Chiedozie Ogbene: Ireland need to be on front foot to beat Greece
Ireland's Chiedozie Ogbene against England
Cork’s Chiedozie Ogbene says the Republic of Ireland have to be on the ‘front foot’ if they are to have a chance of beating Greece on Tuesday evening in the UEFA Nations League at the Aviva Stadium.
This follows a 2-0 defeat to England in Dublin on Saturday, with the team going down to first half-goals from former Ireland players Declan Rice and Jack Grealish.
It was a gut-wrenching result for the home supporters, and now the team is preparing for a crucial game against a Greece team that hammered Finland last Saturday.
“I’ll be honest with you – international football is very difficult and it doesn’t matter who you play,” Ogbene said.
“It is very difficult to win a game. I don’t want to sit here and tell you that we’re going to win against Greece or we’re going to put out a performance to try and win the game.
"For us to beat Greece, who were previously European champions, it would be naive of me to say that. I do know that we have to go and respect them and be on the front foot and try and win the game on our home field.”
That England team arrived in Dublin looking to bounce back from their defeat to Spain in the Euro 2024 final.
“I don’t want to be disrespectful, these guys lost the Europe final and it was always going to be a difficult game regardless,” Ogbene said.
“We wanted to put out a good performance. As I said, two balls in behind cost us the game. And we were never really able to get a foothold in the game.
"The likes of Greece and Finland, they are the ones you want to battle with and take something away from. Obviously, yes, we want to pick up points against England but we’ll see what happens.
“Against Greece and Finland, we will have to put pressure on ourselves to pick points up.”
A big thing on Saturday was the shape of the team and how it was based around keeping it tight at the back, a style of play brought in by the new manager, Heimir Hallgrímsson, who replaced Stephen Kenny earlier this year.
“Yeah slightly different, tactically the way the manager is, it’s a different,” Ogbene talked about the new coach.
“It’s more of a solid compact shape and maybe we can press from that shape and I think with Stephen [Kenny] we were more aggressive.
“You see the way England play against us, sometimes you sit off, it’s not easy to press all the time so yeah his philosophy is quite different but we just have to fine tune it and let the players adapt because I know some players in their clubs play front foot and some players sit back so we all kind of have to be in tune to maximise what the manager wants us to do.”
The big talking point after the game was Rice, and how the midfielder chose not to celebrate after scoring the opening goal.
This is because of the former Republic of Ireland international’s roots, which go back to Douglas in Cork.
Rice even mentioned this when speaking to the media after the game in the Aviva Stadium.
“Obviously, my Nan and Granddad on my Dad’s side of the family are Irish and they’ve passed away so I think to have celebrated would have been really disrespectful,” he said.
“With them not being here anymore and them being my dad’s parents. I obviously had such an amazing time playing for Ireland.
"I was in the first team and around the U21s. I have great memories. I don’t have a bad word to say to be honest with you. I have great memories.”
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