Ireland prepared for the heat, were met with rain, and ultimately folded in the face of both in Athens on Friday night.
Stephen Kenny's side were lifeless at the OPAP Arena and, bar a few standout impressive performances at the back, there were few if any positives to come by on what was a night which began with such hope.
Greece are undoubtedly Ireland's direct rivals in the group, with the might of France and the Netherlands simply too big to think about toppling this time around, and there would have been no shame in going down to a team that fielded several Champions League players on home soil.
It was the manner of the defeat, however, that has led to renewed questions about this Ireland team and its manager.
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Friday night was especially disappointing because of the momentum Ireland carried with them coming in to the game. They had punched above their weight to put it up to France in March, and had a lengthy lead-in to the match, in which players had over a week to prepare for the crunch tie in Athens.
The team also embarked on a warm weather training camp in Turkey to prepare for the conditions - preparations which didn't exactly make themselves visible in Ireland's tired and dull performance on Friday.
In the aftermath of the farce in Athens, several pundits have questioned just what went on during that warm weather camp.
Questions asked of Ireland's warm weather training camp
The weather in Athens posed some different challenges to those expected on Friday night, but it was nonetheless a typically hot night in the Greek summer, on which Ireland were outclassed by Gus Poyet's side.
Having covered the England game against Malta on Friday night, Miguel Delaney caught up on the events from Athens - and immediately took to Twitter to question what preparations had been done on the training camp ahead of the game.
Watching the Ireland highlights 😶
How much did the training camp cost and what were they doing on it?— Miguel Delaney (@MiguelDelaney) June 17, 2023
Ken Early phoned in to Second Captains' dissection of the game, and added his thoughts on the camp Ireland had arranged to prepare specifically for the heat of an Athenian summer night.
He said:
It was a failure, a massive failure on a lot of different levels. It was a really bad performance.
We had this big buildup to this, we were over in Turkey, we were staying in a nice hotel - when I say 'we' I mean the Ireland team - everyone was getting massaged into top condition for this game.
Obviously there was such an awful performance around this time last year [against Armenia] ... we didn't manage to win this game, despite all the preparation that had gone into it to ensure that what happened last year didn't happen again - and it just did happen again.
Early expanded on those comments in his report from Athens in Saturday morning's Irish Times, commenting on the luxury hotel Ireland had stayed in during their camp in Turkey:
The luxury hotel chain that welcomed the Ireland team during their recent warm-weather training camp near Antalya in Turkey.
Ireland were presumably able to avail of a group dicount but if you do fancy staying there next week it'll cost you nearly €700 a night. Maybe next time we should just ask the players to fly in on the day. We'd save a lot of money and teh outcome could hardly be any worse.
Most international breaks will come with a few days of preparation in which coaches will have the whole squad together to work on tactics and gelling the group, etc. The fact that Friday's dour performance came after one of the longest run-ins to an international break in recent memory is perhaps the worst reflection on this Irish team, and will no doubt be questioned further in the coming days.
On paper, Monday's game against Gibraltar at the Aviva Stadium presents a golden chance for Ireland to run in a few goals and get their first three points of this campaign on the board. If they play the way they did in Athens, however, you'd have your doubts.
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