Green with envy as reality bites

You can really feel it now, can’t you? I’m talking about the emptiness, the absence, the yearning.

I’m talking about the World Cup-shaped hole in all our lives. Distracted by seismic activity on the football front at home, we’ve managed to look the other way for quite a while but, after yesterday’s draw, reality bites hard. The World Cup finals are taking place next summer in Brazil and poor old Ireland won’t be there.

This time two years ago, in Kiev for the Euro 2102 draw, Giovanni Trapattoni approached the Irish press corps with with a big smile on his face and the cheerfully inclusive greeting: “Here we all are!”. Happy days. (Remember them?). We were on the inside looking out then, and relishing every moment of it, even managing to look on the bright side when the draw put Ireland in with Spain and Italy. “If we’re at the finals we might as well play against the best,” we nodded sagely. Although the best line undoubtedly went to the chap who tweeted: “Well, that’ll settle the Glenn Whelan/Xavi debate once and for all.”