Chloe Mustaki’s late career surge gives her belief

Few of us know what Zambia may unfurl this evening, though Pauw assures us they will mimic the Nigerian side against whom Ireland close out their maiden World Cup pool stage next month.

“What kind of team are they? Physically very strong, they are fast. We are better organised than they are so it will be a battle between a lot of individual qualities and us making use of our teamwork.”

Dubliner Mustaki knows what it is like to swap chaos for structure; trading a life of job-hopping between the UK and Ireland, not to mention some club-jumping too, before plumping for the life of a full-time professional at the grand, em, old age of 27.

It’s not something she could have conceived of ten years ago but a decade in which her resolve has been tested to its limit, from fighting cancer to multiple battles of wounded knee, has braced her to deal with anything life throws at her.

And now, with promotion to the WSL at Bristol City and a potentially important World Cup role in the offing, the risk has proved more than worth her while even if it may have halved her pay packet.

“It wasn’t particularly a risk,” she avers. “I got my undergrad, my Master’s and my work experience in. I felt the freedom to walk away at that point.

“Coming out of my Leaving Cert ten years ago, it wasn’t realistic for me to jump into a full-time set-up.

“The money wasn’t really there and I just wanted stability. Now I have no regrets.

“It was a different situation for me from some of the girls doing their Leaving Cert now and the world is their oyster.

​“They have so many opportunities but that just wasn’t on the table for me back then.

“You look at Katie McCabe, she was my year and she is a star now, but only such a small percentage of girls realised that potential. There wasn’t room for us all to do it. The timing was just right for me.”

If only her body could agree; cruelly, injury struck once more when a persistent groin strain – ultimately diagnosed as osteitis pubis, a condition rarely seen in the women’s game – sidelined her for five months at the turn of such a momentous year.

Her stunning competitive international debut, playing at left wing-back in Sweden 14 months ago, combined with Bristol’s charge towards the WSL, suddenly halted her career surge. For someone who had to so eloquently explain the fallout from a Celtic Symphony, now she was faced with an agonising Bittersweet Symphony.

“It has been amazing and obviously difficult in its own way. I was injured for the best part of four-five months and when you lose your ‘sole purpose’, it’s hard to deal with that.

“So that has brought its own challenges. You grow and you deal with them and it makes you a bit stronger for the next challenge.

“It’s been a pretty intense 12 months. I walked away from a full-time job, so a lot has happened.

“For me, personally, whatever happens in the next week or so, I can just be happy and proud with what I have achieved in the past 12 months.

“But it has been fantastic. I’ll fight for my place until the last day, of course, but I need to remember the bigger picture – I was out for quite a while. It has been an amazing whirlwind 12 months and that night in Hampden Park, I’ll never forget that.”

Ireland’s qualification has transformed not merely the fortunes and prospects of players like Mustaki, but the aspirations of those who perceive her path of glory as one to emulate or, at the very least, admire.

And not just the girls.

“I felt a massive difference the last couple of months. Even just being in camp, walking to the shop with the girls or getting a coffee, you’d have people beeping, rolling down their window, wishing us good luck.

“We’d never experienced that ever. And I’ve been involved in the Irish team since I was 14 years of age. Even little boys are coming up to get pictures with the girls. We’re not just role models for little girls, we’re role models for little boys as well. That’s been the biggest change that I’ve seen.

​“The whole of Ireland supporting from all age groups and genders. It’s been fantastic. I do expect it to continue to grow.”

She has every intention of maintaining her role, regardless of what this summer brings.

After missing a number of years through a variety of setbacks, she may be a late convert to the professional game but it might help to prolong it.

“It probably depends on how much progress I make in my first few years as a full-time professional,” she concedes, after extending her deal last month.

“Everyone is different. I will just see how the next few years go, how much progress I make.

“Competition is massive now in the women’s game so let’s just see what the next two years bring for me. Hopefully I can keep playing for a good while yet.”

The only competition that occupies her attention now is the scramble for World Cup lift-off.

Her exploits in Sweden are in the rear-view mirror.

“I don’t think it counts for nothing in the sense that I have to take the positives from that, and from the mental perspective, I have to remember I have international experience.

“I need to bring that into my game and just back myself.”