Suwon. We'll add the name to the list of cities in which our hearts have ceased to beat and then started again with a shudder. Suwon. Gateway to Seoul, stairway to heaven. Suwon. A lank-haired blond called Mendietta scuffed a penalty kick past Shay Given and we heard the soft click of a door closing.

So long.

We came in hope and left with tears, but this morning nothing will have the feel of finality. Ireland lost to Spain last night but did so with courage, which is traditional, and with a little style, which is not. There is no sense of loss.

From Joe Hill to Roy Keane the sentiment would be the same. Don't mourn. Organise. This team has greater things within it. Proud defeats and spirited performances are the sort of baubles they won't be settling for in a few years.

We should have won. We should have scored one penalty more. We should have put any one of a hatful of chances away in extra time. Should have, could have. That's the road to torment, though. We lost against a side comprising many of the best footballers in Europe. We lost having fought our way back from the brink of annihilation. Somewhere in each of our hearts was the fear that it might have been worse.

Instead we went out as we came in, with knuckles white and wind in our hair and the world screaming past. It's been a rollercoaster.

Yesterday's game held out such discreet promise for us that by kick-off every one of us had quietly made Ireland the raging favourites. The Spaniards would be fat and complacent. They would be arthritic at the back and surprised in midfield. Raul scores plenty but only against the minnows of this world. Psst, we said, keep it to yourself: we could win this one.

And then the Spaniards went and scored in the seventh minute and it felt different to all the other minutes we've spent here being one-nil down. For a long while it felt hopeless. We rallied briefly, but from the 24th to the 42nd minute, when Robbie Keane was offside with a good chance, our notebooks recorded not a single Irish chance.

The changes were subtle though. Steve Staunton was eating Raul. Steve Finnan's development into a world-class defender was continuing. Ian Harte, despite the heartbreak that was to follow, was having his best game of the tournament. We rode our luck, too. Spain had 13 offside decisions given against them and at least half-a-dozen were good chances.

From the tournament the good news stories added up in their own small way to about the same weight as the great big bad news story which immediately preceded it. Damien Duff and Robbie Keane were wonders. If Leeds United can find no place for Keane in their starting line-up next season than one expects that they will win every trophy in sight, that's how good they'll have to be.

Duff, too, may have outgrown Blackburn, but one wonders sometimes if he could be bothered leaving the place. Manchester United or Liverpool might be just too much hassle. Last night was his night. Shuttled from position to position, he cut through the Spaniards at will sometimes and his verve and uncoachable cunning took the breath away at times.

If we were to leave the tournament behind this was the way to do it. One-hundred-and-twenty minutes of football and a penalty shoot-out which was in itself stuffed with drama.

Where there were great successes on the field over these past four games, the heart will cry a little for Harte, Kevin Kilbane, David Connolly and Matt Holland, all of whom missed penalties and none of whom looked especially confident about taking them in the first place. Absence of fear isn't bravery though.

What Robbie Keane has running through his veins precludes even the thought of fear. These four knew what it was like to have your nerves twanging like banjo strings, to have every noise amplified and to have the goalie grow huge and the net grow small. And they still stood up. Admiration, not sympathy, is their due.

There will be post-mortems of course. This side deserves to be celebrated, but the last few weeks and last night merits analysis also.

Did we achieve all we should have? Did we get our best side onto the pitch? Did we leave anything behind? Do we have the right to say we have no regrets? Time will lend perspective, and when the emotions of last night have subsided a bigger, clearer picture might emerge. There will be questions, and Mick McCarthy, should he stay, will have his critics suddenly swinging down from the trees.

The price of Mick's loyalty? Was it too much? Probably not. You take the whole package with McCarthy, and the performances he has extracted in getting to the World Cup and surviving in it are based on his personality and his team's knowledge that he will never, never, sell them down the river.

In the aftermath we will all be wise. The decision to stick with Harte through thick and thin was surprising only to those who haven't studied McCarthy. Loyalty, loyalty and loyalty are the first three tenets of his football philosophy and his faith in Harte was steadfast. The player with whom he soldiered through the worst days would play himself out of the slough he found himself in at just the right time. And if he didn't Mick would go down with him.

Perhaps he was right. Harte, at 25, hasn't suddenly become a bad player. Loyalty, call it human decency, meant that we brought Lee Carsley with us when perhaps the momentum was with Colin Healy. In the unforeseen absence of Roy Keane, the gap left behind might better have been filled by a kid with pace and youth on his side, but who knew?

The decision to forgive Mark Kennedy but not Phil Babb? We could have done with an extra left-sided defender, but again hindsight is our luxury.

And Roy Keane? What is left to be said? Fault on both sides. Regret on both sides. Recriminations won't undo anything. Time to move on out of the land of what ifs.

The future belongs to boys who've barely started shaving, it belongs to kids whose names will be writ large on the marquee.

The future? It's Colin Healy and Richie Sadlier and Steve Carr and John O'Shea and Steven Reid, and in a couple of years probably the prodigious Willo Flood of Manchester City. It's Sean Thornton and Thomas Butler. In short, the future looks better than it ever has. And the centre of it will be the team that played last night. To have been in Suwon, to have experienced the good of it, the bad of it and the sheer white heat of it, it was a master's education in football.

The retirement parties were in swing last night. Goodbye to Steve Staunton and Niall Quinn. They grew up together in green jerseys and those of us old enough can remember them as gangly, acned youths who looked vulnerable in the company of hardened pros. They have hardened themselves, but their contribution over the past few weeks has been extraordinary and it didn't end last night with their bows. Their tutorials in how Irish teams conduct themselves will be reprised and passed on by the next generation.

The word is that McCarthy will move on too. If he does, he can look back on a string of games over the past six years in which he got more out of his young sides than any manager could expect. If he takes his leave, he will go with the knowledge denied to most in his craft, that he leaves the team in a far better condition than he found it in.

He used to say two things when he took over six years ago. First, that the Irish job was always going to be more attractive for the person who took over after the person who took over from Jack Charlton. And second, that in becoming manager he risked losing all the affection that the Irish public had stored for him during his years as a player. He has made himself wrong about both things. Taking over from McCarthy now would be a daunting task.

The players are there but their allegiance and their response mechanisms have been tuned to McCarthy. And despite what he thinks in his black moments, when he motivates himself with the thought that the world is against him, the affection for him is undiminished. There were times over the past few weekswhen perhaps he was in danger of squandering it or losing it, but he rode it through.

If Mick stays, the wisest course would be to mend bridges quietly and effectively with Roy Keane. If not, every team selection and every bad result will be met with questions which make both men uncomfortable.

It's been a wonderful World Cup, more than we expected, more than we hoped for. We never thought it possible that the innocence and joy of Italia '90 could be recreated, and at times this spring we feared another episode as wearisome as USA '94 and it's skincrawlingly embarrassing "homecoming".

The plot unravelled in great twists and turns though and kept us on the edge of our seats. A proper homecoming is called for. After that, September

and Moscow and the

future we have glimpsed.

None of it can come quickly enough.