Tom Humphries/LockerRoom: On the face of things, it's a sorry business to have to be trotting off to Basel this week after a long and tiring summer. One expects the autumn season to be mellow and pleasantly devoid of hard labour. Now this unnecessary discombobulation. All this nail biting.
Worse than the trip itself, perhaps, is the prospect of tiresome journalistic controversy. Basel or Basle will be the sight of a major pronunciation war, perhaps the most vicious since some know-all announced that Brondby of Denmark call themselves Bronboo when at home and talking among themselves.
There are cliché shufflers in this city today who cannot say Brondby like you and I have always said it, but must instead make a little production out of pursing their lips around the second syllable and closing their eyes and sensually raising their head just a little as if they were Brigitte Bardot and Bronboo! was the name of some sexy, seal-friendly fragrance they were seducing you with. Essence of Bronboo! For the pseud, in yoo.
Basel or Bahl. It's a battle (or bahel) which must be fought in light of the fact that after two games we appeared to have declined the possibility of qualification. Basel is a prospect we must reconcile ourselves to given the Swiss apparently have decided we are too immature as a nation to be sent to the original venue, Berne, there to play in the enticing Wankdorf Stadium.
They have foregone the T-shirt sales and Colemanballs entries which that journey might have involved and taken us to the Swiss equivalent of Cork. Same size. Just more efficient.
Ironic that this should all end in the home of efficiency and brisk organisation. The game will be the last act of the drama which began when a man walked up to Ray Treacy at an airport and said a word to him which he then repeated and advised Ray to write down on a piece of cardboard hewn from a cigarette box. Ray got home late and fished in his pocket and there it was. The accursed word. Saipan. If Ray had just left his jacket in to be laundered and lost the piece of cardboard the world might be a different place.
Who was that person who gave Ray Treacy the name anyway? Saipan! A remote island known only for massacre, mass suicide, sweatshops and not having a football pitch. Who could have sensed that it might have bad omens for, uhm, a football team? Anyway, we're coming to the end of it all now. This group qualification business has had the scent of Saipan on it from the opening two games onwards. We have lost the guts of a decent team one way or another since then. From Roy Keane to Gary Kelly.
We've learned that we'll never believe another Irish player who dares bore us with the old spiel about how they would walk barefoot across hot coals and broken glass just to sit on the bench for Ireland. They would garrotte their own mothers and feed them to the cat just to be asked to train with the senior team. They would devour their own intestines just to be the water bottle carriers . . . humbug! Steve Staunton, Roy Keane, Mark Kennedy, Alan Kelly, Dean Kiely, Gary Kelly, Denis Irwin. All still playing. All except the first-named could have given more.
We're learning. The words "I just love playing for my country" should henceforth have as much chance of appearing in the same sentence as Roy Keane and Gary Kelly have of playing in the same team. When push comes to shove lots of players don't want to play for Ireland. It's a pity, but I'm with Brian Kerr on this one. You can't mourn forever.
We should be there by now, of course. Qualified. At peace with ourselves but Saipan's ghosts still linger. We're still paying the bill for the debacle of Moscow and the bizarre tactical manoeuvres which preceded Ricardo Cabanas's late goal for the Swiss at Lansdowne.
Whatever happens on Saturday will be the end of all that, though. Play-offs would be a new and self-contained challenge. Failure to qualify would be the end of an odd episode and perhaps the real start of the Kerr era. Qualification would mean such a freaky alignment of the stars.
So, we'll be glad to get this one out of the way whatever happens. There is the sense that when Brian Kerr gets himself a central midfield which aspires to more than artisanship this team will purr. There is a sense, too, that the people who will play in that midfield are on the horizon. Liam Miller and Seán Thornton are the most distinct figures we can make out.
Kerr's stewardship of the side has been admirable in so many ways thus far but he seldom gets enough credit for the things he doesn't do. It would have been a crowd-pleaser to have brought Miller to Switzerland on the basis of the excitement caused by one six-yard box header in European competition. Thornton's shock of blond hair and all-action style would be another useful tool if the manager wanted to put it in neon that the gaff is under new management.
Including either player at this stage would be an abuse, an overload of pressure just to please the crowd, window dressing while emptying the stock room.
Kerr knows what he needs long term and he knows that good young players ain't going anywhere. He knows, too, the Swiss are big and athletic and Basel is no place for young boys. He knows that Damien Duff is in the form of his life and that Robbie Keane isn't far off that blissful state. There's enough to work with there.
Since Mick McCarthy got vaporised, Kerr's principal task has been stilling the molecules in the air. He hasn't spouted vaingloriously about revolution or run around conspicuously putting "his stamp" on the team. He's settled everything, attended to a million tasks at once with that meticulous mind of his and reassured the thoroughbreds it's safe to go back in the stall.
And apart from all that he has kept in his pocket the one weapon that every great manager needs. He knows that when the opposition have been dissected and studied, when the training drills have been absorbed, when the little details have been gotten right, there is one thing left to do. To just send a team out who are willing to die for you but in an organised, effective way.
That's part of the reason why you have to fancy Ireland for next Saturday. It's one of those fixtures that Kerr's digestive system was designed for. A one-off. He's studied the prey, reflected on his own side's weaknesses.
We don't believe in the fairytale that says that every young millionaire who pulls on an Ireland shirt is suddenly filled to the point of tears with the love of this land. We believe, though, in the little guy who can get them into a dressing-room and persuade them that for the next 90 minutes or so their Irishness is life's winning Lotto ticket, that their genius is native and unique and invincible.
It's not an attractive trip this one but the more you think of it the more interesting it becomes. And it's not wholly ironic that the Saipan debacle should leave our system amidst the antiseptic world of the Swiss. Efficiency and passion will be the hallmarks of the Kerr era and that time is just beginning.
Onwards into Bahl.
