Moral victories of little interest for Jess 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