Has any international fixture involving an Irish team filled the nation with as much scared-witless-dread as this one? Granted, we’ll be more petrified again come Tuesday when Armenia drop in to town, but when you’re up against sort-of-the Harlem Globetrotters of football on their home turf, there’s a lot to make you fret. Especially when you lost to a country ranked just above Tajikistan, Comoros and Kyrgyz Republic last time out.
Even Heimir Hallgrímsson, who is usually exceedingly smiley, looked a little grim-faced when he chatted with Tony O’Donoghue prematch, like he was in the waiting room ahead of being sent to the gallows. We have to be “realistic”, he told Tony, with the sound of a man who was preparing us, in a kindly manner, for an annihilation.
Peter Collins, to his credit, tried to hearten us by showing us a montage of our mightiest giant-killing - or, at least, giant-drawing - exploits from the past, but the problem was that most of the clips appeared to come from Pathé News’ archives. Roy Keane, for example, looked about 12, and he now has several grandchildren.
Dampening our spirits further still was the sight of the Portuguese squad getting off their bus in Lisbon, the combined value of the players who alighted greater than the average GDP of in or around 87.23 per cent of the planet’s nations.
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What didn’t help either was Peter telling us that Hungary had beaten Armenia 2-0 earlier in the day, a result that left us even bottom-er of the group, our host conceding that that added to what had been “a fairly pessimistic tone in the build-up” to our trip to the Estádio José Alvalade.
Incidentally, Wikipedia tells us that José Alvalade, who died in 1918, the same year Cristy Ronaldo made his debut for Portugal, studied medicine at Harvard before dropping out because he was too sensitive to deal with suffering and pain. “Tell me about it José, tell me about it,” as any Irish fan who opted to go for a two-hour walk come 7.45 on Saturday evening would say.
But? Didi Hamann - and we did not see this coming - was full of beans, having evidently downed copious amounts of happy pills in the Montrose green room. “I’m confident a result is coming tonight,” he said. “This country is one result away from everyone bouncing and saying ‘we’ve got a chance to go to the World Cup’.” In that sense, he was the anti-Ronnie-Whelan.
Peter saluted Didi for his “infectious” confidence, but Shay Given’s face said ‘I want whatever you’re on’. Portugal, he reminded us, hadn’t lost at home in three years, have “a bench full of superstars”, never mind the 11 they were putting on the pitch, so, he predicted, it was going to be a long night. “Hang on to your hats”. The only hope? “Can we be ugly?” We certainly were in Armenia, but it’s doubtful Shay was looking for the same form of unattractiveness.
“Fingers and everything else crossed,” said Peter as he handed over to Des Curran and Ray Houghton in the stadium, Des channelling his inner Didi by asking, with hope in his heart, if “we could witness a night of nights in Lisbon?”
Well, it started decidedly well, to the point where the Irish contingent in the crowd were ole-ing after 10 minutes as our lads popped the ball around like they were, well, Portugal in disguise. True, most of the popping took place in their own half, but no matter.
“They’re playing really well so far,” said Ray, “I’m just wondering how long it can last.” And then the negative Nellie almost banjaxed us by noting how Portugal were failing to cause our lads too much grief, at which point Cristy hit the post and, somehow, Bernardo Silva sent the rebound wide.
Half-time: 0-0. You’d be pinching yerself. But, warned Didi, “don’t wreck a good 45 minutes with a stupid mistake”. And then Dara O’Shea gave away a penalty with a handball. “WHERE ELSE COULD HIS ARMS BE,” asked Des, but there was no need to panic, where there’s Caoimhín Kelleher there’s hope. Some day a movie might be made about the time he saved Cristy’s spot-kick with, well, ‘My Left Foot’.
But just as this result was heading for the next montage of mighty moments, along comes Rúben Neves in injury time. Hearts? Yup, in total, utter and absolute smithereens.
“It’s a cruel game,” said Didi, “but when was the last time this team performed to a level where the whole nation was proud of them?” True, that. If we wanted to give them a slap after Yerevan, after Lisbon you just wanted to give them a hug.
