[troutman]

Already we are seeking miracles


http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/...317695304.html

WE FORGOT. We forgot about how just how heartbreaking these Irish football nights can be. On a rainy night in Poznan, Croatia whistled three goals dusted with strangeness past Ireland to leave Giovanni Trapattoni’s team in a bleak place after their first game of Euro 2012. Beaten 3-1 and preparing to face Spain, the world champions, on Thursday. Already we are seeking minor miracles.

It was one of those nights when the magnitude of the occasion overshadowed the football which followed. Somewhere among the Irish flags draped over Poznan is a tricolour carrying a line from an old Pogues classic: You’re The Measure of My Dreams.

And the slow, passionate build up was everything the Irish players could have imagined. Even Trapattoni, who has seen it all, seemed moved.The reception they received was mind-blowing and the wildness of that greeting was still ringing in their ears when Mario Mandzukic stole a header which left us chasing the game.

As the night went on, Ireland were outmuscled and out-finessed and chased a moving shadow in Luka Modric, a footballer who seems lighter than air apart from those moments when he sets his mind on a stinging shot. Croatia had the luck but they also ran the show for much of the night. Mandzukic’s two headed goals proved a wrecking ball for Ireland – and he would send Giovanni Trapattoni flying as well after an accidental collision.


Its going to take something heaven sent now.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/...317695180.html

From Friday night to Monday morning, the Irish and their Croatian friends drank the Stare Miasto dry without coming up for air. From the start, the Croatians were outnumbered. They tried to make themselves heard and made a show of marching through the square singing their complex dirges. These were drowned out by 15,000 Irish men singing Stand Up for the Boys in Green. Before the Croatian drummers knew it, they had been reduced to providing rhythm for a particularly heartfelt rendition (is there any other kind?) of The Fields of Athenry.

The Irish wasted little time in convincing the Poznan locals that their reputation for being happy drunks is based on hard fact and hard liquor. The best fans in the world gave a remarkable exhibition of all-day and all-night drinking. Some could handle it but you didn’t have to go far before you saw the fallen among Trap’s Army scattered across the square. A few green-shirted forms lay passed out in doorways and alleys, sound asleep, possibly having fallen victim to exhaustion as much as the local brew, which packs a hefty percentage. Others staggered uncertainly across the broad cobblestone square, caught in that state between losing and regaining their balance that looks like a permanent stumble. There is only word for this level of drunkenness: buckled. Lads were buckled. Everywhere.

In the early hours of the morning, some class of a riot “erupted” in the Main Square. It apparently involved a row between the Poles and the Croatians. There are several views as to why this happened: historical tensions, macho posturing etc. The most likely reason is that they just snapped once the Irish crowd in the tent outside Brovaria embarked on their 89th rendition of The Fields of Athenry.

It is just before kick-off and the teams are coming out. This perfect little rectangle of a stadium is fairly trembling and when you see the Irish team walking out and the fevered reaction in the green bedecked stands, you become lost for words and there is nothing to do but sit back and just look. Look at that!