Tonight, I won’t have time to be torn
At 5.40am yesterday morning, a rather inebriated Irish supporter struck his head through what I thought was the closed window of my apartment in Gdansk. Waking me up with the thickest of accents, he then loudly asked: “Can you let me into the complex boss? I’ve been on the beer all night and lost the keys.”
“Oh, are you even Irish, mate?”
Reluctantly, I got up from bed and let to bang on the door of his own, apparent, apartment.
But, if I was to answer him truthfully, I would have had to say I’m not Irish.
As you might guess from the name, I’m half-Irish, half-Spanish. And, if you’ll forgive making this letter a little more personal than usual, it obviously adds an interesting dynamic to today’s game for me.
Dual nationality is actually a little hard to properly describe to anyone that doesn’t have it. I suppose, to a certain degree, it’s like having two counties in GAA... only that still tends to be much more fluid.
Interestingly, despite my name, when most people hear my Dublin accent, they automatically assume I’m ‘more’ Irish than Spanish.
I’ve never felt that way. I grew up with very conscious of my Spanish side, given that my mother used to speak to me exclusively in the language and I would spend entire summers over there.
That is also reflected in my support for the two teams. When they last met, in 2002, I was genuinely torn.
And that is going to be the case again tomorrow. Of course, I want both sides to get through. But, given the way the group has gone, that prospect looks impossible. So I’m honestly not sure what I want today: Ireland to get a truly historic result, or Spain to get the necessary result that may well send them on the way to a historic achievement – three major trophies in a row for the first time by any team?
At the very least, the manner in which sports journalism necessarily blunts your emotion will be, for once, welcome.
In truth, I won’t have time to pick a side tonight. My greatest emotional investment will be in getting my work done on time.
Because, believe me, although live writing is my favourite part of the job, it’s also by far the most pressurised (indeed, those two aspects are more than likely interconnected).
To illustrate the situation, I have to have two different reports written for the moment the final whistle blows tonight.
As such, I can’t exactly wait for how the match will pan out to write a piece. The pre-game period, then, involves a lot of prep work. Intros and endings will have to be written for a variety of scenarios. The majority will end up thrown out.
Reports will be rewritten and rehashed as the game weaves and changes.
We’ll just hope to avoid the nightmare scenario of a late winner... let alone a drunken late caller.
