Sideline Cut:Having bravely defended his doomed international manager Stephen Staunton on the Late Late Showlast Friday night, Robbie Keane wakes up this morning having also lost his club manager at Tottenham, Martin Jol.

It seems almost obligatory to wheel out old Lady Bracknell to bang the point home about how losing one manager is unfortunate and all that.

Much like Claudio Ranieri's last days at Chelsea, there has been something gallant about Jol's defiant and almost pointless attempts to steer Spurs back to that place where the fans could at least pretend they aspired to greatness while upstairs, the men in suits frantically courted yet another apparent visionary from the Balearic Islands.

I remember hearing a story about Jol during the World Cup in Germany last summer. The big Dutchman was doing television analysis and, having emerged from a soothing dip in his hotel swimming pool, he spotted a bunch of English pressmen with whom he was acquainted and enthusiastically made his way across the marble lobby to say hello. Being European, he shunned conventional poolside couture like the complimentary towelling robe and skipped across the foyer wearing nothing but bright orange Speedos and a big smile.

He had his arms out for embrace and a small path of water trailed in his wake as he moved to encompass the by now stricken Englishmen in a bear hug. As one of the pressmen fondly said, "Jol is brilliant but I didn't know whether to hug him or shout, 'Get away from me, you big Dutch pervert'."

As confusion and rancour and the usual great black clouds loom over Irish football, it seems fair to ask: could a Dutchman in Speedos be the saviour of Irish football?

So Staunton is gone. The man they called Stan. The Boss. The Gaffer. The man who said, with the accuracy of a fortune-teller: "The buck stops with me." That much was true. Staunton is not the first Ireland manager to clean out his office feeling somehow cheated and sold out and disillusioned, although after the Cyprus result, he probably knew in his heart his situation was hopeless.

Staunton would not have accepted that result as a player. In his last evening as manager, he maintained the façade of authority, promising to fight on, but he must have known, given the volatile ways in which Irish football operates, that the booing and the general atmosphere of unrest would lead to swift drama.

History will probably not judge Staunton's term very kindly. If he were to present his interpretation of it, he would probably take into account a drastic series of injuries, the fact his working arrangement with Bobby Robson never happened, the fact the team was genuinely unlucky in two qualifying matches, and that he gave a lot of young players their first caps.

In his mind, Staunton could probably see his way out of the doldrums in the next campaign. But he failed to convince the army of sceptics that awaited his every mistake, he then lost the faith of his employers and he finally lost the goodwill of the 55,000 people who at least had the loyalty to show up for what was a scarcely relevant game in Croke Park against Cyprus.

For the FAI, the Staunton regime has been a disaster. The broad reasoning behind their decision to opt for the distinguished defender was understandable, if flawed. It is easy to guess that for many FAI people, particularly those of a certain generation, the Charlton years represented something of the lost promise of the Kennedy years; Irish soccer's equivalent of the "Thousand Days of Camelot".

It was a shining period when it seemed as if the FAI had left the IRFU and the GAA in the ha'penny place. Football, the garrison game, had somehow tapped into the soul of the nation and the national team - a ragtag bunch containing a former Hill 16 hero, a Donegalman, a handsome black Dubliner, a Scouser, a silver-haired defender with a booming Barnsley accent and other disparate characters, and managed by an irascible Geordie who was English to the bone - had become the chief symbol of pride and joy of a country not used to having much to shout about.

Following on from Stephen Roche's improbable triple success in the cycling the previous year, qualifying for Germany in 1988 was the stuff of magic. In the best days, there was the sense of the team and its happy-go-lucky supporters as being inseparable, somehow, and a force that could take on the world.

Did the FAI squander a golden chance to make the beautiful game bloom here or was it always going to be a temporary wonder? Who knows? What was clear after the poisonous aftermath of the Japan-Korea World Cup, and the implementation of the Genesis report, was the FAI feared they had moved too far away from the spirit of Charlton under Brian Kerr. They said to hell with Kerr's professionalism and opted for a folk hero from the good old days.

Staunton's managerial CV was blank but he was a kid reared on the values of the Anfield boot-room. And he was at the heart of whatever brand of Geordie magic Jack Charlton wielded. But in gambling on Staunton returning the team and the country to the thrilling and faintly absurd times between 1988 and 1994, the FAI forgot one vital truth. That Ireland no longer exists. Football will never again hold the country in such a powerful grip. There are simply too many other distractions. Everything and everyone is disposable - particularly football managers.

The bookies' list of potential replacements for Staunton makes for fascinating reading. Given the package on offer will, presumably, be competitive, it should not be all that difficult to attract a smart and seasoned sideline man. Some potential applicants may look at the long history of non-qualification and subsequent managerial casualties and be frightened away. Some might look at the roster of international players available, young and game perhaps, but unproven and somewhat meek in temperament, and may decide Ireland is a nation destined to finish third or fourth in any competitive qualifying group. Others will think of a fit-again Damien Duff, a maturing Kevin Doyle and a packed Croke Park and decide to go for it.

But whatever happens, surely the sad and depressing sacking of Staunton should mark an official end to the nostalgia for the Charlton years. Those days are gone. It is time to look to the continent and to find a manager unbothered by the complex and fragile relationship between the FAI, the international team and the public. It is time to find a manager who understands the symbiotic relationship between an international football team and the media people assigned to cover it.

It is time to find someone blissfully unaffected by the extreme highs and lows through which football has pitched this country through in the last 20 years. You can be sure Martin Jol would don shamrock-festooned Speedos, if the cause demanded it. There are plenty of potential leaders out there. This time, the FAI have to get it right. No more gambling, no more dreaming: just a man for all seasons.