When Gary Pallister was getting into the latter stages of his career and increasingly troubled by problems with his back, he often used to take a breather during breaks in play by standing with his hands on his knees, a pained expression on his careworn face.
Nathan Collins, at 23, is too young to remember Pallister doing that, but after 50 minutes here he seemed to produce an unconscious tribute to the sciatica-plagued Manchester United man.
The ball was still in play at the time, but Collins seemed to reckon his position at the edge of the Ireland box was good enough for the time being, and assumed the Pallister stance. Meanwhile, Greece’s striker Fotis Ioannidis – scorer of two goals in their last match against Finland – was drifting away from Collins, 25 yards from goal.
Just as Anastasios Bakasetas played the ball in from the right to Ioannidis, Collins pointed at the striker as though indicating “someone might want to pick that guy up”. Ioannidis turned and seemed almost surprised to see that he had so much space 25 yards from goal. Even more surprising – the Irish defenders, rather than charging him down, were stepping back. Too late, Dara O’Shea finally made a move to close him down, but the Greek forward quickly shifted the ball to his left and casually curled it into the top left corner of the net. Caoimhín Kelleher, who had been left hopelessly exposed by his defenders, didn’t even dive.
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So one moment of slackness undid 45 minutes of good work. At half-time, Ireland would have been feeling pretty good about themselves. In the first half they had enjoyed 50 per cent of the possession and had played 268 passes – 63 more than they managed in the whole 90 minutes against England. True, there was a lot less going on in this match, but on balance that was very good news for Ireland.
With the 5′ 7″ Sammie Szmodics playing at centre forward, Ireland didn’t use the long-ball approach they tried against England. The results were occasionally promising
Nil-all at half-time was already a big improvement on the last time Greece were here in October 2023, when Collins was replaced at half-time after misjudging an attempt to play offside and giving Greece an easy chance to make it 2-0 in first-half injury time.
Days of palace intrigue in the build-up had led to a farcical situation on Monday in which John O’Shea had to deny being the real manager at the pre-match press conference.
[ Ireland 0 Greece 2, as it happened: Nations LeagueOpens in new window ]
It may have been just coincidence that Heimir Hallgrímsson spent much of this game at the front of his technical area projecting dominance in various forms – prowling thoughtfully, or screaming for a player to hit a long diagonal, or serenely surveying the game with shoulders back, arms folded, feet planted far apart. Nobody could doubt who the manager was now.
And while Hallgrímsson had said on Saturday that it wasn’t his philosophy to make wholesale changes from one game to another, Ireland’s set-up against Greece was substantially different from the 5-4-1 that sank without trace against England.
Matt Doherty, Adam Idah and the injured Séamus Coleman were replaced by Andrew Omobamidele, Jason Knight and Alan Browne, and the back three or five that Ireland have used for most of the last three years was ditched in favour of a back four.
With the 5′ 7″ Sammie Szmodics playing at centre forward, Ireland didn’t use the long-ball approach they tried against England. The results were occasionally promising.
The highlight was Chiedozie Ogbene’s sensational left-footed volley over Odysseas Vlachodimos which looked like giving Ireland the lead, until the linesman’s flag cut short the celebrations. Ogbene had indeed strayed marginally offside as the ball originally came across, though it was a particularly frustrating goal to see ruled out for that reason.
There was another neat interchange involving Will Smallbone and Ogbene that teed Alan Browne up with a shot from the edge of the box, but the Sunderland man produced the same sort of weak effort that Jayson Molumby had from a similar position three days ago against England.
Half-time and it was so far so good, but then Ioannidis was given the freedom of the park to pick his spot. Hallgrímsson’s response to the goal was to take off Molumby – who seemed upset at being substituted – for Evan Ferguson, and switch to 4-4-2. The change didn’t do Ireland any favours as they lost whatever semblance of control they had had in midfield.
The crowd were in no mood to hear the announcer’s chirpy update that Smallbone was man of the match, and booed. It seemed an indictment of the performance in general
The match was already petering out when Matt Doherty replaced Omobamidele on 75 minutes – to what sounded like boos from the crowd. Twelve minutes later, Doherty was central to the move that resulted in Greece’s second goal.
Browne passed a ball out of play, then got caught by a quick Greek throw-in over his head. The quick-thinking Anastasios Bakasetas lobbed a pass into the Irish half, with left winger Christos Tzolis already on his bike. Doherty had initially followed Tzolis’s run, but then stepped up to play offside – even though Collins was already in a deeper position, playing Tzolis on.
Collins dashed back to try to rescue the situation, but succeeded only in getting embarrassed by Tzolis, who turned him inside out before hammering a low shot past Kelleher.
The crowd were in no mood to hear the announcer’s chirpy update that Smallbone was man of the match, and booed. It seemed an indictment of the performance in general rather than Smallbone in particular. The boos at the final whistle were louder.
Five minutes after full-time, the Euro 2021 theme music was booming out – Bono singing “we are the people we’ve been waiting for!” – to a totally empty stadium. Whatever the theme music is in Nations League C, we’ll be getting to know it soon.
