I once went to Gibraltar and almost missed it. The Spanish make their feelings known about Britain's tiny imperial coccyx by not mentioning it on road signs. But finding the Rock is simple compared to finding any competitive relevance within this weekend's European Championship qualifier between Ireland and Gibraltar.
It's true it takes a sizable dollop of chutzpah for Irish football to take a large one on top of football's so-called minnows. Just seven years ago, only a selfless Stephen Ireland managed to secure Ireland a 2-1 win over San Marino. And to those of a certain vintage there will always be 1995 when the Boys in Green wittily battered Lichtenstein to a scoreless draw.
However, ahead of a week of qualifier action that also sees England play San Marino, Belgium play Andorra and Luxembourg take on Spain, not to mention Liechtenstein taking on Montenegro, there’s an unmistakable flavour of mere telly-schedule filler to what is supposed to be major international football event.
Competitively, these matches are irrelevant. They’re as competitive as WC Fields in a marathon. No doubt there will be reruns aplenty of that San Marino goal that briefly put them ahead against England in 1993 – prompting John Motson to exclaim: “I don’t believe it.” But who’re we kidding. Everyone remembers Motty’s disbelief. Few remember the final score: 7-1.
Everyone knows what’s going to happen in these mismatches. Far from condescending waffle about minnows learning from playing their betters, the reality is that Gibraltar & Co will play a rigid 7-3-0 formation, only venturing across the half-way line to change ends, trying desperately to keep the score down. Forget the bus
, if they can get their hands on an aircraft carrier Gibraltar will park that. What’s that going to teach them? What’s the Irish team going to learn? Most importantly of all what kind of weirdo is willing to pay to watch it?
No doubt the FAI is preparing a guilt trip about real fans supporting the team when times are toughest: two quid seats that come with an ultra-absorbent copy of John The Baptist in case it rains heavily; trite shite about Keane being box office and O’Neill learning more about his players – all of it scrupulously sifted through a pan of public indifference where everyone recognises futility when they see it.
To point this out invites sermons about the democratic spirit of the game; a spirit which, funnily enough, can often coincide with more mundane considerations such as committee votes and telly revenue. And it is true there has to be room for aspiration to breathe. Cypriot football for instance shows what improvement can be made. And again, any Irish inclination to condescend to Cyprus famously got blown out of the Med in 2006.
So it’s important to point out there are minnows, and then there are minnows. Even minnows feed. The problem is the shrimps, the tiny tiddlers thrown on to the barbecue in order to produce bottles of competitive smoke. About 32,000 people describe themselves as being from San Marino. Gibraltar has a couple of thousand less. That’s Bray. No one expects Bray to raise a decent football team.
An international rule of thumb really should be that if you’re able to comfortably fit your country into Sheffield then you are taking the mickey in terms of competitive intent. That allows Luxembourg, Iceland and Malta into the big draw – dare we say it, Northern Ireland too – but acknowledges the reality that firing the Faroe Islands at France is just dumb.
And yes, yes, it’s not that long ago that France only beat them by a single goal. But even supreme Gallic ennui at resentfully flying to a bleak bald rock in the middle of the Atlantic still never looked enough to provide the Faroes with a sniff of actually beating them.
Fans have an obvious solution to non-competitive fodder being flung at them and that’s to vote with their feet, or whatever their preferred digit might be to digitally access pictures. You would imagine though that international football is becoming marginalised enough without those in charge at least examining ways of presenting fixture lists that aren’t exercises in logistic irrelevance. Presumably,
changing things doesn’t suit the suits.
No one wants Andorra’s Pat the Baker to be denied the chance to play for his place. And a Faroese fisherman is as entitled to be as confident in his identity as anyone else. But what pride is there in being target practise? Wouldn’t these guys like a chance to win every now and again, have a role beyond merely skewing other countries’ goal difference one way or the other?
There’s nothing new in wondering why qualifying rounds can’t be introduced in Europe, certainly for the shrimps and maybe even some of the minnows too. Qualifiers occur in other confederations. Preliminary rounds take place in major club tournaments. More matches against realistic opposition is a much better basis for improvement than constantly having the snot beat out of you, and would almost certainly provoke more pride and self-belief. It might even allow space for a little experimenting rather than simply parking the carrier for fear of getting humiliated.
Call it football's Christy Ring Cup, call it whatever you like. That doesn't matter. What matters is inculcating a sense of accomplishment into a scenario where none exists. Let one tiddler qualify as a winner and see it if grows on the satisfaction: maybe the others will fatten too on jealousy.
No doubt everyone else will dismiss it as an irrelevance. But there’s no way it could be as irrelevant as what’s happening now.
