Ireland spin the Ferris wheel of football on return to Austria

For ‘The Third Man’ read ‘The Third Match’ (featuring, um, Harry Liam). So here we are back in Vienna where, this evening, your painfully punning correspondent will be making his third trip to the Ernst-Happel Stadion.

The first was for a beginning: the 2008 European Championship final defeat of Germany, through a clever Fernando Torres goal, which set Spain off on their stunning hat-trick of Euros, World Cup and Euros triumphs, an unprecedented sequence of serial success which rubber-stamped their claim to be regarded as one of the greatest football teams of all time.

My second visit was for an ending: the 1-0 loss to Austria in a World Cup qualifier in 2013 which marked Giovanni Trapattoni’s last game as Ireland manager. With Irish qualification hopes for Brazil already hanging by the slenderest of threads before kick-off, you could say the writing had been on the wall. Or, to be more precise on a tricolour draped outside Charlie P’s Irish pub in Vienna on the day of the game: “Is there anything to be said for saying another mass?”