Queen back in castle for Porto's crowning moment

TV VIEW:YOU have to hope someone had a word with the Porto and Braga fans in Dublin this week for the Europa League final, lest they were offended by the security measures put in place by the State for their visit.

The country on high alert, the streets emptied of natives, roads closed, helicopters circling overhead, more Gardaí than we ever knew we had, an abundance of riot shields, angry alsations, cellotaped rubbish bins and the like. And then after all that, just to really flummox them, the Army firing 21 times into the air as they made their way to the zoo.

If it was West Ham v Millwall they might have understood, but what, they’d have wondered, had Porto and Braga ever done to so alarm Ireland?

And reporters from CNN, CBS, NBC and ABC possibly asking them if they were okay with the visit? Were they prepared to let bygones be bygones and move on? Or did they still find it hard to forgive and forget?

“Eh?” they’d have replied.

Mind you, the people from CNN, CBS, NBC and ABC were possibly confused too as to why 10,000 flag-waving Portuguese people had arrived in Dublin to welcome the Queen of Britain to Ireland. Was it a bail-out solidarity kind of thing, or what? Would the Irish all turn up in Lisbon for the visit of King Juan Carlos?

A whole bundle of confusion, then, but happily the security measures didn’t involve the postponment of the game to a less busy time, so the visitors’ trip wasn’t in vain.

And just as happily, Tony Cascarino, Kevin Moran and Martin Keown made it through the barricades last night and were on time for TV3 duty at the Dublin Arena, as the de-sponsored stadium had to be called for the occasion.

And there had been the worry that if the trio chirpily told security they were heading for the “big one” they’d have been escorted to Dublin Castle, ending up toasting Her Majesty’s good health instead of, say, Falcao’s ruddy marvellous first-half header.

“It’s one of the biggest events in the world football calendar,” the TV3 voice had told us as we were welcomed to the channel’s coverage of the game, and while that might not have been technically true, you wouldn’t argue the fact with the Porto and Braga folk.

Tommy Martin was our TV3 host for the night, and we joined him just in time to see Ronnie Whelan carry the trophy on to the pitch, the first time in a while, to be honest, we’ve seen someone of Liverpool FC extraction with silverware in their hands.

Time for the opening ceremony, and it looked exceptionally pretty, Tommy explaining to Tony what he had just witnessed was “a Celtic warrior queen beckoning the tribes into battle”. “Oh yeah,” said Tony’s face. “It stirs the blood, doesn’t it,” said Tommy. “Yeah, it’s great to see, isn’t it,” said Tony, and he really sounded like he meant it.

But Tony wondered aloud if the ceremony would be better than the game, which suggested to us he wasn’t tingling. His greatest fear, one shared by Martin and Kevin, was Braga, who finished something like 197 points behind Porto this season, would park a double decker Dublin Bus in front of their goal and just pray for penalties.

That didn’t augur well, but despite worrying about that degree of negativity Martin still said he’d be supporting Braga because their kit was modelled on Arsenal’s. Tony mumbled something we didn’t quite catch, but Martin’s quivering lower lip suggested Tony alleged this was guaranteed to render them pretty but trophyless.

Over to Trevor Welch and Mark Lawrenson in the commentary box, the pair declaring if the game was half as good as the opening ceremony we’d be in for a treat, which was a more positive way of looking at it than Tony, you have to say.

But for 44 minutes you were kind of pining for more of the Celtic warrior queen beckoning the tribes into battle, until Falcao did his thing. “He simply has the unstoppability factor,” Trevor howled, which wasn’t an unreasonable observation, this being the fella’s 17th goal in the competition this season. And no, that wasn’t in 76 games, the Europa League just feels that long.

The panel wasn’t quite Riverdancing with enthusiasm around the studio at half-time, but to a man they were hopeful that Braga would give it a lash now that they’d conceded. They did, ish, but on the game crawled. “It fizzled, but it never quite exploded into life,” conceded Tommy, as Porto commenced their celebrations. And with that Porto and Braga’s supporters made their way back in to the city centre, snipers possibly keeping them in their sights all the way. They’re unlikely to forget their céad míle fáilte, you’d imagine.