Comment: Ireland a penalty miss from making the most of a hard sell
No new manager. No tournament in the summer to whet the appetite. No Kevin De Bruyne, Thibaut Courtois or Romelu Lukaku in the opposition ranks. The result was always going to be rows of empty, green seats.
There’s probably no such thing as the ideal time or day for a game anymore, but Saturday at 5pm in Dublin, on what turned out to be a bitterly cold and windy March afternoon, is not the window you would choose when trying to sell interest in a friendly.
The FAI – and here’s a shock! – didn’t help themselves by pushing bundles for this meeting with Belgium and Tuesday evening’s follow-up against Switzerland. A policy that made the double-header especially unappealing for anyone living beyond the M50.
If the sight of the Boys in Green belting out the national anthem on live TV for the first time in 2024 actually did prompt an urge to splash the cash for the Swiss game then the FAI’s official ticket site was down at the time anyway.
Never change, lads. Actually, please do.
The association’s website was still advertising those two-game bundles when it popped back up online during the game and, look, no-one is disputing the fact that these ‘products’ are a desperately hard sell even if they got the basics right.
It’s nine months and seven games since the Republic of Ireland last played a ‘meaningful’ game of senior men’s football. That was the 2-1 Euro 2024 qualifier loss to Greece in Athens. Everything since, especially Kenny’s last few months in charge, has been limbo.
This one hardly held much more promise.
Who now remembers that Sean Thomas’ one and only game in charge, in 1973, was away to Norway? Did Don Givens’ or Noel Kings’ experiences as caretaker managers against Greece, Wales, Brazil, Germany or Kazakhstan burn
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