FAI CUP FINAL 2026 COUNTDOWN: DÉISE DEBRIEF WITH JORDAN NORRIS: Play the game, not the occasion

There’s a fine line between enjoying an occasion and being overwhelmed by it. For Waterford FC, that line might just determine whether Sunday, November 8th goes down as a wonderful day out or one of the greatest days in the club’s history.

It’s been 22 years since the Blues last graced an FAI Cup final. Twenty-two years of promotions, relegations, false dawns, financial uncertainty and more than a few occasions when simply having a football club to support felt like an achievement in itself.

Now, here we are. The Aviva Stadium. Derry City. Ninety minutes, perhaps more, separating Waterford from a piece of silverware that would mean absolutely everything to an entire city and county.

That said, for all the excitement, anticipation and understandable romanticism surrounding the occasion, there’s one thing I hope Graham Coughlan has drilled into his players this week.

Don’t play the occasion. Play the game.

For all the talk of cup final fever, the sea of blue descending on Dublin and the memories waiting to be made, there is a football match to be won. A very difficult one at that.

Last week’s column was about miracles. About a manager who inherited a side seemingly destined for relegation and somehow transformed them into cup finalists and a Premier Division outfit for 2027.

Well, Friday night’s extraordinary 3-2 victory over Shelbourne at Tolka Park provided the final flourish to that remarkable league turnaround. Seventh place. Seventh. From nine points adrift of ninth when Coughlan arrived, to finishing above three other sides. It’s the sort of transformation that would be dismissed as far-fetched if somebody tried to write it into a film script.

At long last, the league table is now settled. The relegation fears have been consigned to history. For the first time in what feels like an eternity, Waterford can approach a game of this magnitude without the burden of worrying about what comes next.

That freedom could be their greatest weapon.

There’s a temptation to look at the FAI Cup Final as the reward for everything this squad has overcome. I understand that sentiment, and there’s certainly merit to it. However, I sincerely hope it isn’t how the players themselves see it.

Getting to a final is an achievement. Winning one is a legacy.

Derry City will hardly be travelling to the capital to make up the numbers either. This is a club that knows exactly what winning this competition feels like. Their 2022 triumph, in front of more than 32,000 spectators, remains a relatively recent reminder of what a cup final victory can do for a football club and its supporters. They’ll desperately want that feeling again.

Any suggestion Waterford simply have to turn up and reproduce the performances of recent weeks would be doing the opposition a considerable disservice. The head-to-head record alone should provide a sobering dose of reality.

Waterford have won just one of their last five meetings with Derry. That’s not a statistic which should inspire fear, but it is one which demands respect.

Then there’s Michael Duffy.

If there’s one name that has caused Blues’ supporters to develop an involuntary nervous twitch over the years, it’s his. Duffy has tormented the Blues often enough that you could almost forgive the travelling support for wanting someone to break him in two early doors.

He’s a wonderful footballer, of course. Intelligent, technically gifted, capable of finding space where none appears to exist and possessing the sort of delivery that can turn a relatively innocuous situation into a goal in the blink of an eye.

Allow him time and space around the final third and you’re asking for trouble. Give him repeated opportunities to deliver in dangerous areas and sooner or later the odds will catch up with you.

Stopping Duffy won’t guarantee Waterford anything. Failing to contain him, however, could make an already difficult assignment considerably harder.

That’s where the tactical discipline which has become such a feature of Coughlan’s tenure will be tested to its limits.

Cup finals have a peculiar habit of rewarding the side which makes fewer mistakes rather than the side which produces the most spectacular football. The opening twenty minutes, in particular, will be fascinating.

There’ll be nerves. There’ll be noise. There’ll be players experiencing a stage they’ve spent their entire careers dreaming about. The temptation to force something, to chase an early moment of glory or to get caught up in the emotion of it all will be enormous.

Waterford cannot afford that.

They need to be brave enough to play, disciplined enough to remain patient and intelligent enough to recognise that the game doesn’t have to be won in the opening exchanges.

Nor should they retreat into themselves.

This is a side containing the league’s two leading goalscorers in Tommy Lonergan and Padraig Amond, with Benny Couto having created more goals than anybody else in the division. There’s genuine attacking quality in this team, and it would be a crying shame to arrive at the biggest game in over two decades only to spend the afternoon worrying exclusively about what Derry might do.

Respect them, absolutely. Fear them, absolutely not.

The Blues have earned the right to believe in their own ability. They’ve beaten good teams, responded to setbacks and discovered a resilience which appeared completely absent earlier in the campaign.

What’s particularly encouraging is that this isn’t a team relying solely on emotion or momentum. There’s substance behind the resurgence. Players know their roles. There’s a willingness to work for one another. When things go wrong, heads no longer drop as they once did.

That matters enormously in a final, because there will almost certainly be periods when Derry are on top. There’ll be spells when Waterford have to defend, when possession is difficult to come by and when the thousands behind the goal are left watching through their fingers.

Those moments don’t necessarily decide a football match. How you respond to them often does.

Coughlan has already demonstrated an extraordinary ability to change the mentality of this group. Now comes perhaps his greatest challenge, which is convincing them that they belong on this stage, not merely because they’ve reached it, but because they’re capable of winning on it.

There’s a difference.

The danger with the whole ‘nothing to lose’ narrative is that it can become an excuse before a ball has even been kicked. Yes, Waterford have already surpassed every reasonable expectation. Yes, the season is an overwhelming success irrespective of Sunday’s result. Yes, the players deserve enormous credit for getting this far.

Yet none of that means defeat should be accepted in advance.

Opportunities like this don’t arrive every year. Ask any Waterford supporter who was there in 2004. Ask those who’ve spent the intervening years wondering when, or indeed if, they’d ever get to experience another one.

22 years is an awfully long time to wait for a second chance.

There will be thousands making the journey up the motorway, generations of families travelling together, children experiencing their first major final and older supporters carrying memories of days gone by.

They should enjoy every second of it. The flags, the songs, the colour, the atmosphere, the sight of Waterford blue filling the stands of the national stadium. These are the days that make following a football club worthwhile.

However, the players have a different responsibility.

Their job isn’t to admire the surroundings, savour the pre-match ceremony or become distracted by the magnitude of the event. Their job is to make sure that when the referee blows his whistle, the occasion becomes secondary to the ninety minutes in front of them.

For all the grandeur of the Aviva, the pitch is still the same shape. The goals are still the same size. The football is still round.

Derry City, for all their quality, history and experience, are still eleven men who can be beaten. I’d be saying the same if we were playing Real Madrid.

I don’t know whether Waterford will win the FAI Cup. Nobody does. Football has a wonderful capacity to make fools of those who speak with certainty, and this season above all others should have taught us that much.

What I do know is that this team has already defied expectations in a manner that scarcely seemed possible six months ago.

They’ve gone from looking beaten before kick-off to looking capable of beating anybody. From a club engulfed in frustration to one united by belief. From staring down the barrel of relegation to standing on the brink of history.

One more performance. That’s all it takes.

Not a miracle. Not divine intervention. Not some extraordinary sequence of events requiring the footballing gods to intervene. Just a proper performance, from a proper team, on the biggest stage of their lives.

Let the supporters enjoy the occasion. Let Derry worry about their own expectations, and let Waterford concentrate on winning the football match.

Getting to the Aviva was a dream in itself.

Leaving it with the FAI Cup coming over the Suir, would be something else entirely.