Halloween is still over seven weeks away, but at half-time on Saturday evening RTÉ’s Ritchie Sadlier observed that “a horror show” had been unfolding on the pitch. The ghost of the 2002 World Cup Qualifying campaign had teased us all this week, and the slow incremental improvements wrought by Heimir Hallgrímsson during the last year had given us all cause for genuine rational hope. “He makes me believe,” said a lyrical Didi Hamann before the game kicked off. “And if he makes me believe, he makes the players believe.”
An utterly disastrous 45 minutes followed, with belief, faith, and basic footballing competency slipping into the September shadows.
I’ll admit that I was on toddler bedtime duties and missed the two Hungarian goals. I stumbled into the living room 30 minutes into the match and gasped at the 2-0 scoreline. What the hell had happened? But at least I’d arrived down in time for the half-time feeding frenzy, and for Ritchie.
I like Sadlier, I really do. There’s a measured yet straight-talking approach to his delivery that cuts away with much of the wishy-washy dross that plagues modern punditry. He said, ‘We were thinking, this week, is there a chance our campaign could be over after the first game? We’re sitting wondering today did it last all of 15 minutes.’ Sadlier’s words were stunning, but true. On screen, silence swept the studio. Didi – who was full of ballads and lyric poetry before the match – stared out of the window, into depths of the Aviva below. “Don’t jump, Didi!” the Nation yelled. Joanne Cantwell repeated the mantra of the moment: ‘this is a horror show.’
Football always looks different on the T.V. The Hungarian lads looked like they’d a wee bit about them; and had a fair few cracks on goal, beyond their scores. I messaged a friend who was at the Aviva and asked him if it was true – were there light-years between both sides? Were plucky Ireland simply being outclassed by a superior team?
He wrote back, “Na, Hungary shite too.”
Rumours had swirled in the days leading up to the match that Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán would visit the Aviva. Whilst the PM’s attendance at the ground was indeed confirmed, his namesake – Hungarian Defender Willi Orbán – certainly delivered a totalitarian performance on Evan Ferguson in the first half, with the Irish ace hindered for much of the opening period. Yet Ferguson’s strength, class, and determination saw him produce a moment of magic towards half-time, with a stirring effort on Dénes Dibusz’s goal. This was a portent for Ferguson’s scrappy equaliser early in the second half, with the old adage proven correct that even if it goes in off your arse, it’s still a good goal. Didi Hamann should’ve known that good poetry and stories often enjoy a volta, and Ireland’s turn was finally here.
Roland Sallai’s crazy sending off, followed by Caoimhín Kelleher’s astounding save on 61 minutes, heralded the start of a 30-minute onslaught from the Boys in Green in front of the South Stand at Lansdowne Road, as cross after cross was… floated frustratingly into the box and games of head tennis broke out. Hungarian ‘keeper Dibusz got plenty of de boos with his ridiculous time wasting and restart antics. “The crowd want another yellow!”, shouted Darragh Maloney on comms. No… it was blood we were after.
When Adam Idah’s equaliser finally went in, the place was bouncing. It was also a beautiful and symbolic moment: in this zeitgeist of more and more openly racist discourse, it was fitting that the black fella from Cork got the crucial goal, and the headlines.
Every match from here onwards is huge, and Armenia awaits on Tuesday. The Republic of Ireland have form for fluffing their lines on Away assignments against the minnows of Europe…
But as the lights prepared to dim in the RTÉ studio, the camera panned to Ritchie Sadlier one final time, who told us calmly: “Our campaign is still alive.”