Often outgunned but never outfought
Pride in the jersey is what this group of players is about, says Eamonn Sweeney
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Aren't you proud of them? You should be. Pride is what this team is all about.
Because nights like this are the difficult ones in international football and it is on nights like this that we have failed so often before. We faced a Bulgarian team which looked better than us in Croke Park, a partisan crowd and a history of misery in one of the most dreaded football venues in Europe.
The heart sinks at the sight of Sofia. Irish teams containing far more quality than the current model came here three times in the 70s and 80s and went home empty-handed. They were never exactly bamboozled by skillful football but there was something about Sofia which made defeat seem inevitable all the same.
So this seemed the venue for the wheels to finally come off the wagon which has been trundling along so merrily since the arrival of Trapattoni, particularly because only the most deluded fan could argue that a side containing the journeyman likes of St Ledger, Whelan, Andrews, Kilbane, Folan and Hunt had any right to expect the draw which would practically guarantee a play-off for a place in the World Cup finals. Over-achievement has to stop sometime.
But not yet. Because there is a mighty heart which pulses at the core of this often outgunned but never outfought Irish team. We do not have the technique of the Bulgarians, what we have to offer instead is honesty and endeavour, a stark contrast to a team who spent so much time claiming from the referee you nearly expect them to look for whiplash damages when they head the ball.
They can play all the same and that's why the final 20 minutes took on the familiar lineaments of a siege, one in which we needed the class of John O'Shea, showing that a man fresh from playing against Barcelona need no have no fear of what Bulgaria had to offer, and the lionhearted force of nature that is Richard Dunne.
Compare Dunne to Dimitar Berbatov. There is none when it comes to talent, Berbatov has natural advantages which Dunne would kill for. But whereas the Manchester United striker spent most of the game poncing around the place as though he'd been asked to mime the meaning of the word ennui in a game of charades, Dunne gave everything.
Everything and more because the big man, with those shelf-like brows which look more suited to a battered boxer than a footballer, is a different man when he dons the Irish jersey. The travails of an iffy Manchester City season were put behind him and he looked what he is at international level, one of Europe's great defenders.
It was Dunne who powered in the header which made us think all sorts of impossible things about the result and Dunne who for the rest of the game put a foot in here, got his head in there after Bulgaria were given heart by another one of these disastrous errors which are becoming increasingly common from Kevin Kilbane, a man who looks less and less comfortable at international level as time goes by.
Dunne and O'Shea had to watch out for Kilbane and also to shepherd through Sean St Ledger, a man who as recently as Ireland's last international would have been no-one's idea of a first-choice defender on our national team. St Ledger deserves great credit for the way in which he overcame his gaucheness at this level to give a diligent performance but you sense that there is a design about this team which enables the most unlikely cogs to become vital parts of the machine.
Nothing is sacrosanct in the world of Trapattoni. Robbie Keane may have seemed to be the manager's most trusted lieutenant but he was called ashore to be replaced by the neophyte Leon Best. The message is clear . . . no one is bigger than this team. And no one is too small to play a part either. Steven Kelly, damned from all quarters for his first minute mistake against Georgia, came on as a sub and made the most vital intervention of the frantic final few minutes, a clearing header when we once more looked on the verge of being prised open.
It ended in the normal heart-stopping fashion, corners and crosses raining in and Ireland holding firm. There is something heartening about this side, something in the way they show that fighting spirit can overcome almost anything. The dream will continue for a while yet.
You could, of course, argue that we should have been disappointed not to have won this game and moved ahead of Italy. You could, if you're a bollocks.
Trapattoni won't worry about the unconverted. He knows, after all, that he lives in a country where the government is supported by only 25 per cent of the electorate and has no intention of leaving office. There is, however, one Green Party which is going from strength to strength.
Pride. It's what they showed in the jersey and what we should feel in them.
- Eamonn Sweeney
