Editorial: New heroes emerge

An rud is annamh is iontach. What’s rare is wonderful!

There’s nothing like the feeling when the Irish international soccer team do well.

I watched the second half of the Hungary epic with my seven year old son. He loves playing football but he very rarely watches any sport on tv.

He was underwhelmed by the whole thing. ‘What’s so special about this,’ his expression seemed to ask me as I screamed with delight after Troy Parrot used his studs at full stretch to guide the ball home for the late, late winner. Moments like this don’t come around very often. He doesn’t understand that yet, but he will!

I remember a bit of Euro ’88 and lots of World Cup ’90. At the time I think I was aware that all this was new for Ireland but I’m sure I still got complacent about our success. Nobody could be complacent about success for very long since. Of course I remember the World Cup in Japan and South Korea in 2002 which was not as joyful due to Saipan. I got to go to a few games in Poland for Euro 2012 which was sad and brilliant all the same. Euro 2016 was a much better experience although I didn’t get to any games then.

There’s no guarantee that we go to many more or any major football championships despite the rising numbers of participants in these events.

And it almost doesn’t matter what happens in the World Cup playoffs in March. The joy of the last few days is what it’s all about. We could suffer misfortune, bad injuries, face much better opposition or just play poorly in the playoffs and not win the two games we need to in order to make it to this summer’s World Cup in the US, Mexico and Canada.

And that’s okay too. What we really live for is those moments of ecstasy and pure joy that only international football can bring us. And it truly was a coming of age moment for this Irish team. Only Seamus Coleman and Robbie Brady have made it to an international championships. For most of these lads, they’ve lost a lot of games wearing the Irish shirt. Now they’ve pulled off two stunning results and made history. The vast majority of the team is 26 or under. 9 of the team on Sunday were 26 or under and 21 year old Evan Ferguson missed out through injury.

Unfortunately, after Tuesday night’s results, it appears we may have to do things the hard way. If results had gone our way in the Wales v North Macedonia game, we could have gotten into Pot 2 meaning we would have a home draw in the first playoff qualifier. Instead Wales won 7-1!

So now, we face an away tie against either Poland, Wales, Czechia or Slovakia in March. The draw will be made tomorrow. It won’t be easy, but hopefully it will be fun. And we have hope back. Thanks Heimir and team!