DENISE O’SULLIVAN REMAINS in a fitness race ahead of Ireland’s Euro 2025 qualifier against Sweden at the Aviva Stadium tomorrow [KO 7.30pm, RTÉ 2].
The Cork centurion is a doubt after a knee injury she sustained in club action with North Carolina Courage on 12 May, but Eileen Gleeson would not rule her out at this morning’s pre-match press conference.
The head coach instead said she would make a “late call”.
While O’Sullivan’s absence would be a major blow, Ireland’s other world-class player, Katie McCabe, should be good to go after her post-season trip to Australia with Arsenal.
“Katie is back in, obviously she came in a bit later as we’d said, yes she’s in good form, she’s been sleeping, resting, she trained yesterday,” Gleeson told The 42.
“Denise has been in with us from the start but she’s been on a modified programme so she’s a little bit separate from the group at times so we’re still working towards having them on the field. But yeah Katie has come back, she’s fine, she enjoyed her 90 minutes out there in Melbourne. They’re great for the group, looking positive.”
Asked whether O’Sullivan would be fit to play tomorrow, or if it was more with a view to Tuesday’s return tie in Stockholm, Gleeson continued:
“We’ll have to keep assessing and modifying to make sure she can potentially be available then.
“There’ll be late calls. We always knew she was gonna be on a modified training programme. We’re aware, we knew we would be [waiting], we knew there was an injury before she came in. We’re in the same position we were before we came into the camp with Denise.”
Sweden are without their own Arsenal trio for the double-header. Star striker Stina Blackstenius is out with a hip problem, another forward Lina Hurtig has been a long-term absentee and centre-back Amanda Ilestedt is pregnant. Wolfsburg attacker Rebecka Blomqvist is also sidelined with an ACL injury.
“There’s no getting away from the fact that they’ve lost Blackstenius,” Gleeson said. “But we know the players that potentially replace them will be of similar ilk.
“We won’t be underestimating that if you lose a big striker it’s going to have an impact on Sweden. We keep focusing on ourselves. We would think Sweden will play in a very similar way regardless of what striker they have or don’t have.”
The Dubliner said Ireland had not been focusing on the monumental 1-1 draw with the Olympic silver medallists in Gothenburg in 2022; instead assessing the earlier group defeats to France and England.
“There are points where we feel we were a little bit passive, particularly the first half of English game. It is never the intention to be passive, it is about being structured without the ball and if that has to be deep, you can still be deep and aggressive so we wanted to focus on that part. We feel that the goals we conceded were preventable.
“It is a home game, we want to bring the game to them as well too. As a team, we want to be assertive and aggressive and have much more high quality further up the pitch as well.”
The FAI say almost 30,000 tickets have been sold for tomorrow’s game.
“It’s massive,” Ireland’s Celtic defender Caitlin Hayes added. “I don’t think I could ever say I get used to playing in such a stadium, having the opportunity to play there.
“But definitely having the crowd behind us is something we enjoy and it is always good hearing them when you do something well, and the opposite, when you do something bad, you are also aware of them. It’s good to have them there.”
