Brian Sørensen Confirmed as Republic of Ireland WNT Assistant

Ireland have changed assistant coach again, but at least this one won’t be walking into a room full of strangers.

Brian Sørensen has been confirmed as Carla Ward’s new Republic of Ireland assistant less than three weeks before the World Cup play-off against Kazakhstan. The former Everton Women manager already knows Courtney Brosnan and Heather Payne from his time on Merseyside, while Ward spent several seasons coming up against him in the WSL with Aston Villa.

He replaces Gary Cronin, who left the role in August after less than seven months. Sørensen will work with Ireland for both legs against Kazakhstan and, if they progress, the second-round play-off against Belgium or Poland later in the year.

The appointment itself had been reported on Friday, but Monday’s confirmation fills in some of the detail around why Ward has gone for him at such an important point in the campaign.

Sørensen already knows two of the players particularly well from Everton. Brosnan played under him throughout his time on Merseyside and was voted Everton’s Players’ Player of the Season in 2023/24. Payne also spent two seasons with Sørensen after joining from Florida State in 2023 and was named Young Player of the Season in her first campaign. When Payne left Everton last year, Sørensen spoke about how much she had developed technically and tactically during their time together.

Ward knows him from a different angle. She regularly came up against Sørensen’s Everton while managing Aston Villa and said on Monday that she already knows how he works. With Ireland heading into knockout football almost immediately, bringing in somebody familiar to the manager and parts of the squad makes plenty of sense.

His background goes well beyond the WSL too. Sørensen spent more than a decade coaching in Denmark with IK Skovbakken, Fortuna Hjørring and FC Nordsjælland, winning seven major trophies and taking Fortuna to the quarter-finals of the Women’s Champions League before moving to Everton in 2022.

His time at Everton had two fairly different halves. He inherited a side coming off a 10th-place WSL finish and took them to sixth in his first season, before consecutive eighth-place finishes followed. By the time he departed in February, Everton were ninth after winning three of their opening 14 league games.

He has since returned to Aston Villa as a technical adviser and will combine that job with Ireland.

For Ward, there has already been plenty of change beside her. Alan Mahon started as her assistant when she took charge in January 2025 but stepped away for personal reasons in December. Cronin then came through a recruitment process which attracted more than 200 applicants, took the role in January and was gone by August. Sørensen is therefore Ward’s third assistant in less than two years.

At least the football picture is much clearer.

Ireland finished third in a League A group containing France, the Netherlands and Poland, taking nine points from six games. That left them ninth in UEFA’s overall qualifying rankings, one place below the automatic qualifiers and comfortably ahead of every League B or League C side.

That ninth-place ranking could become very important. The seven highest-ranked winners from the second round qualify directly for the World Cup, while the lowest-ranked winner goes into FIFA’s inter-confederation play-offs. Ireland are the highest-ranked team on their side of the bracket, so if they beat Kazakhstan and then Belgium or Poland, they will qualify directly for Brazil 2027.

First comes Kazakhstan over two legs in October. Get through that and Belgium or Poland will be the final obstacle.

Sørensen arrives with almost no time to settle in, but perhaps less catching up to do than most new assistants would. He knows the manager, he knows some of the players and, more importantly, Ireland already know exactly what is in front of them.

Four matches. One World Cup place.