Moral victories of little interest for Ziu

Moral victories are running low on appeal for Ireland’s Jess Ziu after the Republic of Ireland suffered another frustrating night in their Euro 2025 qualification campaign.

It’s now four games played, four losses and no goals scored, but on Tuesday in Stockholm against Sweden they came so close to a highly credible point only to be undone by Magdalena Eriksson’s close-range finish with six minutes remaining.

Ziu was named Ireland’s player of the match at the Friends Arena, just as she had been in their friendly loss to Wales in Tallaght back in February, and the West Ham midfielder is hoping that any future individual awards are presented alongside the more important matter of a team victory.

“Gutting to concede a set-piece because that’s probably our main strength,” Ziu told RTÉ Sport.

“Obviously personally I’m proud to get player of the match; it’s the second player of the match I’ve got in two defeats and I don’t want to be receiving it through a defeat, I want to get a win and then I’ll be happier.

“It’s gutting, it’s heartbreaking.”

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The 21-year-old said she understands why there may be criticism levelled at the side given the run of losses, but said that the margin of errors are so fine at that top level – and not insurmountable.

“I think a lot of people are getting on our back, which is fair because we’re losing but we are with the best teams in the world now, we’re not playing against ranked 30th and onwards, we’re with the best of the best.

“I do think we can compete with the likes of these teams. We’ll go in July now and put it in against France and England.”

“It’s those little moments I think that makes a difference between us and the best in the world and hopefully we can come back in the July camp and get three points from England and France,” she added.

Leanne Kiernan sounded a similar note after the defeat.

“For sure it was a tough battle, we knew going into it – listen we’re playing some of the best teams in the world.

“I felt that the girls should be proud of themselves because we put in a good performance and just proved that we can stick with teams like that.

“It just unfortunately didn’t go our way today but there will always be another day.”

Kiernan’s speed caused the Swedish defense issues down the right flank but the zero on the scoreboard still leaves a sour taste.

“I know I need to be a bit more clinical in my chances but they’ll come again.”

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