From warming the bench, or sometimes not even making the bench, at a struggling Premier League club to going up against possibly the finest midfield in Europe.
It’s a big leap for someone like Jeff Hendrick to make, as he will attempt to do so in Dublin tonight in front of 51,000 fans. Hendrick has been unable to get into the side with an awful Newcastle United this season, no Premier League starts and just two substitute appearances.
A new manager in the shape of Eddie Howe could possibly kick-start a revival for Hendrick at Newcastle but for now, and continuing his revival in the national team, he’ll come from cold storage and go toe-to-toe with Portugal’s sublime midfielders like Bruno Fernandes and João Moutinho, who are Premier League regulars, and Paris St-Germain man Danilo Pereira.
Coach Fernando Santos could pick from a mouth-watering crop to play in a midfield which has the glamour absent in the Ireland midfield.
“They’ve got a few different players who can play in there. It’s going to be tough, they move the ball well and they press well,” says Hendrick (pictured) when asked about the task facing him, though his recent form with Ireland hints at a revival, after a sticky spell which saw him dropped by Ireland for the first time in six years.
“It’s going to be down to us to do the same to them, be comfortable on the ball, make them work when we have it. The flipside is when they have it, we need to be in their faces. To be fair, they’re good players but we’ve got to stop them doing what they’re good at.
“I am enjoying my football, I’ve not been playing too much this season but I have enjoyed every moment and grown in each game.”
The recent clash of the nations in Faro showed two sides to both teams: Ireland strong for long spells but then punished late on by Cristiano Ronaldo’s brilliance, while Portugal were slow learners in that game and can’t afford to have the same sluggish first 45 minutes.
That game is still very much on Hendrick’s mind, though.
“We were hurt after the last game (in Faro), the effort we put in, when you play a team like that you know it’s going to be hard. We had a game-plan and it worked really, really well, up to the 88th minute,” added Hendrick. “We’d kept Cristiano Ronaldo quiet for the whole game, that’s why he’s a top player, to have such a quiet game and score two goals is brilliant for him but that hurt us. We have to try and put out that same level of commitment and hard work, we didn’t do too much wrong out there, we work hard on what we can improve on that performance.”
His recent form in green means he is, once again, undroppable after he was left out in Serbia. Manager Stephen Kenny has talked up Hendrick’s influence while Ronnie Whelan, who knows a thing or two about playing in midfield for Ireland, is also impressed with his revival from a low point.
“I thought Jeff was finished because he wasn’t playing well,” Whelan noted this week. “He seems to have had a resurgence, a bit of form with Ireland. I would look at Jeff and the way he’s playing at the minute, not the way he was playing before. He should be in there, a role model for bringing other kids through.”
Hendrick accepts the decision to drop him – he came on as a second-half sub for the preferred man, Jayson Molumby – and is also enjoying his new-found form, at international level at least.
“It wasn’t my moment to start a game but I had time to reflect and look at my own game,” he says of that game in Serbia.
“I think it’s worked for me now. You’ve seen that in last few games; I think I’ve played well. Maybe that was something I needed. You never know in the moment but I’m enjoying what I’m doing right now and have got to build on that.
“Sometimes you can’t put your finger on it. Why you gained confidence or lost confidence. For me always, I’m always working hard striving to get better. Sometimes you just need something to click. You don’t exactly know what it is but you just roll with it.
“I’m working as hard as ever, I’m just happy that my performances have improved and hopefully I will continue doing that.”