Admittedly, the first goal warranted a celebration. The morning before Ireland games I tend to wake up hoping Troy Parrot has had a good night’s rest, and today was no different. Once more, he delivered the goods with a fine finish for Ireland’s first goal. Adam Idah may soon count himself as another name on my list if he keeps up his own goalscoring exploits, with a very composed showing in front of goal for the second. I didn’t even see Jack Moylan’s goal initially, as I had taken a break from the RTE Player livestream on my phone to talk to my flatmate, but was greeted by that glorious 3-0 scoreline when I returned. Recent showings have demonstrated that the men’s team don’t do well at holding leads, but such an advantage after 25 minutes is surely safe from even their ability to disappoint.
There was little argument to make in favour of this game going ahead, but there was at least something of a caveat; they’d better win. Watching the team steam into such a lead, I was hoping for a resounding five or six nil victory that could be held up as a slap in the face to ignominity of the entire fixture being fulfilled. However, watching the next 75 plus minutes following Moylan’s effort, no such feeling of elation was provided. Nothing wrong with settling into a defensive block after gaining such a good position in a match, as Ireland did, but in the absence of attacking momentum on our end, the game settled into a firmly boring rhythm. Such a showing, when offering little on the footballing side, can lead one to ponder the circumstances surrounding the game, rather than the match itself. And in this instance, there were many to consider.
One of my takeaways from the game, after being forced into watching large stretches of Israel on the ball as they attempted to penetrate our defensive structure, is that they really aren’t very good at football. As the commentator rattled off inane facts about the squad in anticipation of a proper chance being created, the deeply unspectacular club origins of many of the squad was revealed. While some have made it as far as La Liga or the MLS ( perhaps no surprise there), much of the team remain in their domestic league, many for the champions Hapoel Be’er Sheeva, a team who lost their Champions League qualification match to Azerbaijani Premier League side Sabah FC. Not saying that there’s anything wrong with the Azerbaijani Premier League, but Sabah are one of two teams this season that have managed to make Michael Carrick’s Manchester United look semi-decent at football. I would know, because I’ve watched all the other teams that have proved that Michael Carrick’s Manchester United team is, in fact, not even semi-decent at football.
To make matters worse, it wasn’t even as if Ireland were trying that hard. Despite the presence of heavy hitters such as Parrot and Caoimhin Kelleher, many of the team was made up of debutants and those who are typically reserved to the substitutes bench. Fair play to Gavin Bazunu for sitting this one out, but if he had stuck around, he might even have gotten some minutes. Nevertheless, regular No. 1 Kelleher did well to save two shots in the second half, but there was little excitement for the rest of the night. Not helping was the stadium devoid of Irish fans, with only a few supporters of the home team filling the stands. Their chants were the only noise to cut through the dull ping of the ball meandering across the field, along with the Israeli coaches screaming at the referee at the denial of banal fouls. For any interested readers, our lads were hitting them 10 times harder and not getting penalised. No? Nobody interested? The referee wasn’t either.
Between all of this, and the disinterested international commentary I was listening to (worse offences being “Drog-a-da” instead of Drogheda and “Kway-vin” instead of Caoimhin), I was left with a deeply empty feeling throughout the whole affair. It is truly an affront that the game has gone ahead; I just wish it had given us more to talk about. In a similar way to Hallgrimson aplogising for his use of the term “genocide” in relation to the atrocities in Gaza during the week, the whole thing has boiled down to a deeply unremarkable game of football. The real issue here, the plight of the Palestinian people, has once more been lost in the media storm surrounding ultimately menial issues. Some good jokes will probably be available on District Magazine tomorrow, and the result will be good for the goal difference, and the Israeli government will continue on with their destruction of the West Bank. And we get to do the whole circus again next week.
