Dark clouds hang over Ireland camp
In one of the harshest realities of elimination, for example, it seemed that the free coke bottles and sandwiches that were on offer in the media training centre had been taken away. Insult to injury.
The players’ disappointment was obviously much more profound. As those squad members who haven’t yet played in the tournament – Stephen Hunt, Paul McShane, Darren O’Dea, Stephen Kelly and Darron Gibson – played an effective game of heads and volleys, the rest of the panel looked on miserably. They were all down on their hunches, barely speaking.
And, of course, you could understand it. Most in the media were feeling the same way.
At the least, when Kevin Kilbane came along to pay a visit, it got a few of them perked up. A bunch of the older players gathered around him, with Damien Duff clearly the most downbeat... or maybe he just always looks like that.
Either way, there appeared to be quite a long talk in the dressing room thereafter, as Giovanni Trapattoni was almost an hour late for his post-mortem press conference.
The mood in it was odd, oscillating between resolve, quieter reflection and then – very briefly from Trap – outright rancour as Roy Keane’s comments were put to him.
The one player who seemed to take all of this in his stride, though – just as he has done with his career in general – was James McClean. At 10pm in Sopot, he was bounding around the streets with his girlfriend, like a pied paper to drunken Irish fans.
There, of course, the atmosphere was not dampened. Particularly not when Sweden went ahead against England.
As has been well reported at this stage, Sopot isn’t unlike Santa Ponza – if a bit colder – with a TV at every corner, beaming out of pubs and showing the games. It does create for a bit of a street carnival atmosphere, even when England equalised.
And these are all points Keane seemed to miss on TV. The vast majority of Irish fans aren’t just here for the sing-song. They want to win. They want to do well. They just accept the realities of the team, the difficulty of the group and insist on having a good time and supporting them.
Yesterday, the players would have needed it more than ever.
