Dec 04,2024
A bitterly disappointed Eileen Gleeson would not be drawn on her future in the wake of the Republic of Ireland's gut-wrenching Euro 2025 play-off defeat to Wales.
The visitors booked their ticket to Switzerland next summer with a 2-1 victory (3-2 on aggregate) that devastated the Girls in Green and most of the 25,832 in attendance.
Gleeson's contract with the FAI is now up; it ran until the end of Ireland's involvement in the Euros campaign. That leaves question marks about the association's next move, and what role Gleeson will play - if any - in the 2027 World Cup campaign.
When asked if she expected to sit down with the FAI in the coming days, Gleeson said: "I understand you have an interest in that but I can tell you now, I'm not talking about it tonight, I'm not thinking about it tonight.
"We've got a team that's devastated that we are not going to the Euros and that is really where I’m sitting right now.
"I am not going to get into big development processes here. We have to go again, there is another campaign, there is a World Cup. That's football, you go again, you take the highs, you take the lows, but we always have to go again.
"Women’s football is not standing still globally, it’s not standing still in Ireland. It’s a setback and a major disappointment tonight that we didn’t get that consistent qualification, but we still have to keep moving forward."
Gleeson was critical of how Wales boss Rhian Wilkinson and her backroom staff conducted themselves on the touchline throughout a tense affair. The pumped-up visitors seemed to target Katie McCabe in particular, who was on the receiving end of several robust challenges, responding in kind on a few occasions herself.
"There was a lot of provocation along the sideline from the Welsh bench," Gleeson claimed.
"A lot of shouting at players, aggressive language to our staff.
"It's incidental now, but we manage it on the pitch and you are managing it on the sidelines.
"It's difficult for players in the moment, and there was a lot of high risk and reward associated with this game, but, yeah, it was important for us to keep 11 on the pitch, it was important for us to try and keep Katie calm and not to react, and not to bring anything on herself.
"I didn't see Rhian (at the full-time whistle). She didn’t come near me, I didn’t go near her. I was with my team."
"A team has to win and a team had to lose and there's high emotions but I also think that’s football."
Wilkinson shrugged off Gleeson's remarks and admitted her team were quite simply prepared to do whatever it took to prevail.
"It doesn't matter how we win, whether we had to get into the ring with them and have an old-fashioned dust-up or get balls wide and find the second phase," she responded.
"It doesn’t matter. We had to find a way to win. I have one player with a missing tooth, I have bloody players, I am not very popular with the Irish staff right now.
"But in the end, that is what we saw out there, two teams who gave everything and it was a battle because it means so much to their countries.
"I think there’s always some words occasionally. A team has to win and a team had to lose and there’s high emotions but I also think that’s football.
"Huge credit to Eileen and what she’s done with that team. Huge credit to the Irish team, they left nothing out there tonight.
"Sometimes football is a matter of fate, a matter of a bounce of a ball and that is what it was tonight. The ball bounced or way at a critical moment, and that’s all that was between the two teams."
