It's been a busy old year for Katie McCabe.
She won the player of the season award at Arsenal, captained her country to a historic first appearance at the World Cup, tweeted out an emoji that sent Twitter into meltdown and then received a nomination for the Ballon d'Or. No one could say it's been dull.
McCabe remains the beating heart of this Republic of Ireland team; a swashbuckling presence who routinely lifts the team to a higher level. She had one of her quieter nights during the slender UEFA Nations League win over Hungary on Friday, but there'll be plenty more opportunties for her to shine when the Euro 2025 qualifers begin in the spring.
McCabe briefly allowed herself to reflect on a fruitful 2023 before reiterating her desire to raise the bar again.
"I mean it's no question, it's probably been my favourite year to play in a green shirt," she said.
"I'm sure the girls will agree on that. Representing Ireland at a World Cup will definitely be the standout thing. But we don't want to just look back and be happy with that and be satisfied with that, we want to keep pushing forward.
"We want to make it a common theme where we're pushing and playing against opposition and qualifying for tournaments. As nice as 2023 was, we want more of it and 2024 is going to be massive.
"I personally think it's so exciting. We've got great guidance in Eileen [Gleeson], Emma [Byrne] and Colin [Healy] the whole of the Nations League campaign. As a spectator you can see how we want to play and not just sit back deep, we want to be on the front foot, we want to press, we want to create goalscoring opportunities and score goals and we've shown that over the course of the Nations League campaign."
"It's going turn it up a notch in 2024, so we need to be ready and we'll be prepared for that for sure."
Ireland sealed promotion to League A a month ago when they beat Albania, but they'll head to Windsor Park on Tuesday highly motivated to earn derby bragging rights over Northern Ireland. It looks like that will be interim boss Gleeson's final game at the helm with the FAI preparing to announce Vera Pauw's permament successor before Christmas.
Gleeson will return to her role as director of women's and girls' football having achieved Nations League promotion while soothing a squad weary after Pauw's messy exit and introducing some fresh talent.
"Since Eileen's come in it's been fantastic," added McCabe. "We've got on great, you can see the chemistry we have. I know Eileen a long time. As I said, the results have been fantastic.
"How Eileen, Emma and Colin have implemented how we want to play, we've took to it. It's not my decision, as I said I've really enjoyed working with them but we'll see what happens over the course of the next few weeks.
"I know I'm probably repeating myself, but we aren't the finished article. This is a campaign where of course we wanted to top the group and win but how we've done it... we brought [Freya Healy, 16, and Ellen Dolan, 17] into the squad who have fitted in really, really well this week.
"We're trying to make sure we're pushing the youngsters through as well and keeping the balance with experience and we're winning, so it's a nice place to be right now. But of course, we can't get complacent.
"It's going turn up a notch in 2024, so we need to be ready and we'll be prepared for that for sure."
