{"id":4526,"date":"2025-09-06T23:33:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-06T23:33:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/4526\/"},"modified":"2025-09-06T23:33:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-06T23:33:07","slug":"ireland-not-happy-with-a-point-against-hungary-but-more-positives-than-negatives-says-hallgrimsson-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/4526\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland \u2018not happy with a point\u2019 against Hungary, but \u2018more positives than negatives,\u2019 says Hallgr\u00edmsson \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

How to make sense of a World Cup<\/a> qualifier at the Aviva Stadium that swung from despair to relief and very nearly the purest joy imaginable?<\/p>\n

Hungary and Portugal appeared to have Group F all to themselves ahead of their meeting in Budapest on Tuesday, until this Republic of Ireland<\/a> squad dug as deep as they possibly could, with goals from Evan Ferguson<\/a> and Adam Idah<\/a> salvaging a 2-2 draw from what appeared to be a certain loss at half-time.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are more positives than negatives,\u201d said Ireland manager Heimir Hallgr\u00edmsson<\/a>, speaking as calmly as a man just back from a Sunday morning stroll.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe respect the point. We definitely respect the point. One point for us, but not three points for Hungary.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would have given their goalkeeper man of the match, not ours,\u201d he observed of the official award going to Caoimh\u00edn Kelleher<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Ireland player ratings: Caoimh\u00edn Kelleher recovers well, Evan Ferguson shows his smartsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Hallgr\u00edmsson was clearly disappointed not to win, but that was only obvious at full-time, when he refused to celebrate the great escape.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know how important this game was. Not to [get] three points at home, especially in front of this magnificent crowd, is tough. It was a fantastic atmosphere. We should have got all three points but considering the two early goals by Hungary, we can accept the point.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now comes the psychological inquisition of an Ireland team that has conceded the first goal in eight of their nine competitive outings under the Icelander.<\/p>\n

Now is as good a time as any to note that the FAI denied Hallgr\u00edmsson a sports psychologist, who could make an impact comparable to what Gary Keegan has done for Ireland\u2019s Olympic boxers and the national rugby team, due to budgetary constraints.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Ireland show great character but Hallgr\u00edmsson\u2019s principles weren\u2019t on show in the opening 15 minutesOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is psychologically difficult to come back from 2-0 down at this level, especially against a team like Hungary who are 30 places above us in the Fifa rankings,\u201d Hallgr\u00edmsson continued. <\/p>\n

\u201cI give a lot of credit to the players for that, but we are not happy with a point, that is why I didn\u2019t celebrate. We had 40 crosses and should have done better with all that possession, but we threw everything at them.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the Barnabas Varga goal in the second minute, he added: \u201cIt was just sloppy. Conceding in the second minute does not have much to do with preparation, but we did it against Bulgaria as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of the players are not switched on. Maybe it is nerves, maybe it is the past, but it can be luck as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Hungary manager Marco Rossi criticising German referee Harm Osmers for allowing Ireland\u2019s physical approach in the second-half, Hallgr\u00edmsson turned to deadpan humour.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the referee was pissed [off] from the 15th minute because they were throwing themselves down and wasting time. He gave them a warning. It was absolutely not physical in this game. If VAR looked at it again, there was a lot of fouls in the box when the balls were coming in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rossi was also calmness personified ahead of facing Portugal despite news that Cristiano Ronaldo scored twice in a 5-0 defeat of Armenia in Yerevan.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the first half we played well,\u201d said the Italian. \u201cIn the second we fought like lions.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were not playing against nobody. Ireland are a physical team, they are not easy to play. When they brought that physicality it was complicated for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the straight red card for Roland Sallai for a foul on Dara O\u2019Shea, Rossi was more critical of his player: \u201cI am not happy with [Sallai] and his attitude.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe reacted to a clear foul, because it was a clear foul before the red card, a clear foul by Ireland. Our player reacted in frustration, he pressed the Irish player but he didn\u2019t step on his foot. At least [the referee] could give yellow.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"How to make sense of a World Cup qualifier at the Aviva Stadium that swung from despair to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4527,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4700,61,60,43,1842,4018],"class_list":["post-4526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-heimir-hallgrimsson","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-republic-of-ireland-mnt","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4526\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}