Tommy Martin: Are you going to see Ireland or Cristiano Ronaldo?
Portugal forward Cristiano Ronaldo gives a thumbs up after the Euro 2016 final between Portugal and France at the Stade de France. Photo: Miguel Medina/AFP via Getty Images
Excuse me, can I ask you a question? Ireland or Ronaldo, who are you here for? Take your time. Both? You sure? Okay, I’ll put you down for both. Sure now? Final answer?
Imagine such a survey Thursday night outside the sold-out Aviva Stadium. Not to doubt the genuine enthusiasm for this Ireland team among those heading down Lansdowne way. After all, Stephen Kenny’s boys are the ugly duckling shaking off its feathers all stubby and brown. The promise of October has yielded palpable optimism. You would go and see them, absolutely. Not least because it still feels good to get out of the house.
“This Portuguese team might sell out in any era,” Kenny said last week, “but I feel if we were playing Luxembourg at home we’d sell out. There is that kind of interest at the moment.”
Well, maybe. Mind you, this is different. You see, when you work in sport, you get the texts. All-Ireland finals, big rugby internationals and, occasionally, for the soccer team too. People think because you work in sport, in the meeja, and are in vague proximity to these events, then you can be their trusty guide on the forlorn quest for tickets.
In actual fact, you are in proximity to these events the same way a fly is in proximity to a cow’s arse. Your presence is merely tolerated. You are certainly not privy to some hidden mother lode of the hottest seats in town. We used to joke about it in the office, back when people sat in offices and joked. An email would arrive from accounts or marketing, wondering if anyone in sport “had any spare tickets for the rugby?”
Yeah, stacks of them, we’d guffaw. Hang on a minute, let me open my drawer — how many you want? 12? Premium level? Steak dinner? No bother, don’t mention it!
People don’t really appreciate sarcasm, it turns out.
Anyway, the texts came for the Portugal game. One came from a dear friend and work colleague who was looking for tickets for her boys. These people are in the South Dublin rugby belt. Wouldn’t often be seen behind a Davy Keogh Says Hello banner. She’d think Stephen Kenny was the name of a Sinn Féin front-bencher. Another from an Italian friend, from Naples, doesn’t even support Italy never mind Ireland.
A WhatsApp link went around purporting to be for a special FAI presale, a digital skeleton key for the secret chamber of tickets. It didn’t work, unsurprisingly. Desperation. What’s wrong with this link?! What’s the story with tickets?!
It went all the way to Leinster House, after Portugal tickets ended up selling for a king’s ransom on second-hand resale websites. The Aviva was hastily reclassified by the government as one of the venues designated under legislation preventing tickets being sold at higher than face value. That wouldn’t have happened with Luxembourg.
It is further evidence of how celebrity and sport co-exist and yet are quite separate, bouncing off each other like two people who share a co-working space but do entirely different jobs. The people who are going Thursday to support Stephen Kenny’s brave new world are there for a different reason than the people who are there to see Ronaldo (unless you ticked ‘both’, of course).
Look at Ronaldo’s club season. By sheer weight of iconography, he has managed to build a narrative distinct and only tangentially related to that of Manchester United. On one hand, the club has stumbled from one inept display to another. On the other, Ronaldo’s season is a sky spangled with fireworks, a tale of last-minute winners and feats of breathtaking technique.
While the prodigal son aspect was mined for good vibes early on, the team’s subsequent struggles have had little impact on Ronaldo’s colossal individual cache. Criticism from tactics boffins about his contribution to United’s problems is drowned out by the sonic boom of the next showstopper moment. He is a part of the team but as a sort of glamorous appendage, like a sexy flatmate who joins you for dinner occasionally but has a mysterious other life.
It could make for an unusual atmosphere on Thursday. There might be echoes of the last time Ronaldo was in town, for a pre-season stint with Real Madrid after his world-record transfer from Manchester United in 2009. There was a huge celebrity hullaballoo around that event, which included a friendly with Shamrock Rovers in Tallaght.
I remember attending a massed press conference at Real’s Carton House base, the scene of Ronaldo’s first utterances as a Madrid player. A broad section of international media assembled, much of it unconcerned with the nuances of how the new man might fit into coach Manuel Pellegrini’s preferred system. A reporter from Xposé asked Ronaldo why he liked wearing short-shorts so much, on foot of holiday snaps of the striker reclining on yachts wearing denim tighties. Everybody sniggered but, to be honest, it was as good a question as any.
It won’t quite be like all that, even if Ronaldo’s transcendent celebrity looms over the whole occasion like a giant blimp made of abs and hair gel. It is still, after all, a competitive Ireland international, though possibly not charged with as much partisan fervour as would have been the case had it been a do-or-die qualifier for the home team. And, of course, everyone will say they are there to support Ireland and Ireland only, much like political pollsters talk about shy Tories and such.
But look, it’s okay. We can put down ‘both’.
