Hold onto your Panama hats
If you’ve not seen the week’s stand-out footie footage from Central America, do so immediately, especially if you’re having a bit of a bad day.
I promise you, there’s nothing will lift your spirits quite like experiencing how Panama qualified for their first ever World Cup finals — and how the impact of that historic achievement radiated out in waves of ecstasy from the pitch to the commentary box to the streets and all the way to the presidential office.
It only added to the euphoria that the odds had been stacked against the Panamanians going into the final round of CONCACAF games: They needed to beat the already qualified Costa Rica at home and hope Trinidad & Tobago would do likewise against the USA, two highly improbable results.
But that’s exactly how it all panned out on the night, though not before Panama had equalised Costa Rica’s lead with a controversial ‘ghost goal’; a substitute had fly-kicked the ball into Row Z to waste time; and, in a dramatic night’s most decisive incident, Ramon Torres had struck the winner with two just minutes on the clock, sending the stadium and the country wild and the commentator into orbit.
While Panama duly declared a national holiday, football in the United States was plunged into an agonised bout of soul-searching as the national team failed to qualify for the World Cup finals for the first time since missing out in 1986.
And, though they could have avoided that fate by even drawing with Trinidad & Tobago, that ‘ghost goal’ for Panama — TV pictures show that the ball clearly did not cross the line — has served only to rub salt in their wounds, a ‘Thierry Henry’ moment for US football which has even raised doomed hopes of an appeal to the Court of Arbitration in Sport.
In the run-up to Ireland taking on Wales, Martin O’Neill strongly took issue with the increasingly popular idea that international football has lost its appeal.
Events in Panama supported his view but then, to those for whom there’s nothing more important on the face of the footballing planet than Liverpool v Man United in the Premier League today, the global reach of the World Cup — the clue is in the first word, folks — is something they must conveniently overlook to maintain that fiction.
It will probably take the Three Lions at least giving their fans a decent run for their money in Russia to win back hearts and minds to the international game in England but, despite what Sky Sports might have you believe, that’s still only one country among the 200-plus who make up Fifa’s league of nations.
And, last Monday, you didn’t have to travel all the way across the Atlantic to sample the electric excitement which World Cup football is still capable of generating.
Just over the border from dear old Blighty, the Cardiff City Stadium was the place to be as Wales and Ireland fought for the right to join Panama at the Mundial.
Inside the Bluebirds’ lovely, intimate ground, you would have needed to be bereft of a pulse not to be shaken and stirred by the epic acappela rendition of the Welsh national anthem, confirmation in massed voices lifted to the heavens that this was no ordinary football match and, indeed, of rather more importance to more people than your standard Super Sunday fare.
Not that the actual football lived up to the atmospheric setting, it has to be said. For 30 minutes, Wales did their best to do some kind of justice to the concept of the beautiful game whereas Ireland, throughout that same period, looked about as poised and purposeful as they had on that grim night in Tbilisi.
Maybe it was just as well that the Irish didn’t reprise the dubious feat of that early goal in Georgia as it might have been backs-to-the-wall for the rest of what would have been a very, very long night.
As it happened, the visitors had already begun to claim some territorial gains when the departure of Welsh playmaker-in-chief Joe Allen proved pivotal, the subsequent reshuffle which saw Aaron Ramsey vacate his number 10 role, further cramping the hosts’ style and offering additional encouragement to the visitors to take on their opponents higher up the pitch.
And it was Jeff Hendrick’s determination to do just that which set up the night’s decisive goal as, after Harry Arter had cleverly contributed a distracting dummy, James McClean — in shining contrast to his hurried efforts when Ireland were chasing a goal against Serbia — showed ice-cool composure and flawless technique to find the back of the net.
After that, it was all about a resolute, courageous and, for the most part, disciplined defensive display to ensure there would no way back for the Welsh, for whom that long cherished World Cup dream will now extend to at least 64 years.
And so Martin O’Neill, who moves in mysterious ways, has once again confounded his critics, in particular those of us who had bemoaned the non-selection of Wes Hoolahan.
We weren’t wrong to predict that, in the absence of Ireland’s most creative player, the team would struggle to keep the ball, let alone use it, but not for the first time during his time in charge, the final whistle in Cardiff confirmed that there is something of the alchemist about this manager, especially when it comes to inspiring his players to deliver golden results when nothing less will do.
Quality Street? Not always in stock.
Magic moments? How many do you want? To the honour roll of Gelsenkirchen, Dublin, Zenica, Lille, and Vienna, can now be added Cardiff, another night for Irish football to cherish and another reminder — evident in Welsh tears as much as in Irish jubilation at the final whistle — that the World Cup is still a bit special, you know.
Of course, now all that’s required is for O’Neill and his players to just go and do that death-or-glory thing all over again next month. Hold onto your Panama hats.
