And we’re done. In the most humbling of circumstances we’ve been asked to leave. Normalities and realities are waiting for us back home.
That limp loss to a distinctly average Italian side was a fitting end to this misadventure. It was flat.
All day in Poznan, there’d been a kind of hollowness to proceedings. We had the routine well down at this stage; drinks in the main square off the fanzone, some standing for the Boys in Green and a trip on the trams to the Municipal Stadium. But it was always undermined by the reality of the situation. It was an atmosphere forced. The wildness of the build-up to the Croatia game on the same streets eight days previously had been tapered by tiredness and some irrefutable mathematics.
Even the singing at the end of the game felt contrived and pre-determined. It had degenerated somewhat from the spontaneous gesture of solidarity witnessed in Gdansk. For a fair percentage of Irish fans, it was a point of principle, a two-fingered salute aimed squarely in the direction of Roy Keane’s largely misinterpreted comments.
‘We’ll sing when we want – Fuck you Roy Keane – we’ll sing when we want’ was blasted out in both halves.
But still, this was bigger then Roy Keane. Thankfully.
The Italians weren’t scary. We’ve become accustomed to scary on this trip. They didn’t move the ball around with anything approaching the class of Croatia, or particularly Spain. They didn’t hoard possession. They didn’t carry a sustained threat or press and harry our players into submission. They were average by comparison.
And still we failed to do very much. That our performance might have felt improved was down largely to the quality of the opposition. Our full-backs have come to embody my hardening frustrations with this team. I’ve watched them very closely; John O’Shea and Stephen Ward have been amongst our most ineffectual performers in Poland. Once again on Monday night, they refused to contribute any kind of creative dimension to the game. There was no support offered to Duff or McGeady. There was no sense of purpose to their play, no sense of it fitting into a wider strategy.
This is at odds with the full-backs of every quality team we’ve played in recent years. In Gdansk, Spain attacked in a 2-6-2 in possession. Croatia did the same at times in Poznan. At the Aviva last year, Russia came at us in a 2-5-3 pattern. By comparison, we cling to sterility. It’s emblematic of our wider psychology.
Not that Trap should necessarily be our scapegoat. Sure, he’s made mistakes. But his players are not blameless. And his tenure has been one of progress. He inherited a shambolic post-Staunton mess. We were a ship which needed to be steadied. He’s since taken us to a European Championship. We’re ranked in the World’s Top 20. These are hugely positive developments. The arc of improvement is clear. But what’s also becoming clear is that he now needs to imbue this very functional operation with something more.
No doubt the criticisms of his performance will gain traction over the coming days. Emboldened by the benefit of hindsight, pundits will rightly ask why this team arrived here without a Plan B? There’ll be other questions. Why did Steven Hunt not see a single minute of action over the three games? Why Paul Green over Darron Gibson against Spain? Why Simon Cox on the wing against the Croats? Why Cox in the hole against Spain? Why Robbie Keane up front on his own? Why never once, in a single competitive match under Trap, have we never employed a 4-5-1 system with three genuine midfielders? Outclassed in that very department against Russia at the Aviva, it arose again as a cause for concern in Budapest last week, but still we drifted into this tournament without addressing the issue in any meaningful way. After the Spain game on Thursday night, Glenn Whelan all but pointed the finger at his manager. And why were we so lacking in energy?
We’ll ask those questions and get no real answers. That’s just Trap’s way.
Some will argue that we’ve simply found our level. That regardless of what we’d done, the outcome this week would have been the same. It’s a fair point. But this campaign is etched with disappointment because we depart with regrets.
As the Italians celebrated their progression to the quarters, we applauded the Irish players around the pitch. Some of them were patently embarrassed. Others were grateful. This has been a humiliation for them on the grandest of scales. Watched by strangers around the world, watched by their families at home and watched by their club teammates in England, these Irish players have been dismantled in a career defining fashion. It will haunt their professional lives for a long time.
The journalist’s mixed zone afterwards was a grim place. Richard Dunne was quoted as saying ‘I’m sick of football at the moment’. I can assure you he was already sick of football after training in Gydnia on Saturday. These are new depths plummeted for a man who, not so long ago, flirted with perfection in Moscow.
And what about the rest of us? What do we take from it all? What does it all ultimately boil down to? Those are personal questions. They depend on your experience and sense of perspective.
For fans back home, there was only the football and it must have been a shocking let down.
For the masses out here, thankfully, we had one non-stop party to keep us distracted. And it was some party. We had some nights.
Undoubtedly the bonds of many friendships have been copper fastened. We part with shared memories that will endure.
My generation arrives home with its own tales of campervans and carnage.
But still there will be disappointment. We can only imagine the heights we would have scaled if results had obliged.
Alas we say goodbye. It was all much ado about nothing, which for a time out here, felt like everything.
Farewell Poland.
