An Irishman's Diary

You can measure your life out in World Cups. In fact, these days, I find it the only reliable measure. Time has become more devalued than the old Italian lira, so that a month now seems to pass in the period once occupied by a week, and the years flash by with the former frequency of seasons. Days are worth nothing.

But the great quadrennial soccer tournament remains hard currency. Reviewing your life in its four-year units gives you a pleasing sense of progress and, as a bonus, the reassurance that your memory still works.

As luck would have it, by an accident of birth, I have no memory of the 1966 World Cup. I accept that it happened - the pictures look convincing - but the event is mercifully lost in the mists of infancy. Thus England's victory has no more reality for me than the other historic calamities one reads about: the Black Death, say, or the demise of Gaelic Ireland.

In an even happier accident, consciousness dawned on me just in time for the great Latin carnival of 1970. Colour television had arrived too, and the combination of Mexican sunshine and Brazilian shirts was liable to blind you after Ireland's black-and-white Sixties. No matter. You could close your eyes and still enjoy the poetry of the greatest football team ever - Jairzinho, Rivelino, Carlos Alberto, "El Rey" Pelé - their names rolling off the commentators' tongues as pleasantly as the tournament's black-and-white spotted ball rolled on grass.

The poetry had changed completely by 1974. You could have cut yourself on the Dutch surnames: Rep, Krol, Rensenbrink and Van der Kerkhov. Also, thanks to German skies, the TV colour had settled down a bit. In a tactical switch, the Brazilians had stopped being beautiful and were kicking lumps out of their opponents instead. But the tournament was a cool, north European affair, perfectly matching the short rational period between childhood and adolescence.

By contrast, the dramatic paper cascades of the 1978 tournament mirrored the hormonal turmoil involved in being a teenager. The Latin carnival was back, this time starring long-haired, moustachioed Argentines. The home side's confusion, wanting to win for their people without boosting the country's military regime, was nothing compared with the conflict of being a 16-year-old sitting the Leaving Cert in Ireland's gathering gloom. The prevailing hairstyles reflected our economic situation: there would be drastic cut-backs soon. Meanwhile Argentina won the cup, encouraging the generals to go for the double and invade the Falklands.

The Brazilians attempted a romantic come-back in 1982, fielding a player called Socrates and scoring only beautiful goals. Grim reality struck back in the form of Paolo Rossi, who scored a hat-trick, none of it beautiful, to knock them out.

Socrates was philosophical in defeat. But the result only confirmed what you, in the Ireland of the 1980s, already suspected. All hope was dead.

No it wasn't. Four years on, Mexico again, and Argentina triumphed with a team devoid of stars except God and Maradona. Even now, you can't decide which of the goals against England you prefer. The second for its brilliance, or the first for the moral outrage it still provokes among commentators who fail to notice when Michael Owen dives to win a penalty. In any case, Maradona's gravity-defying performance - especially that moment when he wheeled away after scoring against Belgium and you thought he must fall over but, like one of those round-bottomed toys, he didn't - convinced you anything is possible.

Italia 90, and that possible anything almost happened. Did the tournament kick off the Irish boom, or was it investment by successive governments in education? Economists are still divided. Either way, by the time of the 1994 tournament, the Celtic Tiger was roaring.

Caught up in the new mood of risk-taking, I decided Ireland would win their group and I booked a flight to New York to see the first knock-out game, which would be against Bulgaria in New Jersey on the Tuesday.

Unfortunately, Jack Charlton refused to be caught up in the new mood of risk taking, and a nil-nil draw with Norway meant we played Holland in Orlando on Monday, while my plane was over the Atlantic. I was desolate even before the US pilot casually announced that the Dutch had won "two-zero", as if he was updating us about our altitude. My only consolation was that the tournament final, scoreless over two hours, would set back FIFA's plan to sell soccer to Americans by at least a generation.

Then what happened? Oh, yes, the 1998 tournament. That coincided with the birth of my daughter, so memories are distorted by sleep deprivation. I think France won. Yes, it was definitely France, because if it had been a boy we were going to call him Zinedine. Then, somehow, four years passed and the World Cup was on yet again somewhere. Japan or Korea, or was it both? Is that really four years ago? Gosh - where does the time go? Wait a minute: that was the tournament dominated by a row involving one of the Irish players. He was from

Cork. . .Roy something. What was that all about again? It'll come back to me in a minute.