Above: Ireland celebrate their goal. Photo: FAIreland on X
By Alyce Collett
Ireland have gotten their 2025 Nations League campaign off to a positive start, defeating Turkiye 1-0 thanks to a goal from Kyra Carusa.
Despite emerging from the match with the full three points, it was not the most impressive performance from the Irish, with the dominant and ruthless Irish side of past League B campaigns nowhere to be found.
Although the underdog, Turkiye did not make things easy for Ireland from the get go, with plenty of pressure in both attack and defence from the opening passages. In scenes reminiscent of matches in the past against sides like Georgia, it was clear even from the opening minutes that Ireland was really going to have to work hard for any goal they got in this encounter, as Turkiye deployed a low block.
However, Ireland proved they were willing to be patient to achieve their goal, not afraid to work the ball back to defence and reset on a number of occasions.
Denise O’Sullivan and Ruesha Littlejohn were particularly hard workers for Ireland, with the latter not afraid to let several shots on goal rip from distance.
As the half progressed, Ireland continued to pelter the Turkish goal, but just could not get past a well drilled Turkish defencelead by the likes of İlayda Civelek. Ireland’s passing choices were at times questionable, but in full credit to the Turkish defence they did not give the Irish attackers much room to work in.
Finally Ireland managed to get the breakthrough in stoppage time of the first half when Carusa headed the ball over the Turkish keeper and into the back of the net.
This saw Ireland take a 1-0 lead into half time, but there was plenty for both sides to chat about at the main break.
Just like in the first half, Ireland had more of the attacking play early in the second half, but was unable to add to their lead after getting caught wide on the right hand side with very little room to work with on a number of occasions.
Marissa Sheva was someone who really started to become influential on the match in the second half, combining well with the likes of O’Sullivan and Littlejohn to create a lot of energy and potential chances for the home side.
For all the strong defensive work Turkiye was showing, they could not show similar strength in attack, with the likes of Elif Keskin and Melike Pekel regularly outnumbered every time they went into attack.
Turkiye continued to frustrate Ireland in the second half, andwent inches away from getting an equaliser in the stoppage time of the second half.
But in the end the full time scoreline was ultimately the same as the half time one, and although Ireland did emerge victorious, the Girls in Green have plenty to think about and work on ahead of the second match of the window against Slovenia.
Teams: IRELAND (4-2-1-3): Brosnan, McCabe, Campbell, Patten, Mannion, Littlejohn, O’Sullivan, Sheva, Quinn, Carusa, Payne. Substitutes: Moloney, Whitehouse, Stapeleton, Hayes, Connolly, Barrett, Toland, Filis, Larkin, Murphy, Atkinson.
SCORERS: Kyra Carusa 45+3’
TURKIYE (4-2-3-1): Selda, Civelek, Abrahamsson, Hiz, Sakar, Cal, Topcu, Seker, Tukoglu, Keskin, Pekel. SUBSTITUTUES: Goksu, Karagenc, Karatas, Cin, Karabulut, Hancar, Caglar, Ozturk, Arhan, Tag, Icinozbebek, Nur Yaman.
Attendance: 8,071
Referee: Réka Molnar
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