time. Their sprint through qualification augurs well: five wins in their first six games sealed their spot in Germany, which included a 2-0 victory at home to Spain and a stunning comeback away to Norway. Trailing to Erling Haaland’s penalty, Scotland scored twice in the final three minutes to take a giant stride to Germany.
“That epitomised Scotland”, says Murphy of that turnaround in Oslo. “Fighting for each other, and to the end.”
Murphy has showed a similar kind of tenacity in his own career. Born in Rathcormac in Cork, he grew up on a typically varied diet of sports but eventually narrowed on football, the love of which was instilled by his family. (His cousin, Stephen O’Flynn, earned Irish U17 recognition and had a long career in the League of Ireland.)
He played 18s for Cork City and represented UL in the Collingwood Cup but found that was ceiling. Determined to plot an alternative route to professional football, he alighted on sports science, graduating with a first-class honours degree from UL.
It was during his studies he pushed at every door he could find. “I did a Roy Keane”, says Murphy.
At Cobh Ramblers, Keane wrote to all of England’s biggest clubs requesting a trial, and Murphy did the same. He has kept the list of clubs to whom he wrote: 72 of them in all, with only two replying. Everton politely said no, but Cardiff City said yes. Murphy did an eight-month placement at Cardiff while he was completing his studies, from where he moved to Blackburn. He then moved to Liverpool before joining Manchester City in 2013.
At City, Murphy worked first with the academy and then the clubs’ U21s, gaining experience with the first-team during a pre-season tour. He is no longer employed solely by the club: he now runs his own business, SDM Performance, but continues to do consultancy group for City Football Group, the global multi-club network which has City at its apex.
Murphy’s primary focus is now on City’s loanees, who are serviced by a wide, multi-disciplinary team of specialists – of which Murphy is one – who target the elements of a player’s game that needs most attention at that specific time.
“I am the sports science and performance end”, he says, “then you have physios, technical staff, analysts, and psychologists, all working together. We pick several players and discuss them from a holistic point of view. Whichever player is in more need of something, that person [from the multi-disciplinary team] becomes more involved with the player.
“If a player is injured, for example, he will get more attention from me and the physio. But it may be a long-term injury, and he will get more attention from the psychologist.”
The astonishing success rate of City’s academy can be judged by Murphy’s reeling off a list of some of the players with which he has worked: Cole Palmer, young player of the Premier League season with Chelsea; Jeremie Frimpong, a double winner this season with Bayer Leverkusen; Jadon Sancho and Felix Nmecha, Champions League finalists with Borussia Dortmund; Brahim Diaz, a Champions League winner with Real Madrid; and, of course, the stand-out player of City’s latest title triumph, Phil Foden.
“I am so fortunate to have had that opportunity to help him along the journey and shape him in some way”, Murphy says of Foden, with whom he worked from U12 level.
“Phil would have made it regardless: he’d have made it if you cut off his right arm, he’s that talented a kid.”
The biggest challenge with Foden’s development from a sports science point of view was to ensure he didn’t play too much football, especially during his growth spurt as an U14 player. Given Foden’s quality, he was in-demand at several different age-grades within City’s academy.
“It was making sure he wasn’t experiencing overload too early, which would cause problems in the long term”, says Murphy. “And to make sure he had time away from football, too. With Phil, everything was with a ball. He loved football: I’ve never seen anyone love football as much as he did. He was like a dog with a ball, you couldn’t stop the kid.”
But it fell upon Murphy to try and do that. Foden, like most other boys, went through a sudden growth spurt at the age of 13, during which his legs got longer. During this period of growth, Foden was shielded from playing back-to-back games and his number of games at higher age-grades were curtailed. “We had to make sure he was getting the physical stimulus he needed without killing him because good talent can be a victim of success: you can play too often or go up too often. It was making sure he had enough football, but not too football.”
Having done some work with Wales’ underage squads, Murphy joined the Scottish squad four years ago, in advance of the delayed, pan-continent Euros, and has been working with them since.
“A big part of our role is to give the manager information to make the best decision he can make”, says Murphy. Hence he is constantly monitoring players’ fitness, accumulated minutes, and GPS scores ahead of international camps, while in camp he works closely with players, managing their workload and deciding whether they need additional work or less.
Preparing for a summer tournament is a different business, however, and Scotland’s preparation is complicated by players’ varying rustiness. Defender Ryan Porteous, for instance, last played for Watford in the Championship on 4 May, whereas the squad’s Old Firm contingent played in the Scottish Cup final fully three weeks later. Murphy’s challenge is to work with each player and tailor their preparation so they all peak at the same time: Friday, 15 June against Germany.
“You have all this variety, all this chaos, from which you are trying to establish some order, to give the manager better information to make decisions”, says Murphy.
“The relationship with players is key. We have to have a relationship with players, and talk to them about what they feel they need. A mistake a younger practitioner makes is putting their process onto a player. It’s much better to work with a player; understand their psyche and what they might need. They might just have finished their season and need a complete break. Some players are animals in the gym and with their conditioning and they don’t stop and they like that. Trying to force and fast-tracking everything is the wrong way to do it.”
This all means that there’s far too much work to do to stand still and enjoy the tournament.
“There’s work to do as well, this is the second Euros I’ve done”, he says. “After the first you think, ‘I wish I enjoyed it more’ but it’s very hard to enjoy anything when there is so much to be done. At what point can you say, ‘Okay, I can relax now?’. In high performance, you are never relaxed. That’s the wrong way to be.
“I am not there as a fan, and there’s a lot of work to do. I am looking forward to the occasion, it is a privilege to be there.”
