IRELAND’S men and women’s footballers took part in a ‘first-ever’ joint photo at FAI headquarters on Saturday.
Both teams were in Abbotstown owing to them them each having a fixture on Tuesday.
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The women’s team will be flying to Stockholm in the hope that they can reverse their fortunes from Friday night at the Aviva Stadium.
Meanwhile it will be the men’s team’s turn to line out at the D4 ground as they’ll host Hungary in a friendly.
The FAI capitalised on the pair of squads overlapping at HQ by taking a large scale photo of not only all of the players but also the entire coaching staffs.
It was captioned: “Our team. The first-ever joint team photo between MNT & WNT players and staff.”
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The modern-thinking framing was broadly welcomed by supporters.
Caoimhe commented: “If I could like this more than once I would.”
While David added: “Great to see.”
Lastly, Audrey joked: “Good luck to the WNT in reminding the MNT how to qualify for tournaments again!”
The Girls in Green again found the step up in competition too difficult to cope with on Friday.
They now sit pointless after opening Euro 2025 qualifiers against giants England, France and the World Cup bronze medallists.
And it’s hard to be any more optimistic about how Tuesday evening will go as boss Eileen Gleeson confirmed that Denise O’Sullivan will remain sidelined.
Asked if O’Sullivan and Ruesha Littlejohn would remain out after their 3-0 defeat, the Dubliner responded: “Yeah, mostly. Well, Denise is out Tuesday. We know that.
“We work with the squad we have and we try to use their best attributes.
“Aoife Mannion did very well when she come on. Megan [Campbell] comes on and her throw is always a big favourite with the fans here.
“We try to get as many throw-ins as possible but until we get them we can’t use them but we have to focus on the performance.”
After previously losing 1-0 to France and 2-0 to England, Friday night made it five games in 2024 without scoring goal, with the other games being 0-0 draws with Italy and Wales.
However, they created chances to score in the opening 45 in Sweden, with Lily Agg squeezing a glorious chance wide from an Amber Barrett cutback.
The Donegal forward had two openings of her own later in the half but failed to rekindle the same clinical edge that saw her send Ireland to the Women’s World Cup.
When chances fell the way of the Swedes, they capitalised, with Johanna Rytting Kaneryd opening the scoring on 26 minutes.
The elusive winger hurt the sloppy hosts with a turnover that ended with Fridolina Rolfo curling in the second, before Kaneryd scored the third in the 85th minute.