James Callan, Contributor
International football is back. Love it or hate it, Manchester United and Tottenham fans might be quite happy to have something else to watch for a few days.
For Ireland, attention turns to Pristina on Thursday night as Heimir Hallgrímsson’s side begin their UEFA Nations League campaign away to Kosovo, carrying an eight-game unbeaten run and looking to do something they have never managed in this competition: win their opening game.
There has been so much discussion around the two matches with Israel that you would be forgiven for forgetting Ireland have to play somebody before them. Unfortunately for Hallgrímsson, Kosovo are a little too good to be treated as a formality.
Ireland do arrive with a few problems. Captain Nathan Collins is out, while Jamie McGrath and Harvey Vale have also withdrawn through injury, with St. Mirren man Killian Phillips called in as cover. It leaves Hallgrímsson without one of his most important defenders and a little lighter in midfield before a demanding run of four games in 11 days, beginning in Pristina before meetings with Israel and Austria.
article continues below
The heart of the matter from the ground up…
The more encouraging part of the week is the form of the players who have made it.
Troy Parrott has made a fairly lively start to life at Real Betis. He scored the winner against Real Madrid, followed it with another decisive goal on his Champions League debut against Lille and then created the only goal in a win over Getafe as Betis climbed
towards the top end of La Liga. We know he can decide big games, and Ireland will need some of that across this international window.
Jack Moylan has also forced himself further into the picture after two goals and an assist for Cardiff City at the weekend, while Finn Azaz has started the season well at Southampton.
Jake O’Brien’s return at Everton could prove especially useful with Collins unavailable. After beginning the campaign outside David Moyes’ team, he has worked his way back into competitive action at centre-half and given the Scot a reminder of why he should be there.
Ireland’s eight-match unbeaten run means there is a bit of momentum behind Hallgrímsson’s side, although Kosovo should give us a better idea of where Ireland really are.
They are playing in League B for the first time and came within one game of reaching the 2026 World Cup, finishing ahead of Sweden and Slovenia in qualifying before Türkiye eventually ended their run in the play-off final.
Their biggest threat is fairly obvious. Fenerbahçe’s Vedat Muriqi gives Kosovo a physical reference point through the middle, but Ireland cannot afford to become obsessed with him.
Edon Zhegrova and former Norwich winger Milot Rashica give Kosovo quality and unpredictability in wide areas, while Hoffenheim forward Fisnik Asllani offers another mobile threat around the box.
Muriqi occupies centre-halves, and the danger comes when that creates room for the players around him.
There are problems behind that attack though. Napoli defender and captain Amir Rrahmani is absent after stepping away from the national team amid dissatisfaction with the leadership of the Kosovo Football Federation, while Florent Hadërgjonaj is also unavailable. For a side facing Parrott in his current form, losing your most experienced centre-half is hardly ideal preparation.
Kosovo haven’t taken long to get here either. They only became full UEFA members in 2016, but a decade on they are playing in League B and have already come within one win of reaching a World Cup.
Thursday will be the first senior meeting between the two countries, which makes Pristina a fairly interesting place for Ireland to start the campaign.
Ireland, meanwhile, are still chasing something fairly basic in Nations League terms: a winning start. They have never won the opening game of a campaign in this competition, which feels very on-brand for a national team that has made slow starts something of a habit.
That gives Thursday a little more weight than a standard first game of an international window.
Ireland arrive without their captain, but Parrott, Moylan, Azaz and O’Brien all give Hallgrímsson reasons to be encouraged. Kosovo have problems of their own, but enough quality going forward to punish Ireland if they switch off or spend too long thinking about what comes next.
For all the noise around the matches still to come, Thursday should tell us plenty about Ireland on its own.
James Callan is a Dundalk and Ireland fan and a journalist with a real passion for Irish football. Check out his Substack at https://jamescallan3.substack.com/
As the Premier League breaks for the first time this season, our Merseyside based correspondent Kevin Bannon and editor Cathal Dervan discuss the winners and the losers of the campaign to date - and Spurs! They also chat briefly about the noise around Israel v Ireland and the lack of noise around Kosovo v Ireland.
The full episode is available on site now and you can watch all the previous Let’s Talk Football episodes now on TheSportsHacks.com
or you can listen to all of our podcasts on our Spotify channel
Check our socials (X here or insta here or tiktok here) for all the latest or just to see the World Cup giraffes again!
No noise, just the news & views that matters. The Sports Hacks is a reader supported publication - if you like what you read, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber and sharing our work.