Eileen Gleeson ahead of EURO2025 play-off second leg: ‘We’ve said we want to be ruthless with this game’

Eileen Gleeson

Eileen Gleeson Credit: Conor Ryan (ETPhotos)

Macdara Ferris reports from Tallaght Stadium

The sold up signs have gone up around Tallaght for Tuesday night’s EURO2025 first round play-off second leg against Georgia. While Ireland boss Eileen Gleeson is calling on all fans with tickets to come along and is looking to avoid any complacency from her team who are 6-0 up from Friday’s first leg, she is still expected to ring the changes with her starting XI on Tuesday night.

“It’s so exciting,” said Gleeson about the play-off when speaking on the eve of the match in Tallaght Stadium. The winners will face either Slovakia or Wales for a place in next year's European Championship.

“It’s the second leg of the semi-final of the play-off, we’re at home, it’s a sellout. That has a huge impact on the girls and obviously we want to go out and have a good performance, score goals and really give everybody something to be excited about. 

“There’s a great vibe in the camp, the girls have great energy and they’re really looking forward to the game. We’re really, really asking people, if you did buy a ticket, maybe you bought it a while ago, come out and fill that seat because your support is really felt.

“We will cover every detail. The message has been all around complacency and what that would look like so to not work on something would certainly drip feed a message that we don't need to do it and we won't do that. 

“We’ve said we want to be ruthless with this game. It’s not to take the foot off the gas and say, ‘we’re 6-0 up’. With a strong start we’d be hoping to get some young players or less experienced players into a nice environment where they can feel free to play then.”

It was a slow start to the goalscoring in Georgia on Friday night with Ireland only leading 1-0 at half-time through a Katie McCabe penalty but the girls in green opened up in the second half scoring five more without reply including a couple of excellently taken team goals.

“The first half the speed of play was too slow at times, too many sideways passes or three touches when you needed two or one, or a skip pass when you didn’t need that extra pass.



"We’ve talked about all that. You sometimes get this against very low blocks but we feel we can be certainly better in those moments and create a lot more in the final third.

“Kyra Carusa’s goal was a great goal with the build up from the back. I thought Marissa Sheeva's goal was excellent. That is what we have been focusing on in the training sessions. Build up play, combination play and third player runs, just to open them up because a low block is compact and deep for a reason.”

extratime.com asked Gleeson did she expect Georgia, who lost 11-0 in Tallaght in 2021, to play any differently in the second leg.

“They are 6-0 down so they might throw caution to the wind and chase us so we just have to prepare for that and we did plan for if they go in a high press.

"I think we will see more of the same from Friday. We think set pieces will be a good way of scoring on Tuesday night. We obviously scored from the free kick, penalty, as well and a corner.”

About Macdara Ferris

Macdara Ferris is a contributor since 2007 to Hoops Scene (Shamrock Rovers' match day programme) and is the co-author of two books on Shamrock Rovers - 'Tallaght Time: Shamrock Rovers 2009 to 2012' (with Karl … View Full Profile