None of the teams striving to make France in these play-offs really deserve their passage to Euro 2016, writes Brendan O’Brien

It was the France of Platini, Giresse, and Tigana that mesmerised us first. Between 1982 and 1986, that generation of French footballers bewitched and bewildered those of us already hopelessly in love with the game of football. The only time most of us were caught on the fence was when they faced Brazil.

Major sporting events can do strange things to people. Days blur into weeks and weeks into months and before you know it you are cocooned in a bubble outside of which almost everything else takes on a strangely abstract meaning

Tommaso Allan knows the routine.

All in all, it’s been the best opening week we could have asked for. Certainly, as Rugby World Cups go. 

It’s almost a year now since this column fulfilled a near life-long sporting ambition with a trip to Chicago to see the Bears host the Green Bay Packers at the iconic Soldier Field.