The Portuguese press officer is going to blow a fuse. His face contorts, eyes bulging from their sockets as a stream of Irish journalists inadvertently invade Roberto Martínez’s press conference.
We are innocent, merely following a familiar path back to a white room underneath the Aviva Stadium where security guards routinely enter to bellow: “10 MINUTES, THE STADIUM CLOSES IN 10 MINUTES.”
It is late on Thursday and Troy Parrott has turned everything we thought we knew upside down and inside out.
Hoppípolla – that is why the reporters invaded Martínez’s space after their huddle with the Republic of Ireland’s stoic Icelandic manager.
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Heimir Hallgrímsson would know all about Hoppípolla, the ethereal tune by his countrymen Sigur Rós. The song title is an amalgamation of “hoppa í polla”, which literally means “hopping in puddles”.
Really, it’s an expression of uncontainable joy. Like the stream of emotions that poured from Irish people after each one of Parrott’s five goals over four days.
The melody evokes childhood innocence and happiness. Similar to how 40-somethings remember July 1st, 1990 as Ireland’s open top bus inched down O‘Connell Street.
The Portuguese media are oblivious to their surroundings, too busy sharpening blades after years of Cristiano Ronaldo petulance. Certainly since Qatar 2022.
We file copy on Hallgrímsson’s spat with CR7, check in for the flight to Budapest and delete a feature-length article about the FAI’s recruitment process to find a new manager.
All’s changed now. Damien Duff or Stephen Bradley can come again.
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Saturday morning. Hallgrímsson always plans what he is going to say in press conferences. Before training at the Puskás Arena – a stadium built by Viktor Orbán – the Ireland manager delivers his Séamus Coleman monologue.
“In life, and it applies to football, there’s two kinds of people: People that are vacuums and people that are batteries. You know, that will give energy, will give joy, will give enthusiasm.”
Hoppípolla!
Coleman, he adds, is a “really, really, really big battery” for the Irish squad, “in so many ways”.
However, on Coleman’s return to camp last month, the Donegal man voiced his frustration about being overlooked for the game against Armenia Yerevan. He insisted that he was fit. The manager said it would set a bad example for the rest of the players to pick someone with so few minutes for their club in the past year.
If Matt Doherty had not required wrist surgery, would we have seen Coleman in green again?
We get a taxi to the outskirts of Budapest for Marco Rossi’s press conference. Hungary’s Italian gaffer provides the usual guff, implying Ireland are a bunch of savages and using “British” to encapsulate our football heritage.
Grist to the mill.
Local-beat writers are canvassed about Robbie Keane’s second season managing Ferencváros. They are effusive in their praise but fear he will be lured to a “bigger market”.
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Sunday. A 96th-minute rewrite. Caoimhín Kelleher launches one. Liam Scales soars. Parrott finishes. The chase. The pile-on.
An eerie silence inside the Puskás Arena is pierced by distant yelps from Irish fans, up in the gods, as the blood runs cold for any reporter polishing off 800 words about Ireland’s latest, courageous failure.
After rewiring the match report, we scurry down five flights of stairs to find a stunned Italian coach: “I don’t think we deserve this,” said Rossi. “What a sad day.”
Ireland, a nuisance once again.
Hallgrímsson is prepared: “I have said to you from the beginning that I have belief in these guys. You have made fun of me saying it.”
Ah Heimir, it was mostly gallows humour – a jaded reaction to Yerevan joining the list of Luxembourg at an empty Aviva Stadium, Cyprus 5-2, Liechtenstein 0-0 and the unspeakable collapse in Skopje.
For the once-mighty Magyars, this hollow pain has become ritual. “Well done,” mutters the Uber driver. We work to exhaustion before a fresh realisation dawns: what if this is as good as it gets?
On the flight home, a Green Army lifer remembers his dad being sent to Rome in 1990 by Aer Lingus to make sure Jack Charlton and the team made it down O’Connell Street. The teenage son tagged along.
“The plane was too heavy to take off,” he said. "Charlie O’Leary came over to me: ‘Come on, let’s remove some of the luggage’.”
Hopping in puddles with Charlie O‘Leary. What dreams may come again.
