“Earlier in the term, I was called cynical by someone I used to be close to. Surprisingly, I was quite bothered by it; usually, I don’t take off-hand comments too harshly, but for some reason, this one got on my nerves. Worse still was that she referred to me as a “cynical, journalist, English student type”. I am, in fact, two of those things, but I seriously don’t think of myself as cynical. That was, until last night, when I watched Ireland go 2-0 up, courtesy of an own-goal and a Troy Parrott penalty. I prefer to watch football alone; better to concentrate on the game and the job at hand, should I be writing about it. So the only one I could vent my suspicions to was my landlord’s dog. Looking into his big, black eyes, I couldn’t help but be cynical towards our oh-so-comfortable position. “No fucking way it’s this easy”, I said to Harpo. Harpo didn’t say anything back, on account of being a dog, but the scoreline would pretty soon tell me my feelings were not unfounded. I’m hesitant to criticise any individual errors from the game. That being said, Ryan Manning should not have given away a penalty with a foul as avoidable and stupid as a shirt-pull. Questions should also be asked of Hallgrimson for starting Séamus Coleman and Chiedozie Ogbene, given the pair’s lack of recent playing time, and for leaving them on the pitch for as long as he did, with the 37-year-old Coleman especially continuing well into extra time. Ogbene, as well, offered good movement of the ball, often splitting the Czech defence with his runs, but offered little in the way of composure or end-product when taking the ball in the final third. However, this was a wider issue in the team. After the early blitz, Ireland sat back once the Czechs got their goal. Often, they showed good control of the ball and the game’s tempo, keeping it amongst themselves and not resorting to Hail Mary passes or rash runs in the hope of getting another goal. But attempting to simply control a game at 2-1 when an hour remains to be played is just as dangerous as throwing all men forward to increase the advantage. We let the Czechs back into the game simply by ensuring they weren’t out of it. Which isn’t to say the players didn’t put up a fight. Collins and O’Shea, in particular, offered tremendous effort in defence. None of the players who took the field in Prague can be accused of lacking effort, even in light of some offering little in the way of effectiveness. Yet we showed up for a battle when the goal should have been to play better football. Parrott, our now not-so-secret weapon, showed glimpses of quality when given the ball, but too often he was left isolated. Our other attackers offered little else in terms of providing service for Troy or their own individual moments, with Ogbene ineffective in crucial moments, and Finn Azaz officially landing himself back on my bad list, albeit for his performance rather than a penalty. That’s the other thing. Losing on penalties is always a hard pill to swallow. Despite the advantage seemingly lying with the attacker, given the proximity of the shooting position, it’s harder than it looks. Essentially, it’s 50/50 whether you score, 50/50 whether you go through. So the blame shouldn’t lie with Azaz and Alan Browne. But it’s worth noting that the verve that saw us dispatch Hungary and Portugal was absent last night, and with a little more of that, we might have made the opportunity to kill the match, before the goal by Krecji brought it to a tie. It’s easy to rationalise not being at the World Cup this summer. The cynical, journalist, English-student-type voice will say that the tournament will ultimately end up being a propaganda vehicle for the Trump regime, that having to watch games at odd hours in the middle of the night will kill the community spirit of the thing, and that Irish fans and the current enforcers of domestic security in the U.S. will not mix well. All these things are true, but rationalising something is just one way of saying you’re finding a way of coping with it. I’m writing this article, genuinely disappointed. The elation of the qualifying campaign was such that one would have had to believe that this was our year. Alas, you’re not owed any happy endings in sport. The game was ours to win from the moment our second goal went in, and we didn’t make good on such a position. In the end, we played too scrappily and too safely, never taking charge of the fixture. But there are still positives to take from the campaign, positives that can be built upon in the rest of Hallgrímsson’s tenure. Hopefully, this can be looked back upon as a near-miss, one that will be corrected by future victories: victories where we know more and play better. I write this disappointed but hopeful, but not exactly cynical. Besides, either way, we’ll always have Hungary.
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