Word gets around. Stefan Schwarz, a brilliant Swedish midfielder, once said to me: “I f***ing hate going to that shithole of a ground.”
My face lit up. ‘You mean Lansdowne Road, Stefan?’
“F***ing horrendous place.”
Music to my ears. We wanted the best teams to hate those windy, damp Dublin nights. First we’d smash into them, then we’d match them in the football stakes.
It’s intangible what makes certain Republic of Ireland teams special. But the Aviva crowd and the players should give every football nation an occasion they never forgot. Make sure Stefan Schwarz goes back to Fiorentina and tells Rui Costa all about his hellish experience.
When football ends one feeling can never be rediscovered. I miss it more than anything else. It’s gone, but luckily I lived it more than most.
Saturday 5pm. Full-time whistle at the Stadium of Light or Goodison Park or Wigan’s JJB and the race was on. Shower, change into going-out clothes, prearranged taxi to the nearest airport for a one-way flight to Dublin.
Get to team hotel, dump gear and hit the town. International squad gatherings, there was nothing else like them. I was desperate to be part of these weeks, especially that first night.
Social media has altered freedom of movement – Lillie’s Bordello and Renards have gone the way of the Dodo – but landing in amongst the lads was an unforgettable buzz. We had an exceptional cast of characters. Massive personalities, a Manchester United captain and boys who could carry a tune.
Sunday was a recovery session in more ways than one as those who missed the night out arrived in dribs and drabs. Stories were retold but come Monday morning messers and lunatics had transformed into professional footballers, switched on and hungry to catch Mick McCarthy’s eye.
The tackles in that first session were vicious as we jockeyed for position in the pecking order. Full-blooded stuff. Split heads as centre forward and centre half flung themselves at inswinging corners. Wingers looked to humiliate fullbacks. Midfielders laid down plenty of markers.
You want to party hard, grand, you better show up Monday, ready to perform. Swollen ankle, get Mick Byrne or Ciaran Murray to strap it up. Your club wants to pull you, get in the taxi anyway.
My first full campaign was the Euro 2000 qualifiers when we blew it in Macedonia. That result fuelled the fire to qualify for the 2002 World Cup.
Look at the squad for that first game in Amsterdam. Stan Staunton and a young Damien Duff were on the bench as we struck a rare balance – Carr, Breen, Dunne, Harte; McAteer, Roy, Kinsella, me; Robbie and Quinn up top.
I remember all the talk of a Barcelona wing back named Michael Reiziger. This was my best game in an Ireland jersey. I had Reiziger for power, he couldn’t cope and when you sense a weakness against a Dutch full back you ram it home.
We were a steely bunch on the pitch, and serious craic off it, but we needed two special performances to survive the two opening games away to Portugal and the Netherlands. A point in each left us cold, but it told us we had the number of both sides.
The rest is history.
The only real comparison between then and now is that Stephen Kenny’s Ireland are tasked with finding a way past footballing superpowers in Didier Deschamps’ France and the Dutch under new manager Ronald Koeman.
The rest is incomparable, at first glance anyway, but drill a little deeper and the same collective hunger to succeed begins to appear. That guarantees Ireland nothing if the quality of the opposition proves too much to handle.
After Euro 2000 we were a motivated bunch. We had an ideal age and experience profile. We had Roy Keane. We had kids called Robbie Keane, Damien Duff and Richard Dunne from Brian Kerr’s underage bonanza.
For starters Kenny has Josh Cullen. I’ve watched Burnley opening a 13-point gap at the top of the EFL Championship. Cullen is everything Vincent Kompany believed he could be when bringing him from Anderlecht.
I’m not comparing him to Roy but Josh demands the ball whenever his team is overwhelmed. Believe me, that is rare at all levels of the game.
Nathan Collins and Gavin Bazunu are in the middle of their first season in the Premier League. The past few months will give them a renewed appreciation of Seámus Coleman managing to last 14 years at Everton.
Bazunu and Collins have coped admirably with setbacks but the same exposure has failed to rattle Evan Ferguson. Not Fabinho raking studs down his Achilles, not the pace of games, not Ibrahima Konate trying to body him, not playing as a false nine. Nothing.
Collared for an interview in the parade ring at Cheltenham this week by Off The Ball, Robbie Keane mentioned “Evan” while emphasising the importance of not heaping all our hopes on an 18-year-old.
True, but the other Irish centre forwards do not measure up to Ferguson’s early days at Brighton. Michael Obafemi catches fire now and then, while Chiedozie Ogbene is a clever player without being a prolific goalscorer.
Relying on Ferguson to be everything, everywhere, all at once, is foolish, dangerous, hopeful and exciting. All at once. It’s also unfair. I like his all-round game and that’s why he starts against Latvia and France.
He should score against Latvia if everyone else does their job. Beating them well feels essential to launch a monumental year for Irish football, which starts around 5pm, Saturday, when Bazunu at St Mary’s and Collins at Molineux come off the pitch, shower, change into going-out clothes, dash to the airport to catch a flight to Dublin.
