Even on the back of a painful hiding, one game into a new campaign might seem a bit too early to be talking about crisis.

Boom! Boom! And out went the lights in Europe for Irish football this season, writes Liam Mackey

They’re coming home, they’re coming home, the footballers are coming home… Well, to their home from home at any rate, the heroes and villains, the few triumphant and the many also-rans, all back from a sensational month in Russia and returning to what nobody ever calls the ‘bread and butter’ of the Premier League (#notthegreatestleagueintheworldbutwedontcallitthateither).

At the height of the debate about opening up Croke Park to ‘foreign’ games, a hurling aficionado of my acquaintance offered up a soundbite for the ages.

And then there was one. Well, two actually, but the World Cup third-place play-off is definitely one of those nominally competitive fixtures which presents a fairly robust challenge to my old friend Declan Lynch’s wise maxim that there’s never a good reason not to watch a football match.

Drought? What drought?

The Anyone-But-England brigade will be up bright and early tomorrow, whistling a merry tune and flexing the brims of their Panama hats.

The 2018 World Cup is barely up and running but already we know that the 2026 edition will be jointly hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico, writes Liam Mackey

“It won’t be long now…”