One of John Giles' lasting influences upon Irish football was to wrestle the power of team selection away from a panel of FAI suits and place it into the hands of the Irish manager. Martin O'Neill will exercise that right tonight, and in doing so, will become just the fourth Irish manager to select a squad for a major tournament. The squad will be announced after tonight's game against Belarus, which is cutting it mightily fine to UEFA's 11pm deadline.
In that spirit, we have decided to look back at some of the dramas and the winners and losers of previous Irish squad announcements, a day which has provided myriad talking points in the past...
Jack Charlton
Euro '88
There was very little equivocation with Charlton. Unlike his successors, Charlton had his 20-man squad for Euro '88 submitted weeks ahead of schedule. The most contentious call was probably the omission of Liam Brady, but an injury along with the fact he was suspended having been sent off in a previous game against Bulgaria, made Charlton's decision more straightforward.
Steve Staunton had been training with the squad for Euro '88, but ultimately did not make the squad, forced to wait until Italia '90. Staunton was extremely disappointed to miss out on the tournament, so to soften the blow, Charlton lent a 19-year-old Staunton his car for the duration of the tournament.
Italia '90
A disillusioned Brady retired from international football when he was substituted at half-time by Charlton in a game against Germany in 1989:
The most controversial call ahead of Ireland's maiden World Cup was Gary Waddock's late exclusion. Waddock was included in Charlton's provisional squad, but was dramatically replaced at the eleventh hour by the unheralded Alan McLoughlin. McLoughlin was at Swindon at the time, and had yet to pick up a senior cap for Ireland. On the eve of the playoff final, McLoughlin received a call from Maurice Setters to join up with the Irish squad after the game, despite the fact his name did not appear among the provisional squad.
As McLoughlin was called up, Gary Waddock was taken to one side during training and told by management that he would play no part in the World Cup. To accentuate the absurd cruelty of Charlton's change of mind, the taxi that took McLoughlin to the Irish camp also ferried a distraught Waddock home. Waddock left the camp having accrued 21 caps; McLoughlin arrived with none.
McLoughlin was a substitute against England and Egypt, and went on to collect 42 international caps. Gary Waddock never played for Ireland again.
Roles were reversed in 2014, however, as McLoughlin was replaced asPortsmouth's assistant manager by, you guessed it, Gary Waddock.
USA '94
There were very few surprises in this squad. A cruciate knee injury robbed Niall Quinn of the opportunity to play, so Charlton picked a youthful side, featuring Jason McAteer and Gary Kelly.
Mick McCarthy
World Cup 2002
You don't need to be reminded of what happened the day before Ireland were scheduled to submit their final squad for the World Cup in Japan and South Korea. There was a hidden cost to Saipan, however, in the form of Colin Healy, as profiled by Soccer-Ireland.com. Keane and McCarthy fell out the night before Ireland had to submit their final squads, but there remained confusion as to whether Keane would, in fact, leave the squad.
Believing Keane would not travel to the tournament, McCarthy called Cork's Colin Healy to place him on standby. McCarthy recalls in his World Cup diary that he did not tell Healy his reasoning down a dodgy phone line:
He gets the drift, something has happened and he should be ready to come out to Japan and join the World Cup squad.
Keane then reversed his decision following a late-night conversation with Mick Byrne, only to once again change his mind the following morning, once again determined to go home. By this stage, however, the FAI had faxed a squad featuring Keane to FIFA, meaning it was too late to include Healy. It was reported afterwards that McCarthy invited Healy to join the squad at the tournament anyway, but Healy turned down the opportunity, as there was no chance he was going to play.
There was a late addition to the squad: Steven Reid cut short a holiday in Barbados to join the squad. It was a worthwhile decision: Reid played against both Cameroon and Germany in the group stages.
Giovanni Trapattoni
Euro 2012
You may, against the orders of your psychiatrist, recall Euro 2012 in Poland and Ukraine. Beforehand, Ireland headed to the sleepy Italian town of Montecatini for what was ostensibly a training camp, but became more of a prodigal return for Giovanni Trapattoni to his homeland; a brave and wise missionary mobbed in the streets as he returned to the land of his birth having spread the good news of the importance of bypassing the midfield to little ol' Ireland.
Trapattoni's Irish reign was deeply rooted in chaos, and the submission of the final squad to UEFA was no less anarchic. Just 30 minutes ahead of the deadline, right-back Kevin Foley was dropped from the squad with no prior warning. Trap's reasoning was that he wanted more cover at centre-back, and so Foley was replaced by Paul McShane. Foley did not take the news particularly well, quoted afterwards as saying "I just feel betrayed, that’s all I want to say. I said that to the manager. I obviously wasn’t happy. It’s just one of those things. I didn’t shed a tear".
It was an undoubtedly cruel way to cut Foley, but he was perhaps fortunate to be included ahead of Seamus Coleman in the first place.
