Oct 14,2024
Republic of Ireland boss Heimir Hallgrimsson has challenged his players to puff out their chests and begin to perform with the kind of belief that befits their status as top international players.
After a stirring but ultimately fruitless second-half display against Greece in Piraeus, Hallgrimsson - not for the first time - earmarked what he sees as low levels of confidence amongst his squad and stressed that, until that issue is addressed, it may be difficult for this Ireland group to turn their prolonged poor run of results around.
"I'm repeating myself but maybe we have too little belief going into games like this. At this level, you need to have your chest forward when you play games, you need to be on the front foot.
"It seems we need moments to get that - the last two games [we needed] to concede to start playing like we know we can. There is belief in this team for sure, I have belief in these guys and I hope that people have seen that this team can be really, really good on their day."
As was the case in Thursday night's come-from-behind victory in Finland, Ireland needed the jolt of an opposition goal to prompt them into playing their better football. Their new manager insists they need to turn a corner in a way that will see them start games on the front foot - rather than waiting until all appears lost.
"It feels like once we concede a goal, the pressure is kind of gone so we start to have more belief in what we are doing," Hallgrimsson said.
"It was the same against Finland. We had half-time to talk after the goal [against Finland], here it happened very early in the second half.
"After the goal we grew into the game. There was more belief in everything that we were doing - passing, playing forward, pressing. We said before the game, we knew there was a wave coming at us. This kind of atmosphere is like that and I thought even though they were better in the first half, we stayed in the game.
"The structure, we held, but they were better than us by far in the first half."
"We saw in the second half, we can do better. We just need to grab that belief in each other, in the team and start the game with the belief we had in the second half. With the intensity, with the pressing, with playing forward, with getting the ball in the box etc - that is our identity.
"We knew the first half would be tough with everything going on, and at half-time we were happy enough at zero-zero. We tweaked some things and we thought okay, we will grow from here. The first goal was kind of a shock, we should do better for sure."
"Both this game and the last game, the guys that came in proved a point. They want to paly, they want to be in the team.
Conceding goals shortly after half-time has been a feature of this Ireland side for some time now. The manager is keenly aware of the issue and claims he and his backroom team are taking measures to address it.
"We are trying every training session to fix these things," Hallgrimsson said. "We are open in the centre of the team, we cannot do that. But okay, 1-0 down, tough game, but we turned it around to our benefit. We got some chances, kept the ball much better, moved the ball much better and had a chance to get at least a point out of this game which would have been a good result.
"Both this game and the last game, the guys that came in proved a point. They want to paly, they want to be in the team.
"A lot of positives to take away from this game but you never want to lose and you never want to lose two-zero."
