We need your help now
Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.
You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.
If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.
Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
By continuing, you are indicating that you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
AT LONG LAST, the FAI’s painstaking search for a new manager of the men’s international football team is over. Step forward Heimir Hallgrímsson.
Not exactly a household name, Hallgrímsson’s moment in the managerial sun came during his time as joint-coach of the Icelandic national team that defied all odds and reached the quarter-finals of Euro 2016, boasting a shock victory against England in the process.
During that tournament, much was made of Hallgrímsson’s side-hustle as the dentist for his local village – a role he held onto even as he managed the his home country’s national side between 2013 and 2018.
Following the departure of his coaching partner Lars Lagerbäck in the wake of that tournament, Hallgrímsson then guided Iceland to qualification for the 2018 World Cup, where they were eliminated at the group stage. Hallgrímsson resigned in the wake of that tournament as the only manager to have guided the Iceland team to qualification of both the Euros and the World Cup.
Welcome to Ireland Heimir Hallgrímsson 🇮🇪
— Ireland Football ⚽️🇮🇪 (@IrelandFootball) July 10, 2024
Our new Ireland MNT Head Coach 💚 pic.twitter.com/aKZMMOPtyL
Since then, Hallgrímsson plied his trade for three seasons in the Qatar All Stars league as manager of Al Arabi before taking over as manager of the Jamaican men’s national team. Under Hallgrímsson, Jamaica topped their qualifying group for this summer’s Copa America, which is currently underway in the United States.
Hallgrímsson resigned from the Jamaica job two weeks ago following his team’s poor showing at the tournament. Jamaica were eliminated after losing every game in a group that also featured Venezuela, Ecuador and Mexico, finishing with a goal difference of -6.
In a farewell article published in the Jamaica Observer two weeks ago, Hallgrímsson’s time in charge of the Reggae Boyz was described as “less than convincing” but also “fairly respectable,” having racked up a win percentage of over 40% across 26 games. By contrast, Stephen Kenny’s win percentage as Ireland manager was 27.5%.
One notable feature of Hallgrímsson’s time as Jamaica manager was his attempts for bring on board foreign players with Jamaican ancestry, such as the Arsenal squad player Reiss Nelson i.e. the ‘granny rule’ so heavily relied upon by Ireland throughout the years.
Hallgrímsson also showed a willingness to reintroduce Aston Villa attacker Leon Bailey to his squad despite the winger’s public criticisms of poor organisation and a lack professionalism within the Jamaican Football Federation — a drama with at least one very high-profile parallel in Irish football history. There have also been reports that Hallgrímsson’s relationship with some key players has “soured,” which is hardly an alien concept to followers of the Irish football team.
Hallgrímsson comes as a shock announcement, ending the FAI’s search for manager that has been ongoing since Kenny was sacked in November of last year. Many of the names touted throughout the search – including Lee Carsley, Gus Poyet and Willy Sagnol – had begged off the job for one reason or another. Ireland’s last two sets of fixtures have been helmed by former international John O’Shea.
The 57-year-old tooth-puller now faces a baptism of fire, set to take charge of Ireland’s opening Nations League game against England on 7 September.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Well, he’s the manager now. Let’s back him.
@honey badger: the gaffer
@SYaxJ2Ts: Nightmares…
@honey badger: deep breaths
@honey badger: I taught Davy Fitz or mickey Harte were in with shout after stepping down
@honey badger: do not be ludicrous. He is not capable. A cut price option to rip off the Irish fans.
@Sean Money: That’s the spirit, Sean!
@P. V. Aglue: stepping down from an inferior game doesn’t mean diddley squat
@P. V. Aglue: Davey for the Galway job hopefully!
Good luck to him, he did well with Iceland and Jamaica, this is the level we are at lads, time to come down from the clouds
It’s better to get someone in who has something to prove and is hungry rather that another Trapattoni at the end of his career who just wants one more pay day. Give me Heimir any day of the week over someone like Steve Bruce. We need to change how we do things and he has a proven record with a smaller nation.
@marklars81: remember you said that when we get beat .
Trapattoni won games ffs
@sean weir: Trapattoni had a much higher quality of player to work with….
@sean weir: Heimir had a marginally better win % with Iceland than Trappatoni had with us. Hoping for better days ahead.
Some way John OShea was treated
@pat: A strange bunch the FAI are…hope John O Shea isn’t stymied going forward.
Best of luck HH
@pat: Absolutely disgusting Pat. They don’t have an ounce of professionalism.
Never heard of him, John O Shea treated very badly by the FAI. Hope he remembers that if they come crawling back to him later. I’d have given him a chance. He deserved that at least
@John Meade: Best of luck to John O Shea but no one deserves a chance as our national team manager. It is us who deserves the best person that we can get.
@John Meade: maybe o shea deserved a chance, given who we’ve ended up with. But I wasn’t overly impressed with the friendlies tbh
Nearly as long waiting on the new manager as waiting to see a dentist
@denis silver: Let’s just hope watching Ireland is at least a bit more fun than getting a tooth out under his reign.
I’m sure as young guy growing up in the ghettos of Reykajvik it was his ambition to one day coach the Irish men’s national football team, I’m sure it was top of his list of ambitions.
Did he collect the most crisp packets?
Oh, that Heimir Hallgrìmsson. Now I get you.
Best of luck to HH
@joe carton: Hail Hail Heimar
This is the extent of ambition?
Rumour has it it was a competition at super value to return the most lucozade bottles
He used to work as a dentist, so he’ll be used to seeing discomfort and pain on on our faces.
Whilst I hope he is a raging success it still does not take away from the fact that we have appointed someone who is completely unknown to most and has an at best average record.
A good neighbour with an above average record, and it’s up to the team now to make their names known internationally.
Try putting that name into a terrace chant!!
@Tim: Let’s go fucin dental!!
@Tim: How about “The Dentist, the dentist” backed up by 50 bodhrans. Lol
In an unusual move the FAI have appointment Olaf Olafsson as Irish assistant manager. Olaf is a fully qualified Vet.
So he obviously will be looking for Irish Grannies. I take it Home grown talent will be overlooked
Who the…..is this guy
The list of teams he managed is getting worse
It’ll be home from home weather-wise. Velkomin til Írlands!
Worse than the Bally boys them FAI in fairness but Houdini is long gone so all the same who’s in charge. I wish the man all the best and hope I’m proved wrong. On another note, kinda strange seeing Declan Rice singing his heart out for the national anthem tonight but I guess he made his choice.
Use precise geolocation data. Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Store and/or access information on a device. Personalised advertising and content, advertising and content measurement, audience research and services development.
These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems. They are usually only set in response to actions made by you which amount to a request for services, such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in or filling in forms. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not then work.
These cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.
These cookies enable the website to provide enhanced functionality and personalisation. They may be set by us or by third party providers whose services we have added to our pages. If you do not allow these cookies then these services may not function properly.
These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies we will not be able to monitor our performance.
Cookies, device or similar online identifiers (e.g. login-based identifiers, randomly assigned identifiers, network based identifiers) together with other information (e.g. browser type and information, language, screen size, supported technologies etc.) can be stored or read on your device to recognise it each time it connects to an app or to a website, for one or several of the purposes presented here.
Advertising presented to you on this service can be based on limited data, such as the website or app you are using, your non-precise location, your device type or which content you are (or have been) interacting with (for example, to limit the number of times an ad is presented to you).
Information about your activity on this service (such as forms you submit, content you look at) can be stored and combined with other information about you (for example, information from your previous activity on this service and other websites or apps) or similar users. This is then used to build or improve a profile about you (that might include possible interests and personal aspects). Your profile can be used (also later) to present advertising that appears more relevant based on your possible interests by this and other entities.
Advertising presented to you on this service can be based on your advertising profiles, which can reflect your activity on this service or other websites or apps (like the forms you submit, content you look at), possible interests and personal aspects.
Information about your activity on this service (for instance, forms you submit, non-advertising content you look at) can be stored and combined with other information about you (such as your previous activity on this service or other websites or apps) or similar users. This is then used to build or improve a profile about you (which might for example include possible interests and personal aspects). Your profile can be used (also later) to present content that appears more relevant based on your possible interests, such as by adapting the order in which content is shown to you, so that it is even easier for you to find content that matches your interests.
Content presented to you on this service can be based on your content personalisation profiles, which can reflect your activity on this or other services (for instance, the forms you submit, content you look at), possible interests and personal aspects. This can for example be used to adapt the order in which content is shown to you, so that it is even easier for you to find (non-advertising) content that matches your interests.
Information regarding which advertising is presented to you and how you interact with it can be used to determine how well an advert has worked for you or other users and whether the goals of the advertising were reached. For instance, whether you saw an ad, whether you clicked on it, whether it led you to buy a product or visit a website, etc. This is very helpful to understand the relevance of advertising campaigns.
Information regarding which content is presented to you and how you interact with it can be used to determine whether the (non-advertising) content e.g. reached its intended audience and matched your interests. For instance, whether you read an article, watch a video, listen to a podcast or look at a product description, how long you spent on this service and the web pages you visit etc. This is very helpful to understand the relevance of (non-advertising) content that is shown to you.
Reports can be generated based on the combination of data sets (like user profiles, statistics, market research, analytics data) regarding your interactions and those of other users with advertising or (non-advertising) content to identify common characteristics (for instance, to determine which target audiences are more receptive to an ad campaign or to certain contents).
Information about your activity on this service, such as your interaction with ads or content, can be very helpful to improve products and services and to build new products and services based on user interactions, the type of audience, etc. This specific purpose does not include the development or improvement of user profiles and identifiers.
Content presented to you on this service can be based on limited data, such as the website or app you are using, your non-precise location, your device type, or which content you are (or have been) interacting with (for example, to limit the number of times a video or an article is presented to you).
With your acceptance, your precise location (within a radius of less than 500 metres) may be used in support of the purposes explained in this notice.
With your acceptance, certain characteristics specific to your device might be requested and used to distinguish it from other devices (such as the installed fonts or plugins, the resolution of your screen) in support of the purposes explained in this notice.
Your data can be used to monitor for and prevent unusual and possibly fraudulent activity (for example, regarding advertising, ad clicks by bots), and ensure systems and processes work properly and securely. It can also be used to correct any problems you, the publisher or the advertiser may encounter in the delivery of content and ads and in your interaction with them.
Certain information (like an IP address or device capabilities) is used to ensure the technical compatibility of the content or advertising, and to facilitate the transmission of the content or ad to your device.
Information about your activity on this service may be matched and combined with other information relating to you and originating from various sources (for instance your activity on a separate online service, your use of a loyalty card in-store, or your answers to a survey), in support of the purposes explained in this notice.
In support of the purposes explained in this notice, your device might be considered as likely linked to other devices that belong to you or your household (for instance because you are logged in to the same service on both your phone and your computer, or because you may use the same Internet connection on both devices).
Your device might be distinguished from other devices based on information it automatically sends when accessing the Internet (for instance, the IP address of your Internet connection or the type of browser you are using) in support of the purposes exposed in this notice.
The choices you make regarding the purposes and entities listed in this notice are saved and made available to those entities in the form of digital signals (such as a string of characters). This is necessary in order to enable both this service and those entities to respect such choices.
have your say