A sober moment to see what others think of us

Lille’s Stade Pierre-Mauroy, like so many of the stadia hosting games at these European Championships, is an architectural delight but it earns the appreciation of drivers on the adjacent motorway far more often than the city’s denizens thanks to its location miles out from the ‘centre ville’, writes Brendan O’Brien

Serviced by no more than a handful of bars and restaurants, it isn’t an obvious contender to hold fans eager to prolong the vibe of a famous evening like Wednesday.

And yet there they were in their hundreds, a full two hours after the final whistle, a bedraggled tapestry of Irish supporters scattered about the environs of the ground with little or nothing visible in the way of giddiness or craic. It was a picture that gave an inaudible voice to the hours before.