SCROLL DOWN THROUGH the column marked ‘club’ in an Ireland squad list these days and one name screams out above the rest.
Amid the Hulls, Norwichs and Wigans there is FC Metalurh Donetsk, Irish football is breaking new ground.
Darren O’Dea is the name attached, but after some initial rash and “emotional” comments about money being the only factor bringing him to Ukraine, the Dubliner approached reporters yesterday like a man without a care in the world.
He’s not only enjoying his football, he’s even speaking a bit of Russian (yes, Russian, not Ukrainian).
‘You can say that again,” he says with a wry smile when it’s suggested that Donetsk isn’t the most cosmopolitan city on the football radar.
“I’ve actually picked up quite a bit of [the language]. It’s a big thing and obviously as a defender you speak a lot on the pitch. I had to get used to certain phrases, which I’ve actually picked up quite quickly.
“As life goes, yeah it’s a barrier, but the thing in the squad is you think you’re the odd one out, but half the squad don’t speak Russian, so you’re just just one of the group.”
Translating, ‘Darren’s ball’ or ‘how is he, ref’ is one thing, but O’Dea jokes that the most difficult adjustment to the move has been his wife’s.
“Football’s football, it’s more my wife that needs to change her life.
“You know football, you go into a club with great lads who play football and enjoy it.”
Though O’Dea’s tone is comical, he’s only able to laugh at the early hurdles to the transfer now that he is looking back.
“It wasn’t something I planned, it happened over a four-week period, but I was certainly settled [in Toronto] and loved the place, but I’ve moved on and I’m happy where I am now.”
His dry wit is again called upon to call his first long trip east “a learning experience”, but his post-game Odyssey from Kansas to Toronto with a stopover in Munich before finally landing in Donetsk with his debut just 48 hours away was too much for either body or mind to handle.
“I traveled halfway around the world and back, signed and to cut a long story short, my body just collapsed. It gave in, I had done too much,” he says.
“I had a medical and I fainted, if you like, during the medical so I had to do it twice. I think they were probably wondering what they had got themselves into.
“I was halfway through a season, so I was very fit, but when I started in the games I felt drained.”
He added: “They’ve been fantastic with me there, just shut me down for a while and did a mini pre-season, if you like, just to get moving again and now I feel great.
“I played 90 minutes at the weekend and I felt as strong as I have in a long time. So I’m back to normal now, but basically it was all too much really.”
‘Massive’
Fully recovered, the 26-year-old is fresh and ready to face Sweden again if called upon – in any position. And he doesn’t miss a beat to welcome Richard Dunne back to the fold when some could view the defensive bedrock as a threat, saying: “We want to qualify for the World Cup and he’s a massive part of it.”
The other colossus who could hold the key to Ireland’s qualification hopes is, of course, Zlatan Ibrahimovic. To stop him, O’Dea says, Sweden must be stopped source:
“I thought we managed him well in the first game. Sometimes you can concentrate too much on one player.
“If you can stop service into him, [stop] him getting the ball in the first place it goes a long way to stopping him. With Man United, everyone talked about Ronaldo and Rooney, but it was Paul Scholes you needed to stop.
“If they don’t have the ball they can’t do much. We’ll try and stop them from the front, not let the ball get near him.”
While O’Dea’s name would be a surprise inclusion in Giovanni Trapattoni’s starting 11, can we at least get used to seeing the name Metalurh Donetsk on the squad list for the long term?
“I said that about Toronto, So I’m not going to comment – I could be gone tomorrow,” the Dubliner jokes before trying to get his serious face back on.
“I do. I’ve signed a three-year contract… but Lord knows.”
