Is keeping Eileen Gleeson a safe and unambitious appointment or ...

By the time she spoke to the media ahead of the Republic of Ireland’s final two Nations League games earlier this month, Eileen Gleeson had long since tired of being asked if she was interested in becoming Vera Pauw’s permanent successor.

“Next question,” she said, refusing, a touch spikily, to respond to any more queries on the matter, having repeatedly ruled herself out of the running since being made interim manager in August after the FAI opted not to renew Pauw’s contract.

All along, she insisted that she wanted to remain in her role as the FAI’s head of women’s and girls’ football, to which she was appointed in January of this year, having described it as her “dream job”.

The first question for the 51-year-old Dubliner, then, when she is unveiled at the Aviva Stadium on Tuesday morning as the new permanent Republic of Ireland manager, her appointment announced on Monday afternoon, might well be: what changed your mind?

And what changed the FAI’s mind, having initially been emphatic that Gleeson would continue as their head of women’s football and wasn’t being considered for the senior job?

Events, dear boy. Or, rather, Nations League results.

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In early October, FAI chief executive Jonathan Hill said the association was talking to 12 people who had an interest in the role, and that they were working towards producing a shortlist of three.

But later that month, by which time Ireland had made it four Nations League wins out of four under Gleeson, sealing promotion to the top tier of the competition with two games to spare, her stock had well and truly risen within the FAI. By then she was firmly in the running, even if she wasn’t admitting it publicly.

“We spoke with candidates from around the world and we are delighted to confirm Eileen as the outstanding candidate following an extensive interview process,” said FAI director of football Marc Canham on Monday. “We were pleased that Eileen decided to join the process in October following an excellent start to the Nations League campaign and discussions around her future.”

“We have seen how effective Eileen can be in the role – not just in the results achieved and the football played, but in creating a positive, inclusive and high performing environment that brings the best out of everyone.”

Eileen Gleeson with FAI director of football Marc Canham. Photograph: Ryan Byrne/Inpho

Canham will appear alongside Gleeson at her unveiling and will, no doubt, be questioned on the calibre of applicants for the job. And while Gleeson was Pauw’s assistant for two years, and was interim manager through that Nations League campaign, this will be her first lead role at international level on a permanent basis.

Is that, he might also be asked, a strong enough CV when there was so much talk – much of it fanciful – about the quality of candidates seeking the role, many of them big hitters in the international game who, so that talk went, could take Ireland to the next level?

And was too much kudos given to the results in the Nations League when the opposition was vastly inferior to what Ireland faced in last summer’s World Cup and will meet in next year’s top tier?

In other words, is this a safe and unambitious appointment – or an obvious and sensible one? After all, the players appeared to enjoy working under Gleeson in the Nations League, and she got the best out of the likes of Katie McCabe and Denise O’Sullivan, giving them the freedom to do their thing, something they didn’t always experience under Pauw.

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There was, as we now know, no little player discontent during the Dutch woman’s spell in charge, but judging by how the squad responded to Gleeson during her interim reign, there appeared to be no apportioning of blame in her direction for whatever ill will existed.

There’ll be a heap more questions for Canham. What will Gleeson’s salary be? Pauw was estimated to be on around €150,000, not much less than a quarter of what the FAI paid Stephen Kenny. Will that gap be narrowed?

And what of Gleeson’s interim backroom team of Colin Healy and Emma Byrne, will they be kept on?

Whatever about all that, one of the biggest figures in the history of the women’s game here has ascended to the big job, Gleeson having been ingrained in Irish football, after, by her own admission, an average enough playing career, since starting her coaching career with Ballymun United back in 2000.

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As manager of Peamount United, she won it all – several times over – with the Dublin club in her near two decades in charge, before moving on to UCD Waves. Pauw chose Gleeson as her assistant on her appointment to the Irish job in 2019 before she left the role to take over as Glasgow City manager. It wasn’t the happiest of spells, the Scottish press reporting player unhappiness with their new boss, Gleeson departing after just 13 months in the job.

A passionate student of the game, who has pursued a PhD on decision-making in football, with an emphasis on the women’s side of it all, you’d have a notion that this, in truth, is her dream job.

After the success of the last couple of years, that dream job will come with no little pressure. The next question will be, can she handle it?

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