Our thoughts are with the city of Paris and the people of France today. We're a sport site and view the happenings in the world through the prism of sport. A football game happened to be at the epicentre of last night's violence. This seems to matter.
I received news of the attacks in Paris just as most people living in Ireland did, I'm guessing, which is to say via social media more or less at the exact same time Robbie Brady scored in the fog in Zenica.
It was about as surreal a half of football that Ireland had ever played, and it was impossible not to feel giddy, especially after Brady had scored. Whatever about the Bosnian equaliser, an injury-ravaged Ireland team with no attacking power had stolen an away goal. The arrival of the fog seemed like the act of a higher power.
But as the half wore on, the fog tweets began to be drowned out by tweets from Paris, particularly ones from the the Stade de France, where France and Germany, the two powers of old Europe, were playing a friendly. Reports were very sketchy, but they would become very clear. A suicide bomber had blown himself or herself up at Gate J of the stadium, just as Patrice Evra had the ball beside a Euro 2016 hoarding.
French Football Pres. says there was a bomb at gate J of the Stade De France and 3 p'ple died at scene. #parisattacks
— Frank TZ Govnor 💚 💛 🇪🇺 🇵🇸 (@FTKZimula) November 13, 2015
Simon Kuper was in the press box and wrote the following about the explosions:
I was sitting in the stadium watching the France-Germany football match when I heard the first explosion. It was very loud, and seemed to come from just outside the stadium. Most people ignored it, or even cheered: football crowds are used to firecrackers. Even after the second explosion, a few minutes later, the crowd remained in good humour and the game continued.
The German team apparently spent the night in the Stade de France dressing room.
There's still so much unknown about the events last night. Security people will eventually piece together clear information on who perpetrated the horror. But we don't need forensic experts to tell us why someone would choose to attack a France-Germany friendly. There were 80,000 people inside, including the French president. The match was exactly what it claimed to be - a friendly, light Friday night entertainment, nothing was at stake. The insidious nature of terrorism is how one bomb can become 1,000 bombs in the way it divides people.
It's hard not to see the friendly in the context of Euro 2016 (a possible final perhaps), and thus it's hard not to see the bomb at Stade de France as an attack on Euro 2016. Euro 2016 organising president Jacque Lambert said the tournament was at 'tangible risk' last night
"What the events in January have changed is that a theoretical risk has become a tangible risk, palpable, since it was carried through."
"It doesn't probably change much for the security professionals regarding preparations of the event. But you see that for everyone, public opinion, media, teams, it adds a special intensity."
And here's where the bloodshed last night in Paris ties back to Irish people watching Ireland play Bosnia in the fog. Maybe Ireland gets a nil-all or beat Bosnia Monday night to qualify for the Euros. It's an amazing prospect but that tournament will now be played in the shadow of the events of last night. All Irish fans dream of another Euro 2012-style gathering of eejitry in France this summer, but Euro 2016 will not be like that. The tournament will be staged against a backdrop of fear, paranoia and heavily-armed French security forces.
Someone blew themselves up at the gates of the Stade de France, the site of Thierry Henry's handball, the place where Ireland lifted the Six Nations trophy two winters ago.
It's worth thinking on that.
