SINCE JUNE of last year, Ireland have played Greece on four occasions — the personnel may be different, but familiar patterns keep reappearing.
In each of the matches in question, the Boys in Green conceded two goals while they scored a total of one.
Of course, there have been subtle differences to each of these contests.
You could argue Ireland performed better on Sunday night than they managed on the previous three occasions.
But there is a frustrating sense of deja vu as the team are again forced to reflect on what might have been. Once more, they fell short, committing individual errors and lacking the necessary composure at key moments during the match.
However, Ireland’s biggest problem in Athens last night was the same issue they struggled with in June 2023 and to an extent, in the home matches, albeit the Greeks adopt a cagier approach when they come to Dublin.
On Thursday in Helsinki, Heimir Hallgrímsson was ultimately rewarded for starting with a very attacking lineup.
Yet Greece are far superior to Finland, and the Irish boss might rue making just one change to his starting XI ahead of the game in Athens, with Troy Parrott replacing Finn Azaz behind the striker.
Ireland started last night with just two natural midfielders — Josh Cullen and Jason Knight.
It was a similar story under Stephen Kenny last year when they played with Evan Ferguson and Adam Idah up front and an inexperienced Will Smallbone in an attacking midfield role, leaving Cullen and Jayson Molumby exposed.
They were behind after just 15 minutes and conceded a second in the 49th minute (Greece’s first goal last night came in the 48th), with Nathan Collins’ 27th-minute equaliser proving immaterial.
At home to Greece under Hallgrímsson last month, Ireland conceded the opening goal in the 50th minute before Christos Tzolis ensured the win in the 87th after some all-too-generous Irish defending.
On that occasion, Ireland played a 4-4-1-1, with Alan Browne and Jayson Molumby in central midfield, while Will Smallbone (once again) slotted into the number 10 position.
In each of the fixtures, Ireland started with a relatively attacking lineup.
It felt like a naive system, especially on the trips to Athens. In the two away games, the visitors have been completely overrun in midfield.
Moreover, in the Kenny era, there was a sense that Ireland should be beating Greece, which perhaps partially explains why he opted for such an open team who were deservedly beaten.
But during the Euro 2024 qualifiers, there was some rationale for this line of thought — Ireland were the third-seeded team in the group, and Greece were fourth.
It is now obvious that the Greeks are a better side than their Fifa ranking (48th — 14 places above Ireland) suggests, as their surprise victory over England last Thursday emphasised.
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Yet playing Sunday’s game after three successive Greek defeats, Ireland had no excuses for complacency against Ivan Jovanović’s side.
Opting for just two recognised central midfielders was asking for trouble and seemed like a repeat of Kenny’s ill-advised gamble a little over a year ago.
It was therefore no major surprise that the hosts utterly dominated the first half — at one stage in the opening period, the stats came up on RTÉ: the hosts had completed 213 passes compared to the visitors’ 48.
It seemed inevitable that a tiring Irish outfit would wilt under this pressure and so it proved.
There was then an element of Greece taking their foot off the pedal slightly after going ahead. Still, it was also no coincidence that the Boys in Green vastly improved in the 57th minute, when forward Evan Ferguson was sacrificed for an extra body was put in midfield.
Once senior debutant Jack Taylor was introduced, Ireland began to get a foothold in the game, creating a few chances to equalise.
Perhaps if the Boys in Green had started this way, they could have claimed more from the encounter and surely three in midfield is the way to go against better sides in future.
The essential dilemma is that, against superior opponents, Ireland lack the quality to play a four-man midfield, a style that Hallgrímsson often tends to favour.
Nevertheless, assistant boss John O’Shea and others in the Ireland camp have recently suggested critics are “too derogatory” about the national team.
Yet it is hard to persuasively argue for a more positive outlook when the results have been invariably poor — Thursday’s win was the team’s first competitive victory against a side other than Gibraltar for more than two years.
Maybe the problem is that expectations are too high and this mindset fuels the thinking that Ireland can get away with playing an attacking team in Greece.
Yet during almost every international window, the Boys in Green are hit with a brutal reality check even after an occasional morale-boosting performance or positive result (such as the game in Helsinki).
As has been well documented, lack of academy funding, the FAI’s dire financial situation and the Irish government’s long-time reluctance to devote significant funding towards football are at the core of these recurring problems.
Writing in the Irish Independent this weekend, member of the European Parliament for Ireland South Seán Kelly wrote that Ireland “must invest in League of Ireland academies — it has to be a political priority”.
In response to the piece, League of Ireland Academy Development Manager Will Clarke tweeted: “We will continue to slide down the Fifa rankings without investment, as the impact of Brexit begins to kick in”.
It has gotten to the point where even people within the FAI are openly acknowledging that Irish football is ill-equipped to compete at the highest level and government support is essential to reverse this downward spiral.
Whether it ever happens and how long it would take to bear fruit remains to be seen.
In the meantime, the Irish team needs to embrace its limitations — a more pragmatic five-man midfield in these tough away games is one potential route towards progress in the short term.
