Goodbye Wes Hoolahan - An Irish player of rare talent who nevertheless left us wondering what might have been

Miguel Delaney: It is perhaps oddly fitting that the main feeling now ‘the Irish Lionel Messi’ has retired from international duty is to imagine what might have been

Wes Hoolahan celebrates his goal against Sweden at Euro 2016 (Getty)

For a rare Irish player that often did things few others could imagine, it is perhaps oddly fitting that the main feeling now Wes Hoolahan has retired is to imagine what might have been.

It does say a lot more than intended when a 35-year-old of recent times who was one of the country’s most fundamentally talented players announces the end of his international career by talking about how he “had two great campaigns”.

Only one of them saw an actual qualification, something that just isn’t enough for an Irish player who was probably only surpassed in talent in the post-Jack Charlton era by Roy Keane, Robbie Keane and Damien Duff. Hoolahan did at least match such long-serving legends in other ways, by becoming Ireland’s best player in one of just six tournaments in their history. He was also one of just 12 to score a goal in a tournament.

From that, at the very least, he’ll always have Paris. Hoolahan’s supremely-taken one-touch goal against Sweden at the Stade de France in Euro 2016 was all the more special because it wasn’t just a small-sized country showing grit as Ireland had done in the past, but one of their players displaying the technique that could have come from some of the best in the world.

He then followed it one of the passes of the tournament, the teasing 84th-minute arching ball that so perfectly set up Robbie Brady against Italy and sent Ireland into the last 16. That it came straight after a bad Hoolahan miss made it all the more impressive. It was a ball of such quality it could easily have come from one of Euro 2016’s more celebrated players, and Paul Pogba would have been proud of it.

These moments still came in a mere 43 caps, the first of them of secured as late as the age of 25.

The fact that the much more limited Glenn Whelan is a year and a half younger than Hoolahan and got 83 caps probably reflects a lot about Irish football, and there is an argument that the playmaker’s entire career represents a case study about a country’s approach to the game and its philosophy.

*That* goal against Sweden (Getty)

Every Irish manager that refused to pick him when available was inherently picking more defensive football, looking to avoid defeat rather than secure victory.

It’s even tempting - if somewhat unfair - to think that Hoolahan’s retirement actually solves a problem for Martin O’Neill given the number of times the Irish boss resisted the many public calls to start him.

That was so often baffling, especially since Hoolahan was one of the few Irish players able to baffle opposition defenders with his mere ability - but not always so.

O’Neill was the manager that allowed Hoolahan to at least have an international legacy, even if it was by then a no-brainer to include him, but it wasn’t a no-brainer to regularly pick him.

O'Neill brought Hoolahan in from the cold (Getty)

The reality was that, one, the Norwich playmaker often physically struggled with more than 90 minutes in one week and, two, that reflected how frustratingly late it was in his career.

When Hoolahan should have been at his peak, around 2009-10, he was playing in League One and in a different position.

He didn’t leave Shelbourne in Ireland until he was 25, and that only to Livingston. Hoolahan doesn’t put this down to any philosophical issues over style of play, but rather his own lifestyle.

Before Euro 2016, he laughed about how he was known for carrying a bit of weight.

“Back then, you didn’t realise what a diet was,” Hoolahan told the Independent at the time. “After a game, it was a burger and chips and a few pints. I just thought that was the norm in the [Irish] League and even when I went to England, diet and nutrition wasn’t there. Now it’s all in place.”

There was also his place in the team.

It really all clicked for Hoolahan around 2009 when he began to more seriously look after himself, and new Norwich City manager Paul Lambert looked at him and realised he was being used wrong.

“He said he didn’t see me as a winger, saw me more as a central midfielder, getting on the ball. That season I got a lot of goals and assists. It worked out that was my best position.”

Hoolahan played 43 times at international level, scoring 3 goals (Getty)

It led to by far the best spell of Hoolahan's career, at by far the best level of his career.

It is also why the only frustration you could really have with his international career is that he missed out on Euro 2012, since he was an established Premier League player by then, and Giovanni Trapattoni was instead bringing Paul Green and Simon Cox ahead of him.

The real frustration should be that it took him so long to get to a level where Irish managers could be fairly blamed for not picking him.

At the same time, there is the argument that it was very delay that meant Hoolahan could properly deliver when he did get there. It is possible that meant all of his best qualities were able to combine at the same time and at the most opportune time, in a way that maybe wouldn’t have been the case had he burst through earlier as a largely livewire teenage winger and maybe burned out more.

By 2014, he still had the legs but also crucially the experience to really complement that level of execution and exacting vision. The pause in his career may well have served that continental-style pause in his game.

It all meant that, for all the frustrations of his international career, he achieved a feat beyond 99% of Irish players in history. He made one of the country’s tournament campaigns his own. He'll always have Paris, but he'll also always have something rarer.

Hoolahan became one of Ireland's best-loved players, and just offered so many inventive moments that make people love the game.