There was an interesting moment in the press area after Ireland’s draw with Sweden.
Glenn Whelan has probably left changing rooms for years without so much as a glance in his direction but, on Monday night, the media wanted a piece of him.
The same lad who has been questioned on so many occasions by so many people was being chased for interviews now. People who wouldn’t even have the Stoke player in their team – people like me – suddenly saw the value of having his words in their articles.
Whelan is more consistent in his life than yours truly though so he politely just walked on by without so much as a reaction to the cries of his name. No-one is there for him at his worst time, he’s not there for us at his best.
Seamus Coleman’s assessment of the central midfielder was short and sweet.
“Glenn was brilliant,” he said. “He’s another kind of unsung hero, really. Glenn does a good job for us and I thought he was great again tonight.”
An unsung hero.
It’s hard to just accept that. It’s not that we’re missing something, it’s not that we don’t understand his role, or that he’s been doing this for years. It’s just that, actually, he has never been that good.
Yes, we all know why he’s supposed to be there but, a lot of the time, he’s not even that good at fulfilling those duties either.
On Monday night, he was though. On Monday night, he was actually – nearly – quite brilliant.
Really good analysis of Glenn Whelan's performance last night from @RobRedmond10 https://t.co/DMBpB4cpZ7
— Evan Fanning (@evanfanning) June 14, 2016
But he’s gotten this name now, a reputation that, for the most part, is probably warranted in fairness.
He’s the fall guy in the stands, at home, in the RTÉ studio, in newspapers and online. It doesn’t even matter anymore what he does, his mere presence is enough to pin him up as the scapegoat when Ireland aren’t playing well or when people just stop giving a shit about Ireland.
And, do you know what, that’s alright because you could easily argue that there are better options sitting there for the country to deploy. We beat the world champions, played bloody magnificently, kept a clean sheet and we did that without the defensive midfielder. We did it without the anchor that Whelan is supposed to offer.
.@ConanDoherty sits down with BBC Radio Stoke journalist to get to the bottom of Whelan-gate https://t.co/atsVbkiB6T pic.twitter.com/FY8c3j9iuq
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) November 13, 2015
But come Euro 2016, Martin O’Neill and Roy Keane placed their faith in the number six yet again and he shone in front of 81,000 spectators at the Stade de France.
You try saying it though and you’re ostracized.
You’re not supposed to say Glenn Whelan had a good game. You’re not supposed to say he was important for the team in keeping Zlatan Ibrahimovic quiet or that his interceptions were constant, his touches neat and that his mincing challenge after Sweden’s equaliser lifted the Irish when they really, really needed it.
If you say that, you’re only encouraging it.
Alright, once again, he did nothing ambitious with the ball. Once again, he didn’t actually do anything with the ball and, of course, that’s not something that’s too easy to make peace with considering, a) he’s a centre midfielder and, b) he’s a football player.
There was one stage during the first half he won the ball back but he was the furthest man forward. So, instead of even thinking about what he could do to hang onto the thing and keep it at Irish feet, or, heck, maybe even set someone away, he had no-one around him to pass the buck to so he just lumped it into the Sweden corner, happy to concede possession for a bit of territory. Happy to concede the possession rather than risk making a mistake.
But, Jesus, we’re use to that by now – however sad that reality is – so why are we expecting anything more?
We know what he offers on the ball, it’s safe, it’s tidy, it’s unspectacular. But, off the ball, on Monday night at least, Whelan was running around like a man possessed.
He was sliding into challenges he wasn’t even in the vicinity of, he had a real bite in his teeth and his shoulders were perched up like he was ready for action and he played that way for a full 90 aggressive minutes. He got himself into the right positions, he took Zlatan’s touching of the ball as a personal insult and the interceptions he made, he hung onto and found a team mate to offload to.
It wasn’t fireworks from Whelan, it never is, but it was explosives of some kind.
And it doesn’t matter how much you don’t like him, he’s earned his dues after sweating it out for his country in Paris.
We owe him one for a savage 90 minutes.
We owe him one for all the years of booting him in the stones.
Just one.
