HIS ultimate goal is to bring Ireland to the Nirvana of a World Cup.
For almost a quarter century, there has always been Something In The Way.
And Heimir Hallgrímsson believes he has caught a whiff of something that Smells Like Team Spirit.
Twice, now, in their last four away games, Ireland have come from behind to win.
But, but, we lost 5-0 to England? Nevermind, he was All Apologies afterwards. This side is still In Utero but there are a few pointers that it may soon be In Bloom.
Hallgrímsson said: “As a coach you always feel uncomfortable going behind in games but I think they have shown now, not only in Bulgaria but Finland as well, turning this around.
“I feel that they believe in what they are doing. They believe in the structure, the principles that we are doing.
“We see that and we’ll show them a lot of clips from the last game, where actually what we are talking about, they are doing the exact same on the pitch, and when that comes, a group becomes a team,
“There is an action and there is always a reaction.
“That is when you have a good structure and confidence and believe in your team-mate, ‘I’m going to do this, I believe my team-mate will do that if I do this’. Then a group becomes a team.
“They need to come here, the Bulgarians, and attack us and be on the front foot and take risks. We know they might succeed, that’s international football.
“If you are two steps from your right position, you get punished at this level. That’s how this game is.
“I think we are improving in certain areas, and we are focusing more on some things than others. I think we are improving.
“I smell there is a little change coming. Now everyone is wanting to play and pushing for their place in the team. That’s a good sign, a really good sign, we have a really healthy competition.”
It is to be hoped that Hallgrímsson’s nostrils are not deceiving him as Ireland bid to record back-to-back competitive wins for the first time in six years, the first two games of Mick McCarthy’s second spell in charge, away to Gibraltar and home to Georgia.
So, although not necessary to ensure Ireland avoid relegation in the Nations League, Hallgrímsson recognises the importance of doing it if possible.
He said: “We know that a draw will get us through this two-legged encounter, but we want to win the game and continue to develop.
“We want to go at them at home and show character and positivity, on the front foot.
“That was the game plan we had away, it changed a little bit in the second half but we will continue with being positive and trying to win the game, for sure.
“We are not going there to keep the 0-0. We want to score. Again, confidence is key to what we are trying to do. This is the kind of opponent where we can go high on the pitch.
“I think they will come higher. They will press us higher, probably man-marking, in our build-up etc so there will be other spaces that open in Aviva than the spaces we used in Bulgaria.
“So we just need to be aware of what they do and that we have a solution to what they throw at us.
“We try to play the game in our head and select the team that is best for Ireland in that game and then again, we might presume something different and the players need to react on the pitch.”
He suggested that changes would be kept to a minimum, to reward those who had performed well in Plovdiv as he seeks a repeat performance.
“A lot of them deserve another chance. But we are also using that, like it has been said here, to look ahead for our campaign. I think it’s best to stay in League B.
“We’re not going to take any chances. If we can show the same performance I think that’s a good thing.”
That is because, having been initially critical of the second-half display, it was, on his second viewing, more to his liking.
He said: “Me as a coach, I’ve always been a little bit too emotional, it’s why I don’t like to talk to players after games, I like to analyse the game before I speak.
“It was probably emotion a little bit there. When I watched the game on TV, even though we gave them a little bit more of possession, there was never any danger at all that they would create something.
“That was what I was saying, about the principles and what we do when we don’t have possession, we absolutely controlled the game even though they had possession.
“And that is something, once we go to finals whenever that will be, hopefully next summer.
“We need to be perfect in these areas because sometimes against good opponents you don’t have the ball and you can do nothing about it.
“You need to be compact and solid. And that is what we did against Bulgaria, we gave them a little bit of the initiative, we dropped a little bit deeper on the pitch but still we did that part really well.
“After looking again after the game, it was not like it affected our chances of winning it, we had some really good opportunities in counter attacks.
“We should have done better in those, just a different way of playing.”
CAPTAIN FANTASTIC
And he praised captain Nathan Collins’s response after being spoken to at half-time about losing possession in dangerous areas.
He said: “I thought at half-time we just addressed that. That was at the end of the first half, two or three occasions we were overplaying in our own box.
“And just as the pitch was, we thought that was not really sensible so we just talked about that and it didn’t happen in the second half.”
Hallgrímsson believes playing the same opponents so quickly afterwards allows Ireland to spend more time trying to work on their own game and he is keen to see further improvement in their attacking play.
He said: “It’s always the part of the game that takes longer to develop, because it is a different way of playing against different opponents so but I thought in the last game, the gameplan really worked.
“The goals were a magnificent example of what we wanted to do and the players bought into that. As we speak, they are showing all the players the attacking clips from that game.
“That’s something with players playing more together, that the attacking game will always improve, but it needs time. It’s being consistent in what we want, so the basics.
“That game at least was really good in that sense and we will always improve little by little, but slower than the defensive one for sure.”
