‘It's nuts' – Katie McCabe blasts football calendar & complicated qualification system for Euros & World Cups
KATIE McCABE believes the football calendar needs a major overhaul as Ireland face into a Nations League promotion decider against Slovenia at Páirc Uí Chaoimh tonight.
Just ten days ago, the Arsenal stalwart was
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McCabe warned that Friday's performance level against Turkey won't be good enough tonight
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She was named Player of the Match as she led a second-half comeback to clinch a 2-1 win
Since then, she has enjoyed a trophy parade at the Emirates Stadium, a Player of the Match award in
Later this month, Ireland will travel to Colorado and Cincinnati for back-to-back friendlies against world No 1 side USA.
But skipper McCabe, 29, will not be joining them as she takes a well-earned rest.
The squeeze is not just a product of European success.
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Last summer, McCabe's club crammed in a post-season friendly in Australia before she returned home for international duty.
Within weeks of the famous victory over France at the home of Cork GAA, she was off to America for a pre-season tour.
Admitting the situation is far from ideal, McCabe insisted: 'It's the whole calendar. I don't know who's in charge of it but it definitely needs to be looked at.
'What it will create over time, and we've already seen it in recent years, is burnout in players and major injuries.
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'You've got world-class players that will be sitting out tournaments through injuries. We don't want to see that.
"We want the best players in the world playing at tournaments on the biggest stage. I just hope it doesn't cause too much more harm to us as players going forward.
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'Like what we had to do last year, all through the summer, where you're finishing a season and you've to kind of rest but kind of keep fit for the next block of games.
'It's hard mentally and physically, from a periodisation point of view, to do that. So the timing of the fixtures needs to be looked at.'
The Ireland captain is equally bamboozled by the convoluted procedure for World Cup qualification, the leagues and seedings for which will be decided by the final make-up of the current Nations League campaign.
She blasted: 'It's nuts, the set-up. The goals, points, relegation and promotion. All we can concentrate on is winning games and progressing performances game by game.
'I'll let you all do the maths and we focus on winning matches.'
WALES PAIN
The jam-packed schedule made it more difficult for the Irish players to rebound from their Euro 25 play-off defeat to Wales.
That brought an end to Eileen Gleeson's tenure in charge of the team, with Carla Ward taking the helm in January.
McCabe revealed: 'It hurt coming into the next camp. There was so much change, so much noise around the FAI and us as a team.
"Ultimately, it affected me because we didn't get to a tournament.
'I know we're footballers but we're also human, and when you're striving towards something that you crave so much as a team but then don't achieve, it takes its toll on you.
'So that first camp was really difficult. Being around the other girls in the last few months, you get to open up and chat through things, talk about what we could have done better.
'Then there are changes of players. But there comes a time when you have to move past it. Just go, 'OK, that happened. Let's just see how we can improve now going forward'.
'Look, it's going to be difficult with the Euros on this July.
I'll probably turn my telly off. I won't be watching it. It's going to hurt but we have to feel that.
'Keep striving to get better and obviously World Cup 2027 is a big driving force for us.'
SLOVENIA LETDOWN
That first camp back ended in calamity as
As a consequence, Ireland require a four-goal win on Leeside if they are to overhaul the same opponents for League A promotion.
McCabe insists the team must be 'miles better' than in the win in Turkey if they are to achieve that ambition.
But the need for goals and plenty of them does not change the approach much on this occasion.
She said: 'If we don't score the first one, you can forget about the fourth.
'We just have to be fully concentrated on how we're setting up the game- plan and executing it as best as possible.
'For us, we know we can score goals in a lot of different ways.
'But if we want to top this group, we have to be miles better than we were on Friday night, all over the pitch.'
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