Before Wes Hoolahan could walk, he would kick a balloon around his cot. When he took his first steps, a football was rarely far away.
He made his way to school with a ball at his feet, and he reluctantly gave it up for the hours in class before he could play again.
In the Stade de France on Monday evening, when Hoolahan moved onto Seamus Coleman’s cross, it was as if a lifetime’s preparation had gone into the moment when he struck the ball.
There are reasons advanced for Hoolahan’s failure to start more matches in the Premier League, but if some of them have validity, they have never applied to international football where his ability to see a pass or provide the moment of match-turning skill were overlooked for far too long.
On one of the grandest stages in Paris on Monday night, Hoolahan demonstrated what Ireland gain from having him in the side and what has been lost during all the years when he was considered a luxury. As a wise man once said, it’s the bad players who are a luxury.
His goal was the most glorious moment in his Ireland career, but it was in keeping with his influence on the Ireland side since Martin O’Neill trusted him to do what he is so good at, and stopped worrying about the things he can’t do.
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After all, Ireland have enough players who can’t do things, as most of what happened after Hoolahan goal made clear.
Ireland shrunk after they took the lead, displaying signs that the thing that hold them back may be mental as well as technical.
If Ireland have turned draws into moral victories in the past, this was a point which felt like a disappointment given the quality and the opportunities that had come Ireland’s way, particularly in the first half.
After all that went wrong four years ago, Ireland might reflect on how things might have been worse as they retreated and Sweden came into the game, But they had done enough to establish that Sweden were a poor side. It may not reflect well on Ireland that they couldn’t do more to confirm it.
They will still feel confident of qualifying, even if victories may be harder to come by in the remaining games against Belgium and Italy. This was the game Ireland would have been most confident of winning and after 48 minutes when Hoolahan put them ahead, it seemed like the confidence had solid foundations.
On Sunday night, Zlatan Ibrahimovic had said it was a 50-50 game and it was hard to disagree, but as the first half went on, it seemed like Sweden’s mediocrity was more mediocre than Ireland’s mediocrity.
Zlatan didn’t stand out from the crowd. He had scored eight goals in qualification but seven came against Montenegro, Moldova and Liechtenstein and the other was an injury-time consolation when Sweden were losing 4-0 at home to Austria. But then came three goals in two play-off games against Denmark when he reminded people of his threat at this level.
A couple of moments early on showed Zlatan’s skill but then he drifted from the game as Sweden drifted while Ireland dominated.
In the second half, he volleyed wide after coming into the game, before providing the cross which Ciaran Clark – who had spent most of the second half apparently searching for ways to unsettle his own defence – headed into Ireland’s net.
That had been coming since Hoolahan’s goal which, inexplicably, caused Ireland to stop playing almost immediately.
They recovered for a while after Clark’s own goal, but it was never as good as it was in the first half when Hoolahan, Jeff Hendrick and Robbie Brady dominated the game.
Hendrick and Brady started for Ireland when O’Neill made a positive team selection. Hendrick had been one of those players who had failed to impress against Belarus in Cork and he had looked most in danger of losing his place, but he responded with power and aggression in the Stade de France.
All the danger in the first half came from Ireland, who were helped by the nervousness of the Swedes. Hendrick’s first opportunity came when Victor Lindelof felt the physical presence of Wes behind him and booted the ball out for a throw.
Hendrick had a number of dangerous long-range shots, hitting the bar with the most spectacular, but Ireland’s best chance came when John O’Shea couldn’t reach a Clark header following a Brady corner.
Hendrick and Brady forced Sweden back down the left, but those Irish players like James McCarthy and Jon Walters who had struggled with injury were finding it more difficult to make an impression.
Stop that #Wessi #COYBIG #IRLSWE pic.twitter.com/b0BLrim5p4
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) June 13, 2016
As the pressure grew, Ireland’s supporters made their presence felt. They banged their hand on the boards behind the goal and the sound came like rolling thunder, louder and louder as the chances came to Ireland.
But it wasn’t until the second half that Ireland took one of those chances and it was a goal which deserved to deliver victory.
Hoolahan’s goal was the moment of beauty in the game. It was set up from a stunning cross from Coleman who took his time before delivering it, and it was followed by the assurance of Hoolahan’s run as he approached the ball. As O’Neill put it later, “Wes, off balance, hits the ball in with his wrong foot…if there is such a thing.” Nobody who watched him here would think there was such a thing and they’d wonder why a country ignored him for so long.
Hoolahan’s calmness may well have come from a lifetime of hitting half-volleys into the net, and a childhood spent imagining you were doing it on the biggest stage for Ireland, a childhood when the ball never left your feet.
It was a reward for all those days, a reminder of all that Wes can do and why what he can’t do doesn’t really matter.
