In a week when football felt turned upside down, when Ireland and Scotland reached for, and found, the unfeasible in apparently lost World Cup qualifiers, an old story from Alex Ferguson rushed back. It concerned Ally MacLeod, who for younger readers was the esoteric manager of Scotland when they reached the 1978 World Cup in Argentina.
MacLeod was famously optimistic. There is a question mark over whether he really did give the following response to a reporter’s question about what MacLeod was planning to do after that ’78 World Cup: “Retain it.”
But Ferguson for one could believe it.
Because at the end of his playing career in 1973, Ferguson’s last stop was Ayr United where MacLeod was managing pre-Scotland. MacLeod sold Ferguson a scenario where Ayr United, having never won a major title or cup in their history, would become Scottish champions.
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Ferguson knew it was a fantasy but he bought into it anyway. As he said: “Some might have been put off by the dream factory Ally carried in his head, but I was stimulated by his bubbling enthusiasm.”
Dream factory: here is a phrase that has applied to, in particular, Irish and Scottish players and fans over the past week – less so to Hungarians and Danes. It is one that will keep the former going through the winter and on to March and the other side of Cheltenham. Just when it appeared the doors were closing, the World Cup dream factory remains open for business.
There are over four months of dreams and sleepless nights to get through. At AZ Alkmaar, Troy Parrott has 19 scheduled games before then. For Heimir Hallgrímsson and all the coaches involved, each of those matchdays will be a source of agitation.
And yet business is brisk and a consequence of what international football, especially when it comes to genuine crunch matches, can do to a population.
Gripping and unifying, there are few things as enjoyable as the collective experience, the collective reaction and the collective smile. It’s available to all, you can be a committed supporter or an occasional onlooker, but for these 90 minutes you’re in it together and if things go well, then you will celebrate together. It’s something we have all known but the sheer volume of social media scenes when Parrott scored, when Kieran Tierney scored, remind us of the power of the game to create moments in our lives.
“I’ll never ever feel like that on a football park again.”
So said John McGinn after Scotland’s near-illogical victory over Denmark at Hampden Park. McGinn made his professional debut in 2012 for St Mirren; he is no novice, he has 82 caps. He is going to a World Cup next summer yet he knows that prize may not be as memorable as how Scotland took hold of it.
Not many consider Scotland manager Steve Clarke a soundbite merchant but even he said: “Nobody left, because they could smell magic.”
This is the argument for jeopardy, for meaning – and for scale. Ireland-Portugal and Hungary-Ireland were comparable to Scotland-Denmark and the March playoffs to come because they mattered. It could have been Hungary going to Prague and at more than one stage last Sunday it felt that way. It could have been a downcast Scotland worrying about North Macedonia. Parrott and Tierney shifted the shape of so much.
There is too much football, seemingly never-ending. Competitions grow as those with money and control seek more money and control. Like religion.
In 1978, when MacLeod and his Tartan Army were travelling to Argentina, there were only 16 countries involved and the tournament lasted 3½ weeks.
Scotland had won a three-country qualifying group including the Czechs and Wales. Ireland came third in a three-team group with France and Bulgaria. In Dublin, Liam Brady’s goal beat the French and there was a 0-0 draw with Bulgaria. England lost out to Italy on goal difference in a four-country group.
These were not failures, as they are sometimes portrayed. Today, those would be five-country groups with the likes of Andorra or Lichtenstein thrown in to fulfil international dates. But two countries might progress; and it is reasonable to ask if earlier finals were better for the absence of Brady and Ray Kennedy?
Next summer there will be 48 teams playing in three countries across 5½ weeks. There will be 104 matches and two years from now we will do well to remember six of them. The drama of the past week has been high, but not always the standard. The latter will be a complaint next summer, but then some still gripe about the dullness of the Italia 90 World Cup final and some of the football preceding it.
Next summer, however, the players and fans of those involved will recall each match in detail and with feeling. Think of the few Romanian fans who were in England for Euro 96 and what it meant for them to see Gheorghe Hagi strut around the north of England even as they lost. Or newly-independent Croats yelling with happiness having beaten Germany 3-0 in Lyon at France 98. Think of the images of Irish and English fans having a kickabout in Cagliari 35 years ago. Think about how you felt seeing Robbie Brady’s header in Lille at Euro 2016.
Frankly, were 16 countries in the finals again, Scotland’s dream factory would be derelict and the FAI’s would have been boarded up after Yerevan. What would Pico Lopes be doing next June?
So while the complaint the World Cup should be an elite sporting competition, not a fete, has merit, there were citizens in 22 countries hanging on every long second of Thursday’s playoff draw. That’s a lot of people feeling involved when otherwise they would be excluded, akin to the playoffs in England’s Championship. Initial moans about the alleged unfairness of that format have been offset by the chance it gives clubs drifting in mid-table in spring something to cling to.
Across Ireland, all 32 counties of it, that is what people have for the next four months. This is not qualification.
In terms of local provenance and pride and, perhaps, inspiration, there were 13 Ireland-born players on the pitch in Budapest. A day later, Michael O’Neill fielded 13 local players in Northern Ireland’s 1-0 win over Luxembourg in Belfast. Given an away play-off draw in Italy, some might say Northern Ireland will need all 13 on the pitch in March.
But the presence of Conor Bradley and Ethan Galbraith, as with Troy Parrott, brings hope. And that brings us back to Ally MacLeod.
