Tommy Martin: Hallgrimsson has copped that slagging off our soccer team is best way to fit in

Aside from that happy and glorious period bookended by Gary Mackay’s goal for Scotland against Bulgaria in 1987 and the Harry Ramsden’s Challenge in 1995, negativity and the Irish soccer team have always been bedfellows, a sort of Ross and Rachel of the public mood, having their ups and downs but always destined to be together in the end.

Maybe it was this realisation that got into the Brighton teenager when Marc Guehi of England took a fistful of his shirt and yanked him to the ground at Wembley on Sunday night. Ferguson wasn’t happy with the decision not to award his side a penalty, but it was more the quiet frustration of one who finds another person sitting in the seat they have booked on the train than the sort of performative outrage that can sway officials to at least give it a gander on VAR.

Indeed, the whole evening was a case study in the Republic of Ireland team and its steadfast relationship with negativity. What else can explain why what was building to be one of Ireland’s best performances in years ended up in its worst defeat in over a decade? No team lives better to the motto that every silver lining has a cloud.

Heimir Hallgrimsson has no doubt already digested all of this, each of the six games he has taken charge of oscillating wildly on the negativometer. The manager has adopted a noticeably detached stance in his post-match comments on the team’s various shortcomings, coming across like a mechanic shaking his head ruefully while staring into a hissing engine, before saying he might be able to fix it, but it’s going to cost ya.

Generally praised for not sugar-coating his takes on the Nations League performances, Hallgrimsson has held forth on the team’s hesitancy, their lack of belief, their struggles in possession of the ball, their struggles without possession of the ball, their being Matt Doherty, their inability to press properly, their fragile confidence and their tendency to lose duels and to gift goals to opponents, to name but a few crippling flaws.

It is almost as if, having initially seemed taken aback at the scale of the media apparatus in this country dedicated to grumbling about the Irish football team, he has decided to jump in and join the fun. It can be hard to assimilate into a new culture at the best of times, but Heimir has clearly observed that slagging off the soccer team is a surefire way to fit in.

Of course, all of this only works because the manager is still regarded as being in his early days in the job, the Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares stage where the apoplectic chef is still swearing at hapless line cooks and pointing at under-seasoned soup like it is a crime against humanity, before all the learning and growing happens.

There is a shelf life to this approach, and if Hallgrimsson is still rolling his eyes and shrugging his shoulders come next autumn’s World Cup qualifiers, then the effect will be somewhat diminished. By then he may have followed that familiar road for Ireland managers, where the man diagnosing the problem, himself becomes the problem. As Nietzsche said about a long-ago Republic of Ireland qualifying campaign, if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.

Nor does it help to be a negative nelly when others are doing well, particularly our similarly rain-sodden and historically blaggarded Celtic brethren.

While Scotland’s success in earning a playoff to stay in Nations League A and Northern Ireland’s promotion to League B as group winners validated the surehanded managerial nous of Steve Clarke and Michael O’Neill, Welsh promotion to League A under Craig Bellamy is more relevant to the Irish case.

Bellamy was appointed Wales manager the day before Hallgrimsson took over the Irish job. In contrast to Hallgrimsson, who, for his first two games in charge didn’t appear entirely sure that he was manager at all, Bellamy hit the ground running. No sooner had he been appointed than he declared his intention to have Wales playing high-octane pressing football and fearing no one.

“I don’t want us just to be a good national team,” he declared before this week’s victory over Iceland, “I want us to be one of the top national teams.” All of which could have led to accusations of being the Welsh Stephen Kenny had it all gone pear-shaped, but Bellamy was as good as his word, because Wales will be playing among the top national teams next time the Nations League rolls around.

Mention of Hallgrimsson’s predecessor reminds us that managers are often viewed as the right men for the job precisely because they are the opposite of the last guy in the job. Hallgrimsson has been the anti-Kenny in his first months in charge – pragmatism over ambition, realism over magic realism, tough love over true love.

While the Ireland gig was demonstrably the fulfilment of a lifelong dream for Kenny, Hallgrimsson initially gave the impression that he had come upon it almost by accident. Bellamy talked about getting goosebumps when he thought about being Wales manager. The only thing that would have given Hallgrimsson goosebumps since he took over were the Dublin property prices after he declared his intention to live here.

Perhaps a clinical eye on the Ireland team’s flaws and foibles is just what they needed after Kenny’s more loving gaze and the two wins over Finland are evidence that the manager’s tough talk will eventually breed a winning mentality. For sure, he has spent enough time diagnosing the problems. If he’s not seen to be fixing them come next March, he will find that when everyone is being negative about the Ireland soccer team, they generally mean the manager as well.