The Republic of Ireland (RoI) missed out on the Women’s World Cup finals tournament in 2019, with a third-place finish in their qualifying group not enough to see them progress. However, fast forward to the 2023 qualifying stages, they currently occupy second place in their group, which would see them into the playoffs and competing for a chance to head down under next year. Whilst there have been many players who have contributed to their positive results, one that they seemingly can’t be without is North Carolina Courage midfielder Denise O’Sullivan, who is their top scorer at present, with four goals to her name.
However, there is more to her game than simply converting chances, and this tactical analysis will look at her movement and overall attacking threat, finding the reasons why she has become such a critical part of her country’s bid to qualify for the finals. The scout report will also note how she can feature in a deeper role when required, as this is the position to which the Courage deemed her to be best-suited last season.
Attacking threat
As she is mostly known for her threat in the final third when with the Republic of Ireland, this is where our analysis of her game will begin. Their style of play under Dutch head coach Vera Pauw relies on players moving around and not remaining in fixed, predetermined positions, and they always need to be alive to gaps in the opposing ranks that they can exploit. Denise O’Sullivan’s creative abilities have therefore helped to ensure that she has a fairly constant place in the RoI’s starting XI.
O’Sullivan was used as a false nine against Slovakia, playing through the middle whilst Heather Payne and Birmingham City Women’s Lucy Quinn took up positions on either side of her. This meant that she was the team’s target player, meaning that she needed to be good at operating in tight spaces and giving her teammates something to aim for. As this image shows, she is looking at Arsenal Women’s Katie McCabe, in the yellow circle, knowing that McCabe will cross the ball in here. She, therefore, looks for the best place to position herself in, and playing in this role is something that she enjoys doing. However, even when in a different starting position, O’Sullivan constantly looks to get between defenders and on the end of balls into the box, ensuring a continuous presence in the goal area.
The impact of this on the team is that they don’t need to cut inside as often as they might normally, with Payne outside the box and behind the ball here, and they can instead focus on playing in the half-spaces or even as traditional wingers, keeping the width and helping to create gaps in the middle.
Whilst the last image showed us how her positioning has been key to her team’s attack, this one demonstrates how her anticipation of play has helped to turn chances into goals. In this situation against Georgia, she again knows that the ball is going to come into the box and is waiting for the right moment to make a run and meet it in the gap ahead of her.
Timing is something that O’Sullivan excels at, and her hat-trick in this game demonstrates how she makes the most of these opportunities. Moving too early here would have allowed the defenders to surround her, whereas going too late would have led to her not connecting with the ball, so O’Sullivan’s ability to anticipate play and judge situations well has led to her becoming a hard player to mark, again increasing her attacking threat.
What has been highlighted so far is O’Sullivan’s awareness in the final third, and that is just as important when she is in a supportive role too. Here, she has come short to receive the ball between the Finland players, helping her team to keep possession in a congested area of the field. Once in possession, she immediately gets her head up and looks for a way into the box, although she also has a teammate signalling to pass along the ground as well.
However, because she has a good attacking instinct, she always wants to deliver the ball into spaces behind defences, and this is one reason that the RoI are the group’s top scorers, with 14 goals seeing them currently ahead of leaders Sweden, who have only netted 11 times.
Movement
As well as posing a threat in and around the goal area, Denise O’Sullivan is also a key part of the Republic of Ireland’s build-up play, helping to keep the ball moving and maintain their forward momentum. This is another reason that the RoI have been so productive in the final third during their qualifying campaign.
In this situation, Lucy Quinn has taken the ball up the pitch and is now looking for a way into the space behind the Georgian defence, with HB Køge striker Kyra Carusa moving to give her an option down the line. However, this is a hard pass to make, as Georgia have come across to narrow down the space. The downside of their defensive run is that a gap has been created further inside the pitch, which O’Sullivan has noticed and now looks to exploit. By running towards Quinn here, she can receive the ball and feed it through the gap, acting as a pivot in the attack and releasing Carusa to run into the space behind with the ball.
When Carusa is on the pitch, she has been tasked with leading the line and occupying the opposing defenders, as is the case here, and that creates gaps that O’Sullivan can position herself in. Therefore, through using the midfielder’s movement and awareness, the RoI have had more freedom to ensure a constant supply of balls into spaces, and O’Sullivan’s 66.7% accuracy of passes to the final third shows how she is a key part of this. Therefore, even when not scoring goals, she carries just as much importance to the way her team plays.
When there isn’t a player ahead of her, O’Sullivan instead runs ahead of the ball and gives her team a way of keeping their attacks alive. Payne has been closed down by the Finnish defenders here, which would ordinarily force her to pass the ball backwards and out of trouble, giving Finland time to get back and set up to keep the RoI away from their goal. However, because of O’Sullivan’s run, Payne can pass through the gap and look to keep momentum on the RoI’s side, preventing this from happening.
On this occasion, Portland Thorns defender Natalia Kuikka gets to the ball before O’Sullivan, but the fact that the midfielder made the run ensured that Kuikka had to react, whereas she might ordinarily have simply allowed the ball to run out for a goal kick. Therefore, O’Sullivan constantly causes problems for opponents, which is why she is such a key player for the RoI to have.
There is no doubt that the two players who have had the biggest influence on the RoI’s success so far are O’Sullivan and captain McCabe, with the former acting as the creative playmaker, whilst the latter takes the ball up the wing and serves as a key passing target when central options are unavailable.
One of McCabe’s key qualities is patience on the ball, holding onto it when needed and waiting for the right moment, and we already know that patience is something O’Sullivan is also good at too. Here, O’Sullivan again makes the run behind, giving the Arsenal player someone to find with her pass, but McCabe doesn’t then hold her position. Instead, she runs inside the pitch and receives the ball back from O’Sullivan, and this rapid movement makes it hard for Finland to defend against them.
We mentioned at the start that the RoI’s tactics rely on players moving around and supporting each other, and McCabe and O’Sullivan have regularly combined through their runs and passes to create opportunities in the final third, with O’Sullivan having an individual passing accuracy of 77% for her country. Therefore, this is another reason why the RoI have posed a constant threat in attack during their qualifying campaign.
Defensive roles
However, whilst the Republic of Ireland rely on her attacking capabilities, North Carolina Courage see Denise O’Sullivan as more of a defensive player, and it is therefore common for her to be in a deeper role during NWSL games.
It is common knowledge that the Courage didn’t have a good run of results as the 2021 campaign reached its conclusion, only securing their place in the playoffs on the final day of the regular season. However, this was not down to a lack of tactical clarity, particularly in their own third, where they had a good setup that aimed to protect the defence and make spaces behind them hard to penetrate. O’Sullivan was the player tasked with sitting in front of the back four and tracking the ball whenever it came near them, closing it down and not allowing the attackers to have the time to create a goalscoring opportunity, and her 63.3% of defensive duels won last season indicate that this was one of her key strengths.
However, there were times when opponents got behind her, like Orlando Pride striker Jodie Taylor has done here. O’Sullivan always remains calm in these situations, again timing her movement well and intercepting the pass, ending the threat posed by the former England international (who has recently joined former Manchester United Women head coach Casey Stoney at expansion team San Diego Wave). O’Sullivan made an average of 5.47 interceptions per game in 2021 for the Courage, and this is perhaps another reason that North Carolina saw her as a good player to have in this area of the field.
When in transition from defence to attack, O’Sullivan’s focus switches from running forward herself to bringing others into the game. This means that she needs to have a good vision and play intelligent passes into forward areas for teammates to run onto. Houston Dash have given her plenty of space to weigh a pass towards the nearside wing on this occasion, allowing left-back Carson Pickett to get up the pitch. However, once she has made this pass, O’Sullivan turns her focus back to protecting the remaining defenders in the event of a counter-offensive from the Dash, showing what her priorities were during matches.
The RoI international did begin to alternate between defensive and attacking midfield roles more as the season progressed, especially after the midseason arrival of Wales midfielder Angharad James. With the former Everton Women and Reading Women midfielder taking up the defensive role, O’Sullivan could feature alongside Jamaica international Havana Solaun or ex-Manchester City Women player Sam Mewis in an attacking role, although this didn’t happen on many occasions.
These defensive qualities have been to the benefit of RoI at times, as O’Sullivan can position herself to limit their opponents’ options when attacking. Here, Slovakia captain Dominika Škorvánková is advancing up the pitch, but is unable to pass the ball into the attacker directly in front of her, because Brighton and Hove Albion Women midfielder Megan Connolly, wearing number six, has blocked this option off. O’Sullivan’s role here has been to track the Montpellier Féminines player, forcing her to pass the ball out towards the wing, as illustrated by the red arrow.
This gives the RoI an advantage, as it is easier for their five-player defensive line to stretch out and prevent the ball from being crossed into the middle once the ball is passed. However, without O’Sullivan here, this would not have been the case, as there would still have been a way for Škorvánkováto to feed the ball around Connolly and into the central attacker.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Denise O’Sullivan has been called a “midfield maestro” for her country by writers and fans, and this tactical analysis has indicated that they are correct in giving her this label. As has been shown, she plays a key role in their attacking play, with her clever movements keeping attacks alive and creating opportunities in the final third, whilst she can also help out defensively when needed.
Some might argue that the reason for the Republic of Ireland looking likely to improve on their 2019 qualifying campaign is that they have a more favourable group this time around (they were beaten to the top two places last time by Norway and the Netherlands). Whilst this is a fair point to make, we also need to remember that every team is capable of being hard to beat, even if they aren’t the best attacking side. As a result, the RoI have done well to be where they are, and individual performances of players like O’Sullivan have been important in helping them to take a big step towards a potential first-ever World Cup finals appearance.
